Happy birthday, baby!

Happy birthday Canada (July 1st), USA (July 4th), and Argentina (July 9th.) I guess something about July just makes people want their independence. Even though yesterday didn't include the excesses of red, white & blue, barbeque-hopping, microbrew-drinking and watching the 3 Bay Area fireworks shows that a 4th of July at home would have, it was still fun. I was the only United States American in the group, but we were all American-Americans, so we toasted to that, and wondered what it would be like to be from a country that was never a colony.
Sidenote: a lot of people ask me if it feels Anti-United States down here. Well, it doesn't. Not on a personal level. Aside from some interesting assumptions that all Yanquis are rolling in money, most people I meet don't generalize. I mean, yeah, they hate George Bush and Paris Hilton, but who doesn't? Apart from one very ignorant 18-year-old from Holland (who had never visited the United States) saying, "McDonald's is not culture," most people realize that we are a huge country, with a lot of different types of people and places, and while we have our share of close-minded, xenophobic people, so does every country. Being here has made me more patriotic than I was when I left. Just watch, next year on the 4th of July, I'll be the one in a homemade dress constructed from an American flag, swigging Budweiser. Well, maybe not Budweiser, yeccchhh, pero me entendés.
On a related note, mate seems to be a very good hangover cure.

Les mando un beso a todos!