Been a while

What can I say, I´ve been busy. But my best excuse is that I lost my password and my username and about 5 minutes ago after an extensive process on blogspot I finally retrieved them. Its been about two months since I last posted, and there is no way that I´m going to recap everything that has happened in the last few months, but I´ll give an overview. I got off the bus and there was my family. I thought I would be nervous, or feel something but I wasn´t and I didn´t. After I got my bags, me and Zoom walked over to them and shook their hands and kissed them. We got in the BMW, and since then its been good. No, I´m just kidding I will write more than that! In the picture above, starting from top left and moving down to bottom left: Marcela (my host mom), me, Zoom (Thai exchange student), Agostina and Iara (host sisters) Carlos (host dad) is not shown.

After we got adjusted in the house, we drove around the city a bit, and stopped to drink a mate and eat some facturas (sweet breads) in a plaza. The next week or so we got to know the family, and I did a lot of walking around the city. One thing that I remember about the first few weeks here, was the heat. On a few of the days, the temperature went well over 40 degrees Celsius. That's pretty hot for me, as I am used to 40 degrees Fahrenheit back in Washington. Another thing I got familiar with the first month I was here, were facturas. I would buy a dozen costing about a dollar fifty US, and eat them all by myself in a day. The next day I would repeat the process. It took me a while before I learned about the whole sharing thing here, but I will come to that later on. I started making friends in the streets. In the bakeries, kioscos (small stores that sell candy and drinks) and other places that I frequented. Before long I went to my first boliche. After a couple of weeks, we had an orientation with AFS to talk about our first month and to get to know the other exchange students better. There I met some of the kids who had come before me, and we left afterwards to drink a coke in a restaurant. This group included me, Andreas (a volunteer from Denmark, Karl (Sweden) and Eric (a semi-volunteer from Resistencia). For the next couple of weeks, I did some more adjusting, a lot of walking around the city, lots of asados, etc. Then I got sick for about two weeks. I think it was all of the facturas and fat I had been eating. When I got better, my Swedish friend Karl introduced me to some people, and I started going out with my new friends a lot. Birthday parties, boliches, concerts.... By then I had gotten a pretty good grasp on my spanish. I was able to carry on almost any type of conversation, but my accent and vocabulary were definitely lacking. Then school started. My first day wasn´t bad. It actually seemed easy. My classmates talked among themselves, and didn´t seem to be paying attention very much. So I began to do the same thing. Big mistake. Since then I learned that they can listen and talk at the same time.

Around this time (about one and a half months in) this was pretty much my weekly schedule, and it has stayed constant since then.

Sunday:

We wake up late at around 1 PM. Get dressed and showered and decide where we are going to eat. Then we go and eat, normally at a place called San Jose. They are a panaderia/heladeria/restaurante. (bread, ice cream, and food) Then we either rent a movie or go to our quinta. The quinta here in Argentina is a house where the family goes on weekends, vacations, or whenever they don´t want to be in their house. Usually its located in the country, or far from the city, but ours is about 20 blocks from the apartment. We go there and eat an asado, and hang out for about 6 or 7 hours. Sometimes I get really restless. Its not because I don´t like to talk with the family, or because I don´t like to eat asado (asados are great), but I have never liked the feeling of being trapped in a house, with no way to get out or do anything else. After we eat done eating and talking, we then go to Carlos´s grandma´s house to drink a mate dulce and eat some food. After this we sometimes will drive around a little and then go to church. After a few hours of church we go back to the quinta, and order pizza and empanadas (meat or vegetable filled pastries). At about 1 or 2 AM we head to the house to sleep.

Monday-Friday

School starts at 7:40 in the morning and goes until 12:10. The school day is divided into three classes. On tuesdays I have four classes (portugues is added). After school I usually either walk home with friends, go to Cima (my host parent´s store) or go to the plaza with friends and drink a coke. Then we eat lunch. Always delicious, prepared by our house-keeper ¨Raquel.¨After lunch I use the computer a while and then head off to the gym for about and hour or two with both Carlos and Marcela to work out. After this we sleep an hour and they head off to work. For me, every day varies. Sometimes I go to hang out with friends and drink mate. Other times I have friends over. Sometimes I just like to walk around the city to get to know it better. And a lot of the time I like to go to Cima and hang out with the guys that work there. The other days of the week I pretty much do the same thing. School, eat, gym, friends, sleep. Repeat.

Friday nights/Saturday Mornings:

Friday night is the beginning of the fun. Its the first day of a very long weekend. Usually, as a family, we eat out at a restaurant. Then, I either play soccer with my dad, or I go with friends and hang out until about 1 AM. Around 1, I either leave to go hang out at a friend´s house, or I go to a boliche. Here, there are a number of different boliches (dance clubs) but some of the more well known ones include Central, Cañadas, Mitre, Chill Bar, 8 Nights, and Nectar Bar. There are also a lot of bars where you can eat and also dance. The boliches go from about 2 or 3 AM until around 8 or 9 AM. This is definitely different than in my city in the USA, where the closest boliche opens at 8 PM and closes at 1 AM at the latest. When we are done, I go home and sleep.

Saturday:

When I wake up at around 1 or 2 PM, we usually go out to eat, and then hang out with friends or do homework until 10, when Carlos and Marcela get back. Then we go out and eat again, and either have an asado with friends, or I go with my friends and do the same kind of thing that I did friday night.

The last two months or so have adhered pretty closely to this scheduale. I spent a week in the provience of Corrientes to go fishing with him and his family while my family was in Brasil. A few times we had AFS orientations, and I went on a short trip to Entre Rios and Buenos Aires, which was nice, but other than that, its been about the same. When I first thought about doing this blog, I thought that I would have a lot more time to write, but I have recently realized that I don´t. So instead of writing about my experience day by day, experience by experience, I have chosen to only write about my most significant experiences, and reserve the other posts to talk about one or two specific things. One post might be about asados, the next about boliches, another on mate....
Bueno, I hope to write again soon.

Here are some pictures:
Resistencia ¨Ciudad De Las Esculturas¨

Me drinking a Mate in my room

Me, Gaby, and Pepo at Negri´s birthday party

Me and Jorge at a birthday party

I got him to wear the cap haha....

This is an asado

The view of Resistencia from my room

Me, Marcela (Karls girlfriend), and Karl

Me and Ben at the AFS Corrientes orientation

Group photo at the Corrientes orientation

Ben (New Zealand), Kiki (USA), Me, and Andreas (Denmark) looking good at the AFS Corrientes Orientation

My host sister Agostina

AFS orientation number 2 group picture

Despidida (going away party) of Tess (USA)

We rented this boliche called Zimbabwe

Cumbia!