Day 23 - The Dinner Party

An Overview
Today I am very grumpy. I have not been in the mood to deal with thinking and I have been forced to. Plus, I want to eat my dinner at 5pm and I cannot because dinner is not even severed until at least 8pm. Then I could not find the gift I wanted to get for Max and Allan or the gifts I wanted to get for Hunter and Eric...grrrrrrrr.

Goodbyes
I started my day by departing from the girls. We had a great time together, but it was time for us to go our separate ways. I am kind of glad though. I am ready for some more time on my own. It will give me a chance to wine down prior to my trip to Seattle. Courtney put me in a cab and sent me on my way. It was really kind of funny; when I left she helped me with my bags and to get a taxi. Once my stuff was packed she gave me this huge hug. It lasted forever. It was like one of the famous hugs my Grandma G. gives. Courtney and I really bonded on this trip. I really think that we will end up crossing paths many times in the future and each time will be an adventure in itself.

My Frustrations Begin
Once I got to the hostel my frustrations began building. I paid my taxi driver, a nice guy, and then made my way to the front door. At the front door the strap on my duffle bag broke. That kind of sucked. Now I am going to have to carry the bag with the handles. The bag is pretty darn heavy, so that is going to suck. I was pretty tired after I checked into the hostel, but I decided if I just slept it would be allowing my grumpiness to overcome me and I did not want to let the grumpy side win, so I set out in search of some markets. I never found the first market. That really made me mad. I ended up coming back to the hostel and decided to search for a market I knew was nearby. I did find that one, thank goodness, but there was nothing good there. I did not end up purchasing anything. I decided I would treat myself to dinner, but I could not because the stupid restaurants were not serving dinner, so I had to settle for a sandwich and coffee. This did not help my mood at all.

Once I got back to the hostel I read my book for a while. I was really tired so I kind of wanted to sleep, but I knew that I must take advantage of my time here since my days are slowly but surly dwindling away. I was either going to go to the birthday party these Irish guys were having, to dinner with the people I met last night, or something else...I cannot remember what it was. I decided on dinner because I would be able to eat more steak and it would be quieter then a bunch of drunk Irish guys.

Dinner with the English Speakers I had a really wonderful dinner. I had been invited out by two people, Chris and Ryan who I met at The Salt Shaker dinner last night. It is their last night in town because they are going to visit their family in Canada then New York before heading off to Taiwan to teach for a while. They just got engaged too. They are very happy. In three years they are planning on having a wedding in China.

The favorite part of my dinner experience was with the people I interacted with. Chris is from New York. Ryan was from Saskatchewan, Lisa, a girl from the house dinner, is from California, but now has residency here in Argentina. There was a guy from Washington D.C. whose mom was Argentine and when he came to visit his Grandma he never left. There were two people from the UK. The lady I spoke with, I think her name was Joyce, was actually originally from Northern Ireland. She had immigrated to the UK where she retired as a teacher; now she and her friend Pete travel all over the world. There were also a few other people from Canada and CA and NY who were at the dinner.

I enjoyed speaking with Joyce the most. She was so sweet. She told me about how the UK has so many Irish and Polish immigrants. There are many places that are now bilingual. It was interesting to learn that the US is not the only country dealing with bilingual issues. With the drastic movement of people these days knowing multiple languages is becoming more important. After being here I do not necessarily think it is a bad thing to require students to learn at least one other language.

One thing about dinner that was really interesting to note is how young I am in comparison to so many other people. I bet the next closest age to me would have been 28 or 29. I felt so young and little. It was fun though because people think it is important to travel so we have a lot of talks about traveling, how they afford it, how they make time for it, etc... I love hearing everyone's stories and I think they can tell I am intrigued by them so they like to talk to me about them.

After dinner I made my way back to the hostel, and was off to bed. The dinner was a really nice way to end my day. I am glad I went.