Caffeine overload

My house here is not like a house in the states, where it's one building which a few floors, a garage and a yard. Or a dog. No furry pets. :( Our house here is more like a condominium. It's attached to the buildings on either side of it and we're on the second floor. The people below us are good friends with my family. So the other night we had them all up for dinner. It was an extremely international guest list, with 4 Argentines, 2 Venezuelans, 1 Italian, 1 Brazilian and 1 me. My host dad made homemade pizzas which were great and we had a Venezuelan, cherry flavored, pepto bismol colored mousse/jello dessert, which is about as good as it sounds. Meals in Argentina are about more than just eating (for instance you have to ask for the check at restaurants because the waiters can never assume that you're done) and so after dinner we turned on some music and played on toy instruments with my host sister, Manuela. The guests finally left at 2 AM, and Manuela was still awake.

My host parents have taken a liking to the two young men, Thiago from Italy and Humberto from Brazil,  because they (my parents) used to live in Italy and my host mom is getting her Masters degree to be a translator, so she likes to practice as much Italian as she can. This is why we went out to lunch today to a parilla (an Argentine bbq restaurant) with them and when I came back from my run they were in our house again! We ate donuts with dulce de leche from a bakery down the street and since Humberto loves coffee we drank some coffee as well. Then, we drank maté because we are in Argentina. I was stoked because I really like maté and sharing it with people. 

At this point you're probably thinking, wow that's a lot of caffeine but Rachel can handle it. That's what I'm thinking too. But then my host dad pulls out this plastic bag full of coca leaves. In case you don't know, this is what cocaine is made out of, but we just had a little bit. You fold a bunch of leaves together and suck on them on the side of your mouth. It goes numb. Then you switch sides. That goes numb too. Coca leaves are like the South American, natural alternative to Ritalin; it helps with concentration. I tried explaining to my host parents that in the US we take prescription (hopefully) medicine AKA chemicals to concentrate but that idea didn't go over so well.  You can also make tea with these leaves and it helps with altitude sickness; they do that in the Andes. Or you can make cocaine... Just kidding! I don't know how. 

Still awake and bouncing on my bed, 

Rachel