Rainy day women #12 and 35

Man, it rains hard in Argentina! I have never seen raindrops so huge or a downpour so torrential. This is the kind of rain that soaks you to the bone within seconds.

Last Saturday night, I went to a party in Adrogue with Ali and Bata to one of Bata's friends' birthday parties... and it started to POUR. We just needed to run from the car into the house and were in the rain for maybe 5-10 seconds, and this is what happened:



HA!

It has been rainy that way off an on for about a week. We needed it, as Argentina suffered a petty bad drought this summer, but it was pretty unpleasant. Luckily, I bought myself a fuchsia umbrella to put a smile on my face. :-) It rained so hard a few nights ago that a tree outside my house got ripped down and blocked off the whole street. The street was closed for the entire day (not to efficient, I might add) while they "dealt" with it. And by that I mean, after 10 hours of scratching their heads about it, they finally moved the tree onto the sidewalk, where it remains today.



Anyway, enough about rain! Today is relatively clear and mild, so hopefully the worst has passed. Which is great because TOMORROW IS MY LAST DAY OF CLASS! AND THEN I'M GOING TO THE BEACH! I am so excited! I teach tonight for an hour, then I have a couple hours of class tomorrow and then teach again tomorrow night, and then I hop on a bus with 7 of my classmates and head to Necochea. I cannot wait to get out of town, get onto the beach, and spend some time relaxing, without having to worry about homework or lesson plans or anything else. It sounds utterly luxurious!

I also bought bus tickets to Mendoza for a visit from March 20-24th with my roommate Victoria, and 2 other girls from my program. Can't wait for some serious wine tasting! Apparently the big thing is to do a big wine tour on bicycles, so obviously I am ridiculously excited about that. It's supposed to be fabulous in Mendoza, so I'll be sure to take lots of pictures.

...then when I get back, the real world will sink in, and I will have to begin the process of finding a job. Anything! Because unfortunately, around here, English teachers are a dime a dozen, so there's a lot of competition and the wages are pretty bad. I think I can expect to make somewhere in the neighborhood of $25-30 pesos/ hour to start off, which is about $7-8 USD. Eeeeek.

I did go to a party a couple weeks ago where I met an American guy who was returning to the States, and so he passed me along the contact information of his employer. I called her up yesterday, and she was very excited to hear from me, and said she probably has work for me! So let's all keep our fingers crossed that that is the case. We were supposed to meet today to finalize details, and she had something come up and had to cancel, so let's hope we can find a time to reschedule ASAP before "my" job goes to someone else. Like I said-- stiff competition.

But anyway, I'm just generally thrilled to be finishing the TEFL certification program, excited to take a little vacation, and then feeling ready to take on the new challenge of teaching FOR REAL!