October 26

Hi,

So.... For a short while last week, Tova and I were the proud parents of a one month old puppy! Mavi, a girl who lives a few doors down from us in the hostel found this tiny puppy abandoned a few streets from where we live (stray animals are really common here) and brought her back home. The owners of our hostel were not too pleased, especially when Mavi dropped the dog off and went out for the entire night with her boyfriend. The puppy pissed and shat all over the place!! It had nowhere to sleep, we were asked to keep it in our room for the night. Needless to say, Alice was down on her hands and knees cleaning up shit at 4 in the morning (while her highness - who will remain nameless - lay in bed!) (Tova speaking: May I remind someone that your highness did not want the puppy in our room for the night in first place, someone else wanted it there and therefore, I warned that certain someone that if the puppy shat or pissed, it would not be me who would clean it up!!!!!). The puppy ended up staying for one more night, but then went to live with Mavi's mother.

Well, there really is not much other news here, our weekend was busy with meeting friends for dinner etc... We tried to go to the museum of Modern art, ony to realize that is was closed for renovations once we got there! So we walked to San Telmo, a tourist market with antiques and art, which was very pleasant. The roads in this part of town were in terrible condition and full of people, but cars still tried to drive through! (We have a picture of one of the holes in the road).

We are taking a lot of aerobics classes at the gym, and there is one instructor, who is like the gayest man, who does these weird dance warmups to latino music and makes all the women in the class shake their breasts and ass and then touch themselves... its funny i guess.... but also really strange.

Hmmm... what else... Tova wants to kill one of our Spanish Teachers at UBA... but thats another story...

There was a provincial election here on Sunday, but no one we have spoken to is really sure who won. Everyone here has to vote by law and the lineups at the polling statons went on for miles, around blocks etc...

On Monday we went out for dinner with Feroza, a friend of Tova's mother who was visiting Buenos Aires for a few days. We went out to a very nice restaurant, had lots of wine and experienced a posher side of Buenos Aires that we are unfamilliar with. The hotel where she stayed at was exquitiste. It is sad to say, but what we were most impressed with was the presence of toilet paper in the washrooms. That is a luxury that we have learned to live without, between the poor facilities at the University and our hostel, where getting a hot shower can sometimes be a challenge!)

love to you all. Thank you for staying posted.

Alice and Tova