Last night I lived my worst [social] nightmare: I'm at a fancy open-air party on the rooftop of a bar where everyone is gorgeous and heavily made-up, chatting around tables over glasses of wine or standing around in sealed off groups, leaning in to hear each other over the sound of music and other conversations. The only person that talks to me is a 60-year-old man that asks me in broken English, "Che, linda, where you from?" The only people I even remotely know dislike me, ignore me, or make me uncomfortable and the friends I was supposed to meet never show up (read: were too drunk to move in somebody's apartment). Needless to say, after one unforgettable conversation and a visit to the bathroom, I cut my losses and went home.

But after that sucky night, it was practically a requirement that today be fun. Soon after waking up, I had my second lesson in glass working, a hobby of my host father's. Francisco has an entire upstairs studio connected to a terrace that overlooks the city where he pursues this passion, once a means of income, now purely recreational. He took lessons many years ago but now studies techniques from beautiful illustrated books. Angel, a friend in my program who lives with Francisco's mother, came over for her first glass working lesson and stayed for lunch. Afterwards, we visited La Boca, a big tourist destination in the south eastern corner of the city of Buenos Aires. It was overcast, but we could still admire the brightly-colored buildings and enjoy walking up and down Caminito. We stayed long enough for Angel to do the requisite photoshoot with one of the suave tango dancers that line the street and steal ideas from a craft booth displaying glass chimes and jewelery.

Next, we took a brief tour of La Casa Rosada, "the official seat of the executive branch of the government of Argentina, and the offices of the President" (according to Wikipedia). We saw one beautiful, ornately decorated room, in addition to several simple but large rooms, adorned only with large framed photographs of notable figures in Argentina's history. Afterwards, we went to one of the free performances at the tail end of the tango festival in Buenos Aires. I'm kicking myself for not planning ahead enough to attend any of the ticketed events, but fortunately there are several free, first-come, first-served shows and dances this weekend before the festival ends on Tuesday. For a while, we watched the couples that occupied a designated dancing area and then went in search of food along a large pedestrian walkway lined with stores, restaurants, street vendors, karaoke singers, and the most upscale mall I've ever been into. We stumbled upon a small helado shop (I was drooling over my dulce de leche granizado and crema moka), got completely disoriented, and then parted ways.

And to complete this quintessentially/touristy/stereotypically Argentinian day, I got empanadas and pizza (don't judge me) for dinner from a greasy Resto-Bar two blocks from my apartment. I'm pretty sure it's really starting to show, though, because instead of whistling or making kissing noises, a Man That Might Have Catcalled (in better circumstances) shouted out, "Boom boom!" as I walked by.