sorry, no photos. What would you like to see photos of, though?

So I played my first fútbol game last night and it was so very fun. There are these fenced-in areas in city parks where you can rent a space to play by the hour. An hour is definately sufficient, because the game kicks your ass. It was great fun.

There were about 14 of us playing- about half were exchange student friends of mine and the other half were the friends of the son of the host family of one of my friends from the US. The argentines were all still in high school, so we had about a ten-year age range going on. Interesting.

There were some valiant blocks, some great passes but overall, man, I suck. The japanese exchange students, on the other hand, are fucking incredibly good.* Without a doubt, I want to play more.

When the game wrapped up at 22.30**, we parted ways and went to dinner. Most argentines don't eat until at least 22.00. Eating before 21.00 is positively geriatric. But you go into some restaurants at 23.30, and they are packed. This is because argentines have no concept of time nor of a "need" to "sleep". People go out at 2.00 and stay out until at the very least 5.00, often waiting until the sun comes up. At the hotel I stayed in in Pinamar, I went to bed to the sound of a party upstairs at 4.30 and woke up at 9.30 to...the sound of a party upstairs.

So yeah, I have no idea how these people live like this. It's insane.


*Speaking of whom, I am delighted to inform you that they fulfull every japanese stereotype (namely acting absolutly crazy/ridiculous all the time). They're also an interesting group because they know almost no english, just spanish and japanese, so comunication is a bit foggy at times. The opportunity to teach them bad english phrases has not been wasted.

**I'm using what is refered to as "military time" in teh US because it's what everyone uses here and it's vastly superior to the a.m./p.m. crap that we use.