...and then my house flooded.

I had started a new post entitled, "¡troppe lingue!" in which I planned to detail my pathetic foray into the world of polyglots. And then my house flooded, an infinitely more interesting, harrowing, and in the end comical anecdote. So I'll start from there and see where this ends up. 

As mentioned previously, (I'm sure this would be an opportune time to create a hyperlink with the exact reference, but I'm old-fashioned/lazy/technologically inept. So you're just going to have to trust me on this one; I already wrote about it.) my new home is full of little "surprises", as I like to call them so as to not get completely frustrated and move out. A minor ant problem is among the newest. But the main problem, or so I had thought, was that the hallway outside my bedroom floods when it rains heavily. And though it hasn't been raining too often, when it rains in Buenos Aires, it fucking rains. I've also been prone to exaggerate, so when I said "flood" I really meant puddle, the kind you can keep up with the squeegee broom in two minutes. 

I had just settled down to write when the torrential downpour began...again. I ignored it as much as I could when Salvador, the dog, came into my room, dripping water everywhere. I thought he had been caught outside in the rain when I heard Vicky, my British roommate, shout, "Julia?!? Are you home? The house is flooded!" So I grabbed the squeegee broom and thought, no problem, I am an expert, after all. 

Oh, the naïveté. Five inches of water flooded the patio and flowed into the kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms. Manned with one squeeguee broom and one regular (and thus completely ineffective) broom, we attempted to sweep the water down the stairs and into the street. The incessant rain made any progress nearly impossible. We quickly realised the problem was the clogged drain in the patio, but there was nothing to be done about it, so we just kept sweeping. After half an hour of this the rain finally slowed down, and the drain miraculously unclogged, making our task a bit easier. Eventually the two of us managed to get most of the water out of the rooms and down the stairs, but most of the floor is still slick. Being upstairs, my room was not flooded at all, and luckily nothing really was damaged in the rest of the house. Hopefully we'll have someone come to check out the drain soon - had no one been home we would have really been screwed. 

Estefania has again assured me that this is only the second time this has happened, and that she's looking into getting it fixed. I'm not sure if I believe that this really is a new development, but considering that her room was flooded the most, she has a greater interest in making sure it doesn't happen again. 

In other news, I am now officially a certified TESOL teacher. Or rather, individual. I finished my course last week and picked up my certificate yesterday; now comes the hard part. I have already sent my CV to many language institutes throughout the city. Unfortunately so have hundreds of other prospective English teachers. And I thought finding an apartment was difficult. 

In another one of my previous posts I mentioned Argentines' obsession with asado. For those of you back home, here are a couple pictures of what I'm talking about:

Before shot - While at Mar del Plata, our group went to a friend's place for asado. 

Almost ready...

This was part of our graduation dinner at a Parilla in Palermo. It was served after we had gorged on the salad bar, fried cheese/bacon concoction, and empanadas. Needless to say, there were plenty of leftovers. 

Requisite chimichurri sauce.