Spanglish Take 2, a Bike Tour & the election

I mentioned in my last post that I was going to return to the Spanglish conversation exchange last weekend and see if I had improved since my last visit, during my first few days here.  And it turns out I have!  (Thank god, otherwise those 8 weeks of intensive Spanish would have been a waste!)  I didn't panic during any of my five-minutes in Spanish segments and understood about 80% of what my partner was saying.  My own speaking needs a lot of work, but I notice that I can also understand a lot more on TV and the news.  I have one more week of formal lessons, then it's off to London where hopefully it will all sink into my brain (rather than completely disappear!).  Then I need to figure out tactics when I am back here.

The weather here in BsAs has been warming up in the last two weeks - I went to school without a jacket for the first time on Wednesday.  Unfortunately the onset of spring does mean a bit more rain, but nothing too terrible so far.  Yesterday was a perfect day - blue skies and about 80 degrees - and luckily I got to spend the afternoon riding bikes around town.  There are two guys from San Diego who run a small bike tour company out of my Spanish school (they rent space for a desk and the bike storage) and yesterday was the perfect day to test it out.  We did only a half day tour, so it was about four hours long.  The bikes are nice, comfy cruiser types with cushy seats, which I love.  Most of the sites we went to I'd been to before, but it was really nice to just ride around the city in the beautiful weather.  In the last few years they have added a ton of bike paths, so you don't feel like your life is in danger from the city's crazy traffic.  Here is a photo of the rose garden and also one of huge steel flower sculpture which used to open and close but has been broken for a few years now (luckily it broke while open).

The big news this weekend is that tomorrow is election day!  There are a ton of parties here, so I would estimate that about eight people are running for president.  However, it is generally accepted that the incumbent, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, will win tomorrow.  To win, she needs to get either 45% of the vote or 40% and 10% more than the nearest rival.  Otherwise, there will be a run-off in November with the top two candidates.  Argentina has mandatory voting for everyone from 18 to 70 and if you aren't going to be in the country you need to get a release form in advance.  If you are sick or in the hospital you can also apply for a release after the fact.  Otherwise you are fined (not sure how much) and, according to my teacher, it can make it hard to get loans or buy property in the future.  It's an interesting concept, and I wonder what would happen if something like that was in place in the US.  At the same time, since the government wants everyone in their right mind when they are voting, alcohol sales are completely banned from 6pm tonight until midnight tomorrow.  It's probably not the favorite day of bar and club owners!