I'm 22! + a day. I'd like to report that I did many wonderful things for my birthday yesterday, but that would be a lie. Truth be told, I've been sleeping for the majority of each day since I arrived in Buenos Aires, I suppose owing to the fact that I've been fighting some kind of bug. Up until yesterday, it was just body aches and fatigue that got me down, but then things stepped up a notch.
I woke up yesterday midmorning, and decided to indulge my hankering to watch the Lion King. There have been posters up for it everywhere since it's coming out in 3D, so I just had to take that little trip down memory lane. The movie was great, and I tried to motivate myself to get out of bed when it was over, but no such luck. I felt sleepy (like the two days prior) so I took a nice long nap. I finally did talk myself into getting up, putting on some clothes, and going for a little stroll outside, since some exercise usually helps me to feel better. I walked down Avenida Santa Fe to a cell phone store, where I put some credit on the chip that I'd purchased the day before, and then I hopped on the metro (locally known as the subte) to go find out where my class will be come Monday. I was feeling tired still, so the stroll acquired a lazy pace, and I snacked on a delicious giant pear I'd bought from a fruit stand as I wandered around the neighborhood of Belgrano. I finally found my school building, and noted the time as I walked away so I could get an idea of how long it might take me to get there on Monday morning for my first day of class. 6 pm, on the dot. I made my way back to the subte and hopped on the train going in the opposite direction, towards home. About two stops before mine, I started to feel increasingly dizzy and weak...all I wanted to do was sit down, but all the seats were taken. By the time someone noticed that I wasn't doing so hot, my stop had arrived, so I thanked them for their concern but said that I would be fine. Not. My timing in getting off the subte couldn't have been better...right as I reached the top of the exit staircase, I was sweating and disoriented, and my vision was clouding over. Great. Luckily I was right by a galería, a small mall of sorts, so I sat on the ground in front of one of the shops to ride out the storm. It took about ten seconds for a nice lady to come and ask me if I was alright, and if I wanted her to call health services or anything. I told her that I just needed to sit for a minute to clear my head, and she walked away (just, as it turned out, into the shop next door to get them to call for help). I don't know how long I was sitting there (couldn't have been more than a couple minutes) but my maladies gradually disappeared and I felt well enough to walk home, which I wanted to do quickly so I could be sick in bed rather than on the street. Suffice it to say that I was scared, because that had never happened to me before, and I now had to acknowledge the fact that I was sick, and not just tired.
I lay low for a couple hours, and then, feeling better and stronger, decided to venture to my friend Robin's house, per his invitation. Robin is a fellow Salidan (graduated the year before I started high school) who has co-founded a biking tour business here in BA with his college roommate, called Biking Buenos Aires. Yay for getting people out of cars and onto two wheels! Our high school Spanish teacher put us in touch, once she found out that I was headed to Argentina, and Robin has been a great help in answering my questions about the city and offering their couch if I need a place to crash (if I brought them peanut butter in return, which I did and they looked like kids at Christmas when they heard about it). Robin and his roomies Mike, BJ, and Troy live about ten blocks from me, so it was a nice walk to get some "fresh" air. When I arrived, the power was out in a two-block radius around their apartment, so I found their door by the light of my phone and was ushered in to a candlelit living room. Shortly after I arrived, TR (another Salida kid spending a year of his high school career studying abroad in Neuquen) got back with a birthday cake...chocolate, walnuts, and dulce de leche. So yummy! I was serenaded in español and then cut the cake - by candlelight, which means that the pieces were all sorts of wacky, but it just added to the fun. We all sat around and talked for a while, and then, *bling* the lights came back. The open balcony door ushered in the sounds of people cheering on the street at the return of power.
The guys had been waiting to eat dinner, since they couldn't see to cook, and by the time the power came back, it seemed like a good time to call for delivery. They decided to go for a new Chinese place, and though I wasn't feeling super hungry after my slice of cake, I ordered some too...Chinese makes for great leftovers. We sat around eating and talking (and they gave me an avocado to go with my veggie rice, for my birthday!) our way through Chinese food, a bottle of wine from Neuquen that TR brought, and cake and ice cream (banana split!) for them until someone mentioned Forrest Gump. Which of course got us all thinking about it and saying that, even as tired as we were, we'd stay up to watch that movie. We gathered around the TV, but as the movie went on our numbers slowly dwindled, heavy eyelids winning over us one by one. I dozed on the couch through the second half of the film, waking at random intervals but never for long. By the time it was over, Mike and TR were the only ones left, and I decided it was time to head home, even though it turned out to be 3 in the morning (I was feeling a bit ill again, and wanted to be sick in my bed, not on their couch). TR walked me down to the street to catch a cab, and not long afterwards I collapsed gratefully into my bed and slept until 1:45 this afternoon.
And thus passed my birthday. Since I've been doing a lot of sleeping here so far (lame, yes) I haven't done a whole bunch else, except for that the night before last I was kindly taken around the center of town by two of my Colombian housemates, both names Andrés. They are 18 and 19 and are here studying, and they're two of the nicest people I've met. They took me downtown on the subte, and showed me the Obelisco, the Casa Rosada, Avenida Florida, and the Puente de la Mujer. We walked and talked for a couple hours, and hung out in the communal kitchen eating and playing guitar (yes, the elder Andrés had a guitar! I'm saved!) upon our return. We stayed up past midnight, so they were technically the first ones to wish me a happy birthday and help me usher in my 22nd year. What an interesting one it's been so far...
So, my priorities for the next three days before class starts: get well, finish the pre-course assignments for my class, get well, ride in the masa critica on Sunday, get well, hopefully meet up with some classmates prior to Monday, and let's see, did I mention get well yet? Fingers crossed that yesterday was the low point and that from here I'll just be getting better. Now to try to stay awake to do some homework! Ta-ta for now, love, me.
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