Mate culture, Iguazu, and Jenelle's Rule Of Four

Hi everybody, sorry it's been a while since I updated. I would make excuses, but I feel like it's better to be out experiencing my life abroad than writing about it...
When I last wrote, I believe I was dying of midterms. Well that is basically all over and we've moved on to final papers, but I did get a little respite in between.
I've come up with a theory of living abroad, we'll call it Jenelle's Rule of Four: After almost exactly four months you will be done with the culture shock cycle and feel at home in your new city abroad. This generally occurs close to the time (in semester study abroad programs) that you're starting to get ready to head home. This has happened to me both semesters, and I'm pretty happy that I have a month left here to enjoy being adjusted.
Which brings me to my next point. I have finally figured out what I think of Buenos Aires/Argentina/Argentines. I like the people, I like the culture. I don't particularly like the city. It's enormous. It's dirty. You can't walk a block without stepping on a broken tile in the sidewalk, around dog poop, or under a drip (no idea where the water falls from. Don't want to know). The subte is a mix of occasional efficiency and rush hour conditions that make sardine cans look spacious.
But there are parts I like, too: it's also got trees and theaters and european facades. It's confusing and bustling and vibrant. And the people here are some of the friendliest I've ever met. I'm going to digress for a moment to tell a story.
Last week I was at my tango lesson, where my friend Alessandra and I are the only non-Argentines. It was one girl's birthday, so after class they brought out the cake they had made her and uncorked a bottle of champagne. After pouring, we all sang and toasted. And then the Argentines came around and clinked glasses with everybody. Individually. And then they sat around for half an hour and chatted and just generally had a group hangout session. I don't know how to explain it, but that for me epitomizes the culture here. They care about each other. They take the time to do the things that really matter. They sit and drink mate and play the guitar and relax because even though it's a city life is too important to rush away. They laugh.
It's one of those "had to be there" moments, but for me that is Argentina.
On a rather unrelated note, I went to the falls at Iguazu! I'd been wanting to go because I kept hearing great things and finally manged it last weekend. The falls are located on Argentina's border with Brazil and Paraguay and are absolutely breathtaking. We couldn't go to the Brazilian side because the visa to get to Brazil is expensive and difficult to get, but everybody says the Argentine side is better anyway. I took about fifty billion waterfall pictures from every angle, walked quite a bit, and took a boat under some of the little falls, so I was completely soaked. In other words, pretty much had a fantastic day. It was an extremely long bus ride, but definitely worth it. Pictures here.
And now my friend Kelsey's here visiting from Chile, so I'm getting to see parts of the city I hadn't gotten around to seeing before, which is really exciting. And hanging out with Kelsey's pretty cool, too. I'll put up those photos soon but in the meantime I updated another of my photo albums (mostly with pictures of a polo game I went to (the Argentines are really into-and good at-polo) which was a lot of fun, even though they didn't ask us to stomp the divots).