That night as we were talking, Vanesa broke down crying out of frustration. She was looking through the classifieds and many of the jobs required computer abilities or an English speaker. She told me how she really didn’t want to take her job to begin with, but did so just to make sure she had work when she began her classes. Her work at a print shop doesn’t challenge her, is very repetitive, and doesn’t pay well. Her tears were the accumulation of frustration from years of having to scrape by and work in mediocre jobs. She had been trying to be positive about the situation for so long, but it was getting to be too much. A few of the skills she really wanted learn were Microsoft Office, typing correctly, and of course English. I told her I would be more than happy to help teach her all three things. Obviously English is the most difficult of the three and requires the most time. She already has the books and a grammatical base from high school. I reminded her that learning a language is rewarding, but it’s a job at times. She said she’d be willing to work on it 4 or 5 days a week rather than just occasionally like we had been doing. We did exercised that day and Monday. I really love teaching (especially her) and I hope it goes well.

The field was comprised exclusively of Latinos or Spaniards and the number one seed David Nalbandian had been eliminated the previous night. The first match featured the Argentine Guillermo Cañas, a.k.a. “Willy”, versus the Peruvian Luis Horna. During the entire match it was mostly kids yelling out “Vamos Willy” to encourage him. But in the end, Horna prevailed 4-6, 6-2 y 6-2 in a mild upset. The second match was between the defending champ Carlos Moya of Spain and Juan Mónaco, a.k.a. “Pico” of Argentina. As in the first match, the partisan crowd kept encouraging Mónaco with shouts of “Vamos Pico.” The Argentine had to work hard the first two sets, but blanked Moya in the final set to advance 6-4, 6(3)-7 y 6-0.

Vanesa hadn’t slept much the night before, or much in general for that matter. She was really enjoying herself the first set and learned the rules of the game without any problems. But during the second and third sets, she kept performing her best narcoleptic impersonation. Between matches we went out to the plaza to eat and stretch. While she wanted to enjoy the following match, it was obvious it wasn’t going to happen. I told her it was fine with me if she preferred to take a bus home and get some sleep. I could stay and watch the Moya-Mónaco match by myself. She agreed and asked if I could walk her to the bus stop. (It’s amazing how quickly women who lived the majority of their lives alone become accustomed to these things!). This was not what I wanted to hear seeing as how we had already tarried in the plaza and the next match was well underway. It would be a 15 minute walk in each direction and I would miss even more of the match.

Having had many years of singleness to watch other couples, I knew this was one of those small but key moments. I could be a jerk and make her stay out of guilt, tell her to walk by herself, or be a gentleman and walk her to the bus stop with a good attitude in spite of my frustrations. Fortunately, I chose door number three. Vanesa had been telling me how much she appreciated how I care for her and this proved to be another chance to demonstrate that same practice. She was very grateful and later wrote me a text message saying how these little things cause her to love me even more. While we will undoubtedly quarrel from time to time, if we both can continue to make choices like this with both the big and small matters, it will go along way to avoid huge problems. Call it the honeymoon phase or call us ignorant, but we don’t foresee ourselves fighting a lot.

Regardless of the language, watching the SuperBowl in another country pretty much sucks. The only people here who even knew it was happening were probably US expats. It was akin to being an Argentine in the US during the World Cup final, except worse. I watched the World Cup final in the US! There were even commercials with explanations of the most basic rules of American football. It sounds strange, but yesterday was the most I’ve missed home during my stay here. I missed having a SuperBowl party and eating way too much pizza. I missed the US commercials and making fun of Prince’s halftime show with everyone else. It was the same way with Vikings football or Twins baseball when I was in Tulsa. There is something about sports that bonds us to and reminds us of home.

I made the best of it by ordering a pizza and enjoying the game. They don’t have pepperoni here, but I finally discovered a topping that’s kind of close–calabresa. (But I still don’t know why they dump a pile of olives on every pizza).