Buenisimo

Hola,

Well today is day four here in Argentina. We are having a blast. Yesterday the team had the morning free so we traveled to a section of the city called Palermo SoHo and Palermo Hollywood. In this part of the city, there is a street lined with shops selling leather goods. Leather is much cheaper in Argentina than back home so the team eagerly searched the shops for boots, jackets, purses, etc. After getting our fill of the leather shops we headed to one of Sammy´s favorite restaurants called Oui Oui. The fifteen of us took up nearly the entire cafe, but the waitresses were incrediblly kind and accommodating as most Argentines seem to be.

After eating a lunch ranging from eggs benedict to crepes to ham and cheese sandwiches with an egg baked on top, we decided it would be in everyone´s best interest to walk the thirty minute route home. The girls are feeling a little bit sore as they often do in the first week of the season, but they are troopers.

Shortly after returning to our hotel we headed out to the children´s educational center outside of the city limits. The dichotomy between much of the city of Buenos Aires and the area just outside of the city where we traveled to visit the children´s center was eye-opening. The center is an incredible place that exists soley to help the children of this poorer community. The center provides a place for young children and teenagers to come and study, tutor, be tutored and further improve their studies and skills. It is essentially an after-school program that keeps the children off the streets. The center is one of many in the surrounding areaa and helps more than 100 children in the community.

One of the teacher´s at the center took us for a tour in part to thank us for our donations. We donated clothes and sneakers of all kinds, and for all ages, for the center to distribute to the children and the community on a needs basis. I think the trip was important for us to take to make us aware that while Argentina is a bustling metroplis sharing similarities with Europe and USA, it is also still a developing country with a lot of people in need.

From the center we traveled to our next game at the hockey club called Hindu (pronounced Indu). This game was even more competitive than our first game. We played the club´s third team. Hindu would score the first goal of the game and lead 1-0 at halftime, but our Bobcats came back to tie it up in the second half. Sophomore forward Lindsay Thompson carried the ball up the right side of the field and sent a beautiful cross ball to the center where junior forward Sema Kazarian was waiting to smack in into the back of the goal cage. The game ended in a 1-1 tie so we are still undefeated down here. After the game we went to the clubhouse to have tea and bread with our opponents. The teams exchanged trinkets and then began trading game gear as some of the Bobcats now have Hindu warm-up jackets, kilts and game socks and vice versa!

It was a great day for the Bobcats!

- Carolyn