alice the great

I realized the other day that I never told all of you about Alice the Brit. Alice arrived from England in mid-August and was placed in my homestay for four weeks. She came through the same program I'm here with and slept in the bedroom across the hall. She was here on summer break before her third year at Oxford, where she's studying Spanish and French language and literature.

She was great. Outgoing, fun, easy to be around. Plus, she used phrases like "I reckon" and "Bloody hell" and "I'm going to nip to the loo to take a wee." For a month I had a live-in partner-in-crime to conquer the city with. We explored new neighborhoods, tried new restaurants, saw a tango show, took a day-trip to the nearby river delta, and spent nights watching bad movies and ordering in ice cream. It was a good month, and I was sad to see her go.

But, she did leave behind one of the best gifts I've received in quite some time - a relationship with my host brother Ia. For some reason, before I had Alice in the house, I was kind of shy and reserved around my host brothers. Completely unlike me? Yep. True story? Sadly. Whenever Ia (the younger of my two host brothers) would have friends over, I'd say hi, chat for a few minutes, then slip away. I didn't want to intrude... which, in retrospect, was one of the most unfounded assumptions I've ever made. But (thankfully) all that changed with Alice.

She arrived, both guns blazing. She wasn't shy at all, and she plopped herself down on the couch and started jabbering away, asking the boys all sorts of personal questions and demanding answers. Her Spanish was really, really good - she made forming friendships with Ia and his friends seem so simple. I still can't wrap my head around what I was doing before she arrived...

...Not being myself, that's for sure. And not enjoying the company of some really great guys. Ia and crew are fantastic. His three best friends are named Rulo, Mono and Kiko - literally, Curly, Monkey and some odd nickname. They're funny, nice, interesting, and very patient with my Spanish. I really enjoy spending time with them, and do so quite a bit. A couple afternoons a week we sit around the house listening to music while they smoke cigarettes and discuss politics. They invite me to parks to drink mate, to their Friday night asados (barbeques) and to their run-down-bachelor-pad parties. We even have plans to go hear live jazz at a couple of their favorite venues. I suppose you could say that we've entered the full-fledged-friendship stage of our relationship.

I like to think that if Alice wouldn't have lived here I eventually would have come out of my shell on my own and befriended this ragtag group of twenty-something Argentine guys... but having her and her this-is-how-it's-going-down attitude certainly sped that process along.

I wonder what they thought of me before... I was probably "That Quiet Girl who spends a lot of time in her bedroom." A far shot from the truth, and a one-eighty from the girl they saw drinking Fernet and Coke and dancing to reggaeton at their party last weekend.

The times, they are a changin'.

Above: Alice and me, followed by Ia (left) and Rulo (right)