Quilombo (chaos/mess)

So thankfully things are settling down a bit. I've been here two months, but it doesn't feel like it, because everything's been up in the air. (Of course now that everything's getting sorted out here and I'm starting the school routine, everybody at home has breaks or is planning their summer breaks...hmmm).
I did change my classes a little bit, instead of Argentine foreign policy I'm taking a class on politics in South America (Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, and Chile), which fits my schedule better and will be less intimidating. I would have liked to take more classes with actual Argentines, but their classes are all extremely boring (intro classes, and then the interesting ones we either can't take or are going to be way too hard). So instead I'm taking Italian and French through the public university here, classes open to anyone. I figure it'll be easier to meet people if we're struggling to communicate in a language not native to either of us. I also joined the gym, and am hoping to maybe play tennis, still... With all that (and the long commute) I'll be pretty busy. I did give myself Fridays off, though, and the Argentines have quite a few national holidays coming up, so I hopefully won't be too stressed. :)
Now it's time to comment on some of the random Argentine characteristics.
This is a land of cows. So beef is really cheap and really good. But cheese? No, we wouldn't want anything with flavor, heaven forbid (this also applies to other foods, and spicy food is hard to find). What a waste of perfectly good cheese-making materials. Also, you'd think you'd find roast beef as a sandwich meat. But no. It's all ham or salami. Prosciutto, occasionally. Although I did find turkey today, which basically made my day.
Argentina and the rest of the Spanish-speaking world have a bit of a disagreement going on vocabulary. Not just slang, everything. Like "pool": those of you who have taken Spanish will say, "piscina". Nope. "Pileta". "Skirt": "pollera" instead of "falda". "Peanut butter": "manteca de mani" replaces possibly one of my favorite Spanish things to say, "mantaquilla de cacahuate". And then add in the fact that "ll" is not pronounced "y" but "j" and you feel like you're speaking a different language.
Also, Dania's recent post on photocopying and printing has led me to comment on a similar phenomenon here (hers made me laugh out loud). While the Argentines deign you capable of operating the printer yourself, you must still bring your own paper and try to jump in line, stick in your paper, run back to your computer,push print, and sigh in relief before going back to your gchat conversation of the last 2 hours while waiting for the other students to print their fifty thousand pages of reading. And the photocopy line is a similar hassle--rather than paying for books, you get to stand in line (which has none of the orderliness of the line for the bus, where people stand in a nice straight single file line back from the bus stop), jump in and find your document on the computer database, get somebody to key in a password, and give them all your coveted change in exchange for a latin verb chart.
Finally, a note on gym membership: I have never actually signed up for a gym in the US, so I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I can imagine it's a bit different here. First, you go and sign up and pay. Then you have two things you have to do: a "welcome meeting" and a medical examination (I came to the gym to get healthy/in shape, guys) which consists of a height/weight measurement, a questionnaire, and an EKG. ?? Whatever. Oh and then you have to wait 2 days for the results of your exam, hike up to the 4th floor to get the paper that says you can climb stairs, go back down, give it to the people, and they'll finally give you your card. Efficient, eh?