Merry Christmas Everyone! Or should I say - Feliz Navidad! I have to say that my Christmas holidays have been some of the strangest and most different holidays I have ever experienced. When people say that cultures can be different, they really mean it! It has been a fun getting to know how my family celebrates Christmas here but I have to say I did miss you guys a bit.
Anyways, I got back from vacacioning in Concordia on the 22nd to find that Paula had already decorated the Christmas tree and put up decorations around the house. Unlike our tree normally is, this tree was fake and all the ornamentes were evenly placed and color cordinated. I was also wonderfully surprised to find that we had gotten an early Christmas present - air conditioning in the living room! Yay! Given that the holidays where passing by with 90 and 100 degree days, I was wanting that AC pretty bad!
On the 23rd we tackled the task of cleaning my grandparents pool. After a year without use, it was looking pretty gross. We spent hours scrubbing and rubbing and pumping out the yucky water and finally we had to use acid to get the green salt and algea growing on the bottom off. But in the end, it turned out nice and clean and was going to be ready to swim in by Christmas day.
On the 24th we started preparing all the food and desserts for that night. We made fruit salad, Shirley Triffle, many different salads and dressings, baked potatoes, and we purchased chicken and empanadas because nobody wanted to do any serious cooking. We went over to my grandparent´s house and put the tables outside in the patio. We were going to be twenty in total so we need a LOT of space. Thankfully it was a nice night - not to hot and not too many mosquitos! At about ten thirty that night we all arrived for dinner. We feasted until midnight when the fireworks started going off all over the city and we all toaste and wished eachother Merry Christmas! My little cousin, Santiago, still believes that Papa Noel (Santa Claus) comes to visit so we had him go outside with me and some cousins while the rest of the family put all the presents under the tree. And surprise!- Santa had shown up! My family had told me that they didn´t go gifts (which normally they don´t) but since Santiago was getting some, Santa also brought some things for the rest of the family. It was fun to have Santa show up when I wasn´t excepting anything at all!
The night carried on with cake, coffee, and lots of photos! I didn´t end up getting home until four in the morning and I was exhausted! But since it was Christmas day, I woke up at one in the afternoon to mama shouting "Tengo hambre! Vamos a la casa de los abuelos!" Which means, "I am hungry! We are going to grandma and grandpa´s house!" which also had the hidden meaning that I actually had to get out of bed. :) We all had lunch together again and then spent the rest of the afternoon in the pool. It was pretty weird to be swimming on Christmas...but I guess there are weirder things in the world! I also got to talk to my family in the U.S. that afternoon on Skype. I had been missing them quite a lot so it was nice to "see" them for a little while. As much as it is incredible to be here, I just can´t help missing my family and traditions on such a special day like Christmas.
What really threw me for a loop was when my sisters and cousins decided they were going to go out - ON CHRISTMAS NIGHT! I had heard that it was really popular to go out to a bar or out clubbing on Christmas but I didn´t really BELIEVE it until I was doing it! At about eleven that night we met at a cafe type bar in town. It was all outside with load music and flashing lights. It practically felt like a disco only that we were also eating pizza! At about two a.m. we all headed over to a disco called "Music Bar" and danced the night away until five when mama had set the cerfew. I can tell you, it was one of the most mind boggleing things I have done during my year here - dancing at clubs and Christmas just don´t go together! But I guess that is why I am here - to learn how this culture is different and unique!
Now I am just trying to prepare myself for New Year´s Eve which they say will be about the same kind of thing! After December is over, I just might sleep right up until I have to get on the plane! I am so exhausted and I just got threw the first round of the holiday spirit! All I know is that Christmas was wonderful. It was fun to be able to see how my family here celebrates it and be able to take part in all the traditions.
Only 39 days left in Argentina! And only 40 days until I am back in Washington! Chau for now!
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Crossing the Andes to Chile!
Last week I had the incredible opportunity to visit Chile with my family! Normally they vacation in Mar Del Plata but this year they decided to visit The Serena in Chile!!! We left early Sunday morning with what we thought would be about a seven hour drive ahead of us. What we didn´t count on was the following: when we arrived at the Argentinian customs, my papa realized that he didn´t have the most up-to-date insurance card in the truck. Given that is was necessary in order to cross the border, we spent almost two hours calling numbers and trying to find someone awake on a Sunday morning who could fax us a copy of the receipt saying that we had actually paid. Eventually they got in touch with a friend of a friend who works for our insurance company and we were able finally to get across the border. Easy going from there, right? Not quite- although my parents had calculated out the mileage of the trip and based our travel time off that, they had never actually driven the road before. So when we got to the pass that would take us up over the Andes Mountains we were all horrified to find that it was a pot-hole filled, one lane only, no guard rail, dirt road. So for the next six hours or more we were rolling along at about 25 or 30 miles per hour MAX. Surprisingly (and thank God for this!) I wasn´t actually scared of the height. Which should have scared the crap out of me because we were just feet from tumbling down a mountain. The only actual problem we encounted on that stretch of road was the fact that we hadn´t thought to bring any sort of lunch food. We were stuck eating cookies, media lunas, and apples until six that afternoon! You can imagine that I was pretty hungry by the end of it! The Chile border crossing was easy (searched the car, gave me my stamp, and registered us in the computer) and we were officially in another country!
The next week was incredible! We rented a cabin on the waterfront and just had to cross the street to get to the beach! We actually only had two days of sun which were spent tanning and swimming in the ocean (Did you know that I actually can tan?) and the rest of the week was spent going for runs in the sand and exploring the Chilean culture. What really stood out to me the most was the colors and placements of the houses. I have seen "south american" cultures in movies where all the houses are packed together on mountains with bright colors every other house and steep roads that are almost impossible to drive up, but I never really imagined that they were actually like that. It was so beautiful in such a strange way that I just spent hours taking photos and looking at the town.
What was really fun was analizing all the differences between Argentina and Chile. My sisters had also never been to Chile before so we were all in the same boat. We had challenges going to see if we could spot Chilean boys who were hotter than Argentinians. Which, by the way, was impossible since there was not one! I guess I picked the right country. :) We also noticed the differences in clothing styles and how they still used boots and hadn´t switched over to sandles yet like us. We spent hours shopping and looking at electronics since they are cheaper in Chile. We also went on walks on the beach in the early morning hours. There is nothing like the sweet smell of the ocean water and seaweed. But in fact, I missed San Juan´s dry air. My hair puffed up into a frizzy mess and the air felt heavy and trapping with all the humidity. How I am going to go back to Deming is a mistery to me!
Anyways, the whole week was fantastic and it was super fun to spend time with my family. Paula´s boyfriend, Federico, also came with us which was nice. Sometimes when it is just family we can get on eachother´s nerves a bit. I hope everyone is enjoying the Holidays and not missing me too much! Less than two months before I get back! Chau for now!
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| Imagine finding a lake at 4,200 meters... |
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| We actually made it all the way to 4800 meters! |
Anyways, the whole week was fantastic and it was super fun to spend time with my family. Paula´s boyfriend, Federico, also came with us which was nice. Sometimes when it is just family we can get on eachother´s nerves a bit. I hope everyone is enjoying the Holidays and not missing me too much! Less than two months before I get back! Chau for now!
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Turning 18 Means a Really Bad Haircut
As you should know by now, turning 15 for girls here is a really big deal. But as some might ask, what about the boys? Don´t they get some big party as well? And that is where I would step in and explain that yes, they do have a party but unfortunetly it is not as...nice as what the girls get. For a guy in Argentina, turning 18 is a really big deal. They usually have a party with their whole family and friends and stay up all night getting really drunk. Only the next morning they almost always wake up with their hair shaved off or cut in random places. Generally you can blame their friends. :) It is a tradition that the guys have to shave off their hair when they turn 18 and normally us as party guests get the honor of chopping it off. I have been to two different birthdays where I got to wack at a guy´s hair with scissors and let me tell you, it was the worst looking hair ever!
The next morning most of them (if they are smart and don´t want to look stupid) go to the haircutters and have them shave it all off! It is always quite funny when I see someone with a shaved head because I automatically know that he must have turned 18 recently. Nobody likes short hair here so you can pretty much bet your money that that is why they shaved it. :) Anyways, just thought you might like to hear a little bit about something I learned recently. Enjoy the snow and cold weather! Today it got up to 98 degrees! Yay! Summer break just started and I am already boiling to death! :)
The next morning most of them (if they are smart and don´t want to look stupid) go to the haircutters and have them shave it all off! It is always quite funny when I see someone with a shaved head because I automatically know that he must have turned 18 recently. Nobody likes short hair here so you can pretty much bet your money that that is why they shaved it. :) Anyways, just thought you might like to hear a little bit about something I learned recently. Enjoy the snow and cold weather! Today it got up to 98 degrees! Yay! Summer break just started and I am already boiling to death! :)
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Once a Nerd, Always a Nerd
Yay! Summer break has finally arrived and now I can rub it all in your faces! You would not believe how hard it was back in July when I was stuck in school and everyone was off at camp and sunbathing. But now my time for revenge has finally come! Last Friday I officially finished school and until I get back in February, it is all summer, swimming, and late nights! The only thing left to finish in terms of school is the end of the year Mass, Assembly, and collecting all my notes and letters for my school back in the U.S. Last night we had our last Mass that I had to go to which was actually really nice. The best part though was when they announced the "Best Classmate" award for each grade. I had already known that my classmates had chosen me (that was why I had to go to the Mass afterall) but it was still really fun when I got to walk up infront of everyone and recieve my diploma award. Afterwards my family and friends and teachers congradulated me and hugged me and over all just made me blush a lot. This award is really just a silly tradition but for me it means so much more. You have no idea how hard I have worked to make friends here. Every day at school I had to struggle with the language and my fear of talking to people I didn´t know. It sucked some times but in the end it payed off. I also got so lucky! You would not believe how many exchange students only get along with one or two of their classmates and I get along with every single one!! I litterally have started introducing some of the other exchange students to my friends because everyone is so jealous that I have such an incredible class. Anyways, it was really sweet that they chose to honor me with the "Best Classmate".
But as the saying goes "Once a nerd, always a Nerd". As you might have guessed (or might not have because it is so freaking unbelievable!), there is one more award that my school gives out. The principal told me last night at Mass that at the end of the year Assembly I will also be awarded with the "Highest Grade Average" in my class. Yeah, let that sink in for a bit. I, Jenica, have recieved the highest grades out of a group of twenty four students, in a foreign language, and in many subjects that I have NEVER even studied before! And I hate to even say this but I didn´t even study that much.... :) So my reputation continues to stay in tact as a full out nerd, but atleast this time I am also a very popular nerd. :)
But as the saying goes "Once a nerd, always a Nerd". As you might have guessed (or might not have because it is so freaking unbelievable!), there is one more award that my school gives out. The principal told me last night at Mass that at the end of the year Assembly I will also be awarded with the "Highest Grade Average" in my class. Yeah, let that sink in for a bit. I, Jenica, have recieved the highest grades out of a group of twenty four students, in a foreign language, and in many subjects that I have NEVER even studied before! And I hate to even say this but I didn´t even study that much.... :) So my reputation continues to stay in tact as a full out nerd, but atleast this time I am also a very popular nerd. :)
Monday, October 10, 2011
Mendoza - City Touring!
I was finally able to visit Mendoza last weekend! I have spent the last eight months hearing about how awesome this city is and I finally was able to see it for myself. Mendoza is about the size of Seattle (and in many aspects almost exactly like it) and it two hours south of our house. It was my great-aunt´s birthday so we decided to visit her for the day. Sofi and Paula had other plans so they didn´t go but we did take my grandma along with us.
We left at about nine in the morning and began the long ride in the middle of no where. The surprising thing about all my Argentina traveling is that as soon as I leave the city - WHAM! Nothing. I mean like it is the desert for miles and there is maybe one house every half hour. It is like Argentiníans can´t live in anything but clumps which make up the cities. :)
As soon as we finally got to Mendoza, we went straight to my great-aunt´s house. We spent a little time with her, left my grandma there to chat, and went off to explore the city. First we did a general tour of downtown. We drove the main streets and gave me an idea of the layout of the city. It is a lot like Seattle in that the streets are packed with little shops and the traffic is crazy. The only difference is that in Seattle I always got a neck ache from having to look up at all the skyscrapers. In Mendoza there isn´t a single one but it is a lot bigger in area. So kind of like taking Seattle and squashing it with a spatula. :)
Later we went out of the city a little bit to visit a monument. It is on the top of this little hill out in the country with a beautiful view. To get there we got to drive through a giant park where I saw evergreen trees for the first time! I was super excited and took pictures of them just to prove that they do exist here. I hadn´t really thought about it but the only trees here lose their leaves in the fall. We don´t have evergeens in San Juan! The monument was about San Martin and they told me the story of it but I don´t exactly remember. It has something to do with them traveling over the Andes to get to Mendoza and then having to break free of the chains that were keeping them from freedom. Anyways, when we got there I ran into my friend Rosie from Italy! It was such a random coincidence that we would both travel to Mendoza the same weekend on the same day and visit a monument at the same time! It was pretty funny.
Afterwards we went to the mall to do some window shopping and eat lunch. What is so interesting about San Juan is that giant stores don´t exist unless it is the grocery story or Walmart. When visiting the mall, each store is about the size of your living room and nothing more. It makes it a pain to go shopping because often they have only one size of a shirt so you have to be really lucky to find something in your size, the color you want, and at a price you can afford. I deffinetelly miss some of the giant stores in Bellingham. We spent a while looking at stores and went to the food court to eat lunch. It was already three o´clock so I was starving! We bought "lomos" which I have to say are one of my favorite foods in the world (after Mike´s Grinders) and I could eat them all the time. Unfortunetelly we don´t get to eat them a lot so I jump at the chance everytime I have it. They are like a sandwhich but so much better! It has eggs, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, mayonase, and your choice of pork, steak, or chicken. Mi papa also bought french fries covered in eggs. I don´t know if I have mentioned it but Argentinians are obssesed with eggs. They put hardboiled eggs on pizza, fried eggs in sandwhiches and scrabbled eggs on french fries! And the weirdest thing of all is that they are actually so much better with eggs! It was really hard for me to get used to at first but after I make some of them for you guys when I get back, you will see what I mean.
We got back to my great aunt´s house at around six and I was SUPER tired. I went an slept for an hour on an extra bed after I practically fell asleep on the table. When I woke-up, other family members had arrived that I didn´t know. I got introduced to everyone and they asked me the normal questions about how I am doing here, do I miss my family, and what are the things that are different between Argentina and the U.S. You might think that I would have gotten tired of those questions after seven months but I actually still enjoy answering them. Most exchange students come up with an answer that they just automatically give every time but I really try to think about it and give different answers. It makes it a lot more fun that way. Since we still had a two hour drive back home and I had school the next day, we had cake and then left at about eight-thirty. As we were driving out of the city my family told me to look through the back window of the car. I could see the whole city layed out in tiny little lights! It was super pretty and was just a fantastic way to end the day...I then quickly fell asleep until we got back home. :)
We left at about nine in the morning and began the long ride in the middle of no where. The surprising thing about all my Argentina traveling is that as soon as I leave the city - WHAM! Nothing. I mean like it is the desert for miles and there is maybe one house every half hour. It is like Argentiníans can´t live in anything but clumps which make up the cities. :)
As soon as we finally got to Mendoza, we went straight to my great-aunt´s house. We spent a little time with her, left my grandma there to chat, and went off to explore the city. First we did a general tour of downtown. We drove the main streets and gave me an idea of the layout of the city. It is a lot like Seattle in that the streets are packed with little shops and the traffic is crazy. The only difference is that in Seattle I always got a neck ache from having to look up at all the skyscrapers. In Mendoza there isn´t a single one but it is a lot bigger in area. So kind of like taking Seattle and squashing it with a spatula. :)
Later we went out of the city a little bit to visit a monument. It is on the top of this little hill out in the country with a beautiful view. To get there we got to drive through a giant park where I saw evergreen trees for the first time! I was super excited and took pictures of them just to prove that they do exist here. I hadn´t really thought about it but the only trees here lose their leaves in the fall. We don´t have evergeens in San Juan! The monument was about San Martin and they told me the story of it but I don´t exactly remember. It has something to do with them traveling over the Andes to get to Mendoza and then having to break free of the chains that were keeping them from freedom. Anyways, when we got there I ran into my friend Rosie from Italy! It was such a random coincidence that we would both travel to Mendoza the same weekend on the same day and visit a monument at the same time! It was pretty funny.
Afterwards we went to the mall to do some window shopping and eat lunch. What is so interesting about San Juan is that giant stores don´t exist unless it is the grocery story or Walmart. When visiting the mall, each store is about the size of your living room and nothing more. It makes it a pain to go shopping because often they have only one size of a shirt so you have to be really lucky to find something in your size, the color you want, and at a price you can afford. I deffinetelly miss some of the giant stores in Bellingham. We spent a while looking at stores and went to the food court to eat lunch. It was already three o´clock so I was starving! We bought "lomos" which I have to say are one of my favorite foods in the world (after Mike´s Grinders) and I could eat them all the time. Unfortunetelly we don´t get to eat them a lot so I jump at the chance everytime I have it. They are like a sandwhich but so much better! It has eggs, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, mayonase, and your choice of pork, steak, or chicken. Mi papa also bought french fries covered in eggs. I don´t know if I have mentioned it but Argentinians are obssesed with eggs. They put hardboiled eggs on pizza, fried eggs in sandwhiches and scrabbled eggs on french fries! And the weirdest thing of all is that they are actually so much better with eggs! It was really hard for me to get used to at first but after I make some of them for you guys when I get back, you will see what I mean.
We got back to my great aunt´s house at around six and I was SUPER tired. I went an slept for an hour on an extra bed after I practically fell asleep on the table. When I woke-up, other family members had arrived that I didn´t know. I got introduced to everyone and they asked me the normal questions about how I am doing here, do I miss my family, and what are the things that are different between Argentina and the U.S. You might think that I would have gotten tired of those questions after seven months but I actually still enjoy answering them. Most exchange students come up with an answer that they just automatically give every time but I really try to think about it and give different answers. It makes it a lot more fun that way. Since we still had a two hour drive back home and I had school the next day, we had cake and then left at about eight-thirty. As we were driving out of the city my family told me to look through the back window of the car. I could see the whole city layed out in tiny little lights! It was super pretty and was just a fantastic way to end the day...I then quickly fell asleep until we got back home. :)
Friday, September 30, 2011
Día Del Estudiante
Wednesday, the 21st of September, is "Student Day" in Argentina and obviously going with Argentina traditions, you have got to party! Tuesday night I went over to my friend Juli´s house for a sleepover. We went to a birthday party with her mom and returned about one-ish. We spent the next two hours just chatting about boys and cell phones and eating cookies. The cookies turned out to be a disaster! I had made them earlier that day using a typical Nestlee recipe but accidently put flour with baking powder in it! So the cookies rose up like a cake, then flattened, and ended up having all the chocolate and butter on the bottom and a layer of cake on the top. To put it kindly, they were interesting...
The next morning we got up "early" at eight thirty and loaded up the car with our stuff. All my classmates and I were going to a cabin in Villa Tacu to spend the day together. My other friend Juli owns a house there and offered to let us hang out in it. Villa Tacu and "camping" as they call it are the hot spots to hang out on Student Day so the streets were packed with teenagers. Many people (my guys classmates included) spent Tuesday night in Villa Tacu drinking and partying but all us girls were pretty much forbidden to go. Wednesday is generally the calm day and so it is a lot safer to be out and about than when every one is drunk. Especially because all the drunk people from the night before are so wasted that they just sleep all day!
Since "technically" alcohol isn´t allowed in Villa Tacu, the police searched our car and backpacks as we entered in the area. But you should never under estimate a Sanjuanino´s drive to drink alcohol because my guys classmates drove up a week earlier to bring in the booze. The day was pretty hot - I am guessing in the low 80´s - so most of us were in shorts and tank tops. My first month here when it was summer it never really accured to me how WHITE I am but sitting there in a lawn chair in my shorts, it was pretty obvious that I wasn´t from here! Given that it is impossible for me to tan, I don´t have much hope of being able to blend in during summer. :)
We hung out the whole day, , had a water fight, and generally just enjoyed being classmates together! We also went on a long walk where I unfortunetelly forgot to put on sunscreeen and ended up getting a little red. But we were in the shade the rest of the day so no harm no foul. Sorrentino cooked hamgurgers on the grill for lunch. I am not sure exactly why but it also seems to be him that cooks the food....given that it was super hot and he had to be next to the fire, we were happy to hand over the job to him. The whole day was fantastic and it was especially nice to have a day off school. :) I wish that the U.S. would have more random holidays when we got to go party!
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| Gime, (don´t know) (don´t know), Ivan, Dani, Sol, Juli V., Juli B., Mari, Me, Elias, Blake |
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| (don´t know), Thomás, Facundo, Elias, and Lucas. |
Since "technically" alcohol isn´t allowed in Villa Tacu, the police searched our car and backpacks as we entered in the area. But you should never under estimate a Sanjuanino´s drive to drink alcohol because my guys classmates drove up a week earlier to bring in the booze. The day was pretty hot - I am guessing in the low 80´s - so most of us were in shorts and tank tops. My first month here when it was summer it never really accured to me how WHITE I am but sitting there in a lawn chair in my shorts, it was pretty obvious that I wasn´t from here! Given that it is impossible for me to tan, I don´t have much hope of being able to blend in during summer. :)
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| Mari, Sorrentino, and Elias |
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Discovering Argentina in 200 Days
Saturday the 10th I celebrated my 200th day from home! It also was my mom´s 50th birthday which made it even extra special! In all the time I have spent here, every day I keep discovering new things. It is like an Easter Treasure hunt where just when you thought you found all the eggs weeks later, another rotten one turns up in the closet. Only obviously here they aren´t eggs and they sure aren´t rotten! So let me take you through some of the things that are SUPER obvious about San Juan but just might take you a couple months to finally figure them out. :)
This one can be kind of dangerous: the holes in the streets. Generally when I think of a side walk, I think of a flat piece of pavement along side the road tha tis designed for people to walk on. Well, here you could pretty much give it the same deffinition but you would have to chop out the word "flat". The sidewalks here are like a death trap! You would not believe how many times I have tripped and almost crushed my face when my clumbsy feet fell prey to the pavement. Right off the bat they have you watching your step because almost everywhere between the sidewalk and the road they have a one foot gap that you have to step over. Thankfully for those older or handcapped people that would like to use the side walk without having to hire a crane to lift them onto it, at the end of every block they have a little cement bridge connecting the two. After you finally make it onto the sidewalk, where there normally is a small harmless crack that will break your mother´s back in nursery rhymes is an uneven little wall or step that my shoes like to catch on a lot. You also have the holes.....yep, just random holes in the middle of the sidewalk! Where exactly they go I have no idea but some of them go down for a long ways! So a piece of advice, watch where you are walking in San Juan!
The amount of animals here as well is something that is awefully strange. One every street there are tons of dogs. It´s like if you imagined that every third person walking the streets of Bellingham was a dog. Normally, with the streets overrun with little puppies, I would have assumed that nobody would have them as pets. Wrong again! Actually there are tons of people that have dogs! The second most popular animal to have as a pet is a bird. Which is especially weird because unlike dogs, there are almost zero birds outside. I might get lucky and see one a day! They also seem to come in one variety marked brown and very little. There must be a lot of worms here because there sure aren´t enough birds to eat them all! The third weirdest thing is that people don´t have cats as pets. Having a cat in the house is about as weird as having birds in the U.S. Sure, some people have them but you don´t usually have to worry that you will let the bird out when you walk into your neighbors house. :) So in general, I find that the weird mix-up of animals quite confusing and without slugs in our garden, I am just lost! :)
Trash manegment has also been some what of a mystery to me for a while. But after paying special attention, I think I have finally figured it out. If you recall, I mentioned how we hang out garbage outside on trees...well it is because the dogs will eat it. We don´t have trash bins (although the dogs could get into those too) so we hang the plastic bags filled with garbage on the trees outside before the garbage truck comes. What doesn´t seem to make any sense to me is exactly WHEN the bags get picked up. As far as I can tell, it just seems like some random day at some random time a giant dump truck drives by and loads up all the trash. As I think I have already mentioned, recycling doesn´t exist in San Juan. That still is something I have not gotten used to and I flinch every time I toss a bottle into the trash or scraps of paper. It makes me proud of how environmentally conscious Bellingham is! :) I also figured out the mystery of what happens with all the trash dumped in the streets or in the ditches. Generally the rule goes as follows: you are required to clean the side walk infront and around your house and all the trash that might have been thrown there. So my family washes the sidewalk, trims the tree outside and piles all the trash and leaves into bags for the garbage truck. The city streets are a whole other thing....I am not exactly who is supposed to clean up there. Hmmm...
Anyways, those were just the three things that came to mind when I was thinking about San Juan. It is interesting all the things I learn here the more time I get to spend exploring and watching. I hope you get a little taste of the culture I am living in down here and maybe one day when I come back to visit, you guys can come too!
P.S. The day after I wrote that long paragraph about being careful where I walk, I fell into a hole for the first time! I was crossing the street to school, thinking about something else, and when I went to step over the crack between the sidewalk and the road, my foot fell in and I went right with it! The crack was filled with garbage and water and the whole left side of my pants were soaked along with my shoes - and I had to be in school in less than three minutes! Thankfully I just crossed back across the street to my house, changed as fast as I could (waking up Sofi in my rush!), and arrived at school only a little late. So like I said, not only can those holes be dangerous, they can also make you late for school! :)
This one can be kind of dangerous: the holes in the streets. Generally when I think of a side walk, I think of a flat piece of pavement along side the road tha tis designed for people to walk on. Well, here you could pretty much give it the same deffinition but you would have to chop out the word "flat". The sidewalks here are like a death trap! You would not believe how many times I have tripped and almost crushed my face when my clumbsy feet fell prey to the pavement. Right off the bat they have you watching your step because almost everywhere between the sidewalk and the road they have a one foot gap that you have to step over. Thankfully for those older or handcapped people that would like to use the side walk without having to hire a crane to lift them onto it, at the end of every block they have a little cement bridge connecting the two. After you finally make it onto the sidewalk, where there normally is a small harmless crack that will break your mother´s back in nursery rhymes is an uneven little wall or step that my shoes like to catch on a lot. You also have the holes.....yep, just random holes in the middle of the sidewalk! Where exactly they go I have no idea but some of them go down for a long ways! So a piece of advice, watch where you are walking in San Juan!
The amount of animals here as well is something that is awefully strange. One every street there are tons of dogs. It´s like if you imagined that every third person walking the streets of Bellingham was a dog. Normally, with the streets overrun with little puppies, I would have assumed that nobody would have them as pets. Wrong again! Actually there are tons of people that have dogs! The second most popular animal to have as a pet is a bird. Which is especially weird because unlike dogs, there are almost zero birds outside. I might get lucky and see one a day! They also seem to come in one variety marked brown and very little. There must be a lot of worms here because there sure aren´t enough birds to eat them all! The third weirdest thing is that people don´t have cats as pets. Having a cat in the house is about as weird as having birds in the U.S. Sure, some people have them but you don´t usually have to worry that you will let the bird out when you walk into your neighbors house. :) So in general, I find that the weird mix-up of animals quite confusing and without slugs in our garden, I am just lost! :)
Trash manegment has also been some what of a mystery to me for a while. But after paying special attention, I think I have finally figured it out. If you recall, I mentioned how we hang out garbage outside on trees...well it is because the dogs will eat it. We don´t have trash bins (although the dogs could get into those too) so we hang the plastic bags filled with garbage on the trees outside before the garbage truck comes. What doesn´t seem to make any sense to me is exactly WHEN the bags get picked up. As far as I can tell, it just seems like some random day at some random time a giant dump truck drives by and loads up all the trash. As I think I have already mentioned, recycling doesn´t exist in San Juan. That still is something I have not gotten used to and I flinch every time I toss a bottle into the trash or scraps of paper. It makes me proud of how environmentally conscious Bellingham is! :) I also figured out the mystery of what happens with all the trash dumped in the streets or in the ditches. Generally the rule goes as follows: you are required to clean the side walk infront and around your house and all the trash that might have been thrown there. So my family washes the sidewalk, trims the tree outside and piles all the trash and leaves into bags for the garbage truck. The city streets are a whole other thing....I am not exactly who is supposed to clean up there. Hmmm...
Anyways, those were just the three things that came to mind when I was thinking about San Juan. It is interesting all the things I learn here the more time I get to spend exploring and watching. I hope you get a little taste of the culture I am living in down here and maybe one day when I come back to visit, you guys can come too!
P.S. The day after I wrote that long paragraph about being careful where I walk, I fell into a hole for the first time! I was crossing the street to school, thinking about something else, and when I went to step over the crack between the sidewalk and the road, my foot fell in and I went right with it! The crack was filled with garbage and water and the whole left side of my pants were soaked along with my shoes - and I had to be in school in less than three minutes! Thankfully I just crossed back across the street to my house, changed as fast as I could (waking up Sofi in my rush!), and arrived at school only a little late. So like I said, not only can those holes be dangerous, they can also make you late for school! :)
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Birthday vs. Cumpleaños
The longer I am here in Argentina, the longer I am fascinated when I learn knew things about this culture and their traditions. Being as it was my 17th birthday just a few weeks ago, I am going to do a little comprason between my U.S. Birthdays and my Argentina Cumpleaños. But as AFS always likes to remind us students - it´s not good or bad, it´s just different. So keep that in mind! :)
I had my birthday party on the Sunday after my birthday with seven of my girlfriends here and we camped out in my living room:
* Note: First time or info is from the U.S. and the second it from Argentina.
Time for bed: 4:00 a.m. vs 7:30 a.m. I can still remember how excited my friends and I were when we actually would make it till four or five in the morning without going to bed! It was something we only did maybe three times a year and was written in the record books. Here, I have already stayed up bast five a.m. atleast 15 times and have hit 7:30 twice now. I have new records to beat!
Also, often people don´t even have a party. They either go out to a club with their classmates or just go out to lunch somewhere with some bestfriends. I am gathering that as soon as you get into your teen years, the importance of having a big party drops drastically. Even so, that wasn´t going to stop me from showing Argentinians how I like to do it! :) During my party, I incorporated traditions from both of my countries. Since I had had a classic, Argentina, dulce de leche cake on my birthday, I baked a Chocolate Expresso cake that Onalee has made a few times in the past. We had churriso which is super famous here for dinner but also had icecream with the cake which they almost never eat. We played lots of games but also stayed up till the sun began to rise. All in all, it was a fantastic way to celebrate my birthday and also gave me a lot of insight into that aspect of Argentina´s culture. It was perfect that I had traditions from both the U.S. and Argentina because honestly speaking, I feel like they both have a place in my heart. How could I ignore one and only celebrate the other?
On a side note: Happy First Days of School to all you northerners! Enjoy the homework and early mornings and I will be here counting down the two and half months until my summer break. :) I hope everyone is well and keeping the rain away from Washington. I will get a tan for you all in the coming months! :)
Chau for now!
I had my birthday party on the Sunday after my birthday with seven of my girlfriends here and we camped out in my living room:
* Note: First time or info is from the U.S. and the second it from Argentina.
Start time: 3:00 P.M. U.S. vs. 8:30 P.M. Argentina.
First person to show up: 3:05 P.M. vs. 9:15 P.M. I was driving my sisters crazy passing up and down the halls until the first person showed up. I keep forgetting that in Argentina being on time is practically against the law. :)
When everyone is finally there: 4:15 P.M. vs. 11:30 P.M. Can you imagine having someone show up to the pary THREE HOURS after if officially started?
Dinner time: 6:00 p.m. vs 12:30 a.m. (that would be a half hour past midnight)
Cake time: 6:30 p.m. vs 2:00 a.m.
Official party ending time (when all the guests leave except my best friends): 7:30 ish p.m. vs. 4:00 a.m. (but I didn´t have this part because I only had it with my seven best friends but normally at other birthdays the non-bestfriends leave about that time.)
Presents: Polite vs Unnesessary. I generally consider presents something you should bring to a party in order to be polite (even if you hardly know the person) and are opened infront of everybody. Where as in Argentina presents are only something you get for a VERY best friend and are opened the second the birthday girl gets it. Otherwise, presents are really unnesessary.
Games and movies: Games vs. No games and Comedy vs. Horror. Usually I have a ton of games to play through out the night and have atleast two romantic-comedy movies to watch. Here we usually talk and take pictures (although I had to have SOME games at my party so I picked my favorite ones and we had a blast playing them) It is also a tradition to watch a horror movie when you get together with friends. As many times as I have had to explain it, my friends still can´t understand how deep my dislike of horror movies is and often force me to watch them; but thankfully, given that it was my birthday, I opted to not watch a movie to save my self years of nightmares.
Candles: One for each year vs. the Number. I have always had to blow out one candle for each year of my life on my birthday cake until this year. After you get to be about thirteen, they switch out the individual candles for tow candles that say the number. So this year I had a one and a seven on my birthday cake. I have to say it seems a lot more practical given that we didn´t have to scrape off all the wax that melts onto the frosting. :)
Family: Parents vs No Parents. I was surprised to realize that at my party my parents served us dinner but ate in a different room. They also sang me happy birthday but then chose to eat their cake in the kitchen in front of the TV. Since we had a family dinner on my birthday, it is normal that the parents leave the party almost completelly alone except to bring us more food.
Time for bed: 4:00 a.m. vs 7:30 a.m. I can still remember how excited my friends and I were when we actually would make it till four or five in the morning without going to bed! It was something we only did maybe three times a year and was written in the record books. Here, I have already stayed up bast five a.m. atleast 15 times and have hit 7:30 twice now. I have new records to beat!
Also, often people don´t even have a party. They either go out to a club with their classmates or just go out to lunch somewhere with some bestfriends. I am gathering that as soon as you get into your teen years, the importance of having a big party drops drastically. Even so, that wasn´t going to stop me from showing Argentinians how I like to do it! :) During my party, I incorporated traditions from both of my countries. Since I had had a classic, Argentina, dulce de leche cake on my birthday, I baked a Chocolate Expresso cake that Onalee has made a few times in the past. We had churriso which is super famous here for dinner but also had icecream with the cake which they almost never eat. We played lots of games but also stayed up till the sun began to rise. All in all, it was a fantastic way to celebrate my birthday and also gave me a lot of insight into that aspect of Argentina´s culture. It was perfect that I had traditions from both the U.S. and Argentina because honestly speaking, I feel like they both have a place in my heart. How could I ignore one and only celebrate the other?
On a side note: Happy First Days of School to all you northerners! Enjoy the homework and early mornings and I will be here counting down the two and half months until my summer break. :) I hope everyone is well and keeping the rain away from Washington. I will get a tan for you all in the coming months! :)
Chau for now!
Friday, August 19, 2011
Seventeen, Smiling, and Surounded by Love
Happy Birthday to me! Yep, that´s right! You are now reading the blog of an official seventeen year old! Before I begin, I just want to tell everyone that this was probably one of my best birthdays ever and thank you all for everything that you did for me (more thank-you´s to come!)!!
As my birthday fell on a Tuesday, I had to go to school. But I am happy to say that I got really lucky! We originally were going to have a large test in my Accounting class but the teacher didn´t show up so we watched a movie instead! We also got out of school and hour early because we had a "test" in English and as soon as we finished we could go home. As it was my birthday, I obviously wasn´t planning on going home just yet. Instead I had arranged a popular San Juan tradition with many of my classmates. Going to Mc Donalds!!!! Don´t ask me why but your birthday lunch at Mc Donalds with your classmates almost always a custom here and as I am currently here, I couldn´t miss out on such a fun (although not something I would ever normally do) tradition! Us girls (nine of us in total) took the bus to the little mall about ten minutes from my house while six of the guys got in cars and headed over as well. We also had some photo shoots where I took pictures of everyone and everything! As it should be, the luck was in my favor and it was a day where all my photos actually turned out good! The whole time at Mc Donalds was a blast! They sang me happy birthday a million times, we laughed at jokes, took random pictures in the bathroom, and had icecream to top it off. After I had said goodbye to everyone with more birthday hugs and wishes, I walked home with Mari and Juli.
My papa got home at about eight-ish and he started making "asado" which is like a barbecue but a MILLION times better. I got dressed up, helped set the table, took more pictures, and asked a million questions about the asado and why he was doing this or why he did that. My whole family was supposed to show up at 9:30 and we had to get everything ready! By about ten o´clock everyone was there and we sat down to eat dinner. There was my grandparents (Elsa´s parents), my aunt and uncle and their two daughters, my other aunt, Elsa, Alfredo, Sofia, Paula, Paula´s boyfriend Federico, and my friend Fran from Tailand. We spent the next hour eating empanadas filled with ground beef, eggs, and jalepeinos, Steek asado and pork asado, potatoe salad, a tomatoe and dressing mix and lots of 7up! :) At about 11 they brought out the cake and sang Happy Birthday to me. The cake was absolutely amazing and I ate a LOT! Hehe. It was a three layer vanilla cake. The first layer soaked in peach juice and then a layer of dulce de leche, another vanilla layer with peaches on top, and then the final cake layer covered in hardened white chocolate. My favorite part of the last couple days is when we finish lunch and get to eat some of the leftovers! It is SO good!
In the end, my birthday was fantastic. From the second it struck twelve to way past then the next night. I was content and excited every minute and was suficiently loved even though many of my friends and family weren´t with me in person. I won´t ever forget this day as long as I live. And the parties aren´t even over yet! This Sunday I am having my Pajama Party with my girlfriends at my house. I am sure I will have lots to share about that as well so make sure to check back here later next week! Thank you all again for everything! And I hope one day you guys can (or already have) learned what I learned on my 17th birthday. The only important thing in life is love, and it can be found anywhere in the world. :)
I guess I should start from the beginning......."Monday night in my house in Argentina with all my family gathered in the kitchen with the sweet smell of fresh cake and ducle de leche." The night of the 15th I stayed up until midnight for it to officially be my birthday as is the tradition in Argentina. As the clock struck twelve, my family started in with the classic birthday song (only in Spanish of course) as I jumped and smiles and blushed from all the happiness. As we shared hugs and they told me congradulations, my sister Paula brought out a small white present for me to open. Inside I found a ring made from real silver and gold with a "J" place in the middle. Rings are a very popular and important thing in San Juan and my fingers have looked out of place the last six months being bare. But now I have a wondeful gift that I can wear everyday and think of my family all the time! The ring was a tiny bit small so some time this weekend we are going to take it in and have them make it a little bit bigger. As soon as that is done, I plan on wearing it every day so I never forget the love I felt that night. :) As I also learned that night, sending text messages to wish someone happy birthday the second it is technically the day is also very popular. I got many messages from my girlfriends here that made me want to tear-up from reading them. I went to bed that night content and excited to wake-up in just five short hours and begin again my birthday.
As my birthday fell on a Tuesday, I had to go to school. But I am happy to say that I got really lucky! We originally were going to have a large test in my Accounting class but the teacher didn´t show up so we watched a movie instead! We also got out of school and hour early because we had a "test" in English and as soon as we finished we could go home. As it was my birthday, I obviously wasn´t planning on going home just yet. Instead I had arranged a popular San Juan tradition with many of my classmates. Going to Mc Donalds!!!! Don´t ask me why but your birthday lunch at Mc Donalds with your classmates almost always a custom here and as I am currently here, I couldn´t miss out on such a fun (although not something I would ever normally do) tradition! Us girls (nine of us in total) took the bus to the little mall about ten minutes from my house while six of the guys got in cars and headed over as well. We also had some photo shoots where I took pictures of everyone and everything! As it should be, the luck was in my favor and it was a day where all my photos actually turned out good! The whole time at Mc Donalds was a blast! They sang me happy birthday a million times, we laughed at jokes, took random pictures in the bathroom, and had icecream to top it off. After I had said goodbye to everyone with more birthday hugs and wishes, I walked home with Mari and Juli.
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| Maria and I |
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Luciano, Pigna and I eating at Mc Donalds |
When I got home, I decided to open all of the cards I got. I had 20 in total!!! My friend Cary had arranged a day where 17 of my friends got together and all wrote me a card wishing me happy birthday. What I also found after opening the letters, was that they had sent me a message. In each of the envelopes was a picture of one of my friends holding a word and each envelope was numbered- 1 to 17. When all the pictures were lined up in order, I started laughing and smiling as I read " WE LOVE YOU JENICA. WE WISH FOR YOU BON-BONS, ELEPHANTS AND GOOD ------ ON YOUR SPECIAL DAY!" The blank spot is where letter number 13 should have been. Unfortunetelly dear Sumi´s card never made it to my house and must have gotten lost in the mail. After talking with Onalee yesterday, I learned that the missing word was "Fairies". Right now all the pictures are hanging up in our living room so all my friends and family can see them and I can be reminded of how much I am loved.
My papa got home at about eight-ish and he started making "asado" which is like a barbecue but a MILLION times better. I got dressed up, helped set the table, took more pictures, and asked a million questions about the asado and why he was doing this or why he did that. My whole family was supposed to show up at 9:30 and we had to get everything ready! By about ten o´clock everyone was there and we sat down to eat dinner. There was my grandparents (Elsa´s parents), my aunt and uncle and their two daughters, my other aunt, Elsa, Alfredo, Sofia, Paula, Paula´s boyfriend Federico, and my friend Fran from Tailand. We spent the next hour eating empanadas filled with ground beef, eggs, and jalepeinos, Steek asado and pork asado, potatoe salad, a tomatoe and dressing mix and lots of 7up! :) At about 11 they brought out the cake and sang Happy Birthday to me. The cake was absolutely amazing and I ate a LOT! Hehe. It was a three layer vanilla cake. The first layer soaked in peach juice and then a layer of dulce de leche, another vanilla layer with peaches on top, and then the final cake layer covered in hardened white chocolate. My favorite part of the last couple days is when we finish lunch and get to eat some of the leftovers! It is SO good! |
| Empanadas! |
By midnight (and the oficial end of my birthday) everyone said their goodbyes and went home. But I still had one more thing let to do. As my family gathered around in the kitchen, I went a fetched the package from the U.S. that my family had sent. Now this is the hard part. Not only has my English writing gotten worse but this in and of itself is a hard thing to put down in words. But I will do my best. Inside the package I found a tin box filled with 60 pictures. Each picture was of a friend, family member, teacher, or Sandra Bullock (that one was a joke) holding a sign wishing me happy birthday. I made it about six photos in before I started crying. I spent the next fourty minutes with my family looking and laughing at all the places my friends went to to take these photos and all the people who are growing older just like I am here. I saw my parking spot at MB, my Dad hanging up in the crane, my family gathered at the Guerrieri´s house, my art teacher, and my sister jumping on the tampoline. But even as I looked at all these photos of people I love, I didn´t feel sad. I was actually happy. Because in that moment I realized how trully lucky and loved I am. I still miss you all, but I didn´t cry because of that. I cried because I feel like my life is perfect with all of you. I still have challenges and hard days but if I can just think of those photos and how many people in the world sent me birthday wishes, I don´t think I will ever take friends and family for granted again. Thank you all for participating in such a great gift. I also want to put in this quote that I recently put on Facebook in order to try to better capture my gratefulness:
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| My Family (Sofi, Elsa, Afredo, Paula and Me) |
"It is not every day that you realize how lucky you are. And it almost never is the day of your 17th birthday. Unless of course......you traveled all the way across the world to find yourself, unless you discovered the family can be found anywhere, unless you have best friends all over the world and the thought of leaving them makes you cry, unless you have two counties, two cities, two families, and two schools that you can call home, unless you spent your birthday laughing at jokes, eating empanadas, having photo shoots, and getting hugs, unless you opened a package of pictures and started to cry from all the love. I guess what I am trying to say is, it doesn´t happen very often unless you are me. Thank you everyone for giving me the best birthday ever and helping me learn how trully lucky and special I really am."
In the end, my birthday was fantastic. From the second it struck twelve to way past then the next night. I was content and excited every minute and was suficiently loved even though many of my friends and family weren´t with me in person. I won´t ever forget this day as long as I live. And the parties aren´t even over yet! This Sunday I am having my Pajama Party with my girlfriends at my house. I am sure I will have lots to share about that as well so make sure to check back here later next week! Thank you all again for everything! And I hope one day you guys can (or already have) learned what I learned on my 17th birthday. The only important thing in life is love, and it can be found anywhere in the world. :)
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Snow Flakes
I think you will all be as surprised as I was by this news, but guess what? It snowed in San Juan! Saturday night my sister, Paula, came running into the kitchen yelling that it was snowing. After dashing out the front door, I saw that it was true! There were snowflakes falling fast and heavy from the sky. Since I was just in a sweatshirt I instantly froze, but it was worth it just to be able to see all the tiny flakes stuck to my whole body. It snowed a lot that night but it didn´t stick to the ground. It was just on the border of freezing so it wasn´t cold enough to let it pile up. But even so, we were all super giddy! Getting snow in San Juan is practically a miracle. Given that it only rains once a month here and that it doesn´t get below freezing all the time, you have got a very small chance that the one day it rains will be the one day it gets into the negative degrees. Apparently the last time we got snow in the city was three years ago. Three years!! I don´t know how they don´t burst into tears hearing that. I would miss snow too much! I talked to my friends about it that night and they said that most of them have never even been sledding. That was probably the hardest to hear- I mean, sledding is one of the funnest things ever and these guys have never tried it! I guess I will just have to hope that Argentina suddenly goes into an ice age and San Juan is covered in feet of snow. Then maybe my friends will understand when I talk about how even though I often crash snowboarding and my bottom always kills me after going off jumps on sleds, it is all very much worth it. :) But until that day, we will all just have to get excited watching the snowflakes fall from the sky and melt on the ground...!
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Winter Break
As it is often easy for you guys to forget, it is winter down here. Just think of it all as being exactly the oposite of what you are feeling because really, that is what it is. Even though I am always naturally going to think of July as the one of the hotest months of the year, I would deffinetelly say that it is not hot down here! Right now I am on Winter Break which is really weird in and of itself. First off, where in the world is Christmas? Um, hello? Isn´t this naturally the time of year for Christmas lights and caroling? Well, as only the seasons change and the days of the holidays don´t, I still have to wait five more months for Christmas like the rest of you. :( Thankfully I have found other ways to occupy my time. I got let out of school Thursday the 7th and I go back to school on Wednesday the 23rd so that gives me about two weeks of vacation! My first week was super packed with activities. All of the exchange students except me and a girl from Thailand all left last Sunday so it was their last week here in San Juan. We were all arranging lunches and get-togethers for some last memories with eachother. Saturday night I went over to Maria´s house to spend the night. She is this girl from Austria that only came for a semester but has become one of my good friends here. I hope to visit her one day when I go to visit Jessie in Austria as well. :) We made crapes for dinner which was new for me. Maria says that in Austria it is not at all uncommon to eat crapes for lunch or dinner where as I have only ever eaten them for breakfast. And to had an extra surprise, she has bought Nutella! For anyone out there who has never tried Nutella before, you have got to go out and by some right now. I first tried it when I went to Mexico and I have been in love with it ever since. It is a chocolate and walnut (?) spread that is basically all sugar and one of the best things ever made. :) I didn´t even know it existed in San Juan but Maria found it at our local grocery store! So at eleven o´clock at night we ate crapes covered in Nutella and watched the movie 2012 (which actually wasn´t as scary as I thought it would be). It was super fun to be able to spend some quality time with her before she left.
Tuesday the girl from Tailand, Fran, came over to my house early in the morning. Her parents were going to Mendoza (a gigantic city just south of us) for the day but she wanted to stay home. She skyped with her family in Tailand for a while and it was really awesome to hear her speak in Tailandes! That is one of the coolest things about being en exchange student: not only do you get to live in a different country but you learn little things about other countries as well. I don´t think I ever mentioned this but when I was at my arrival Orientation in Buenos Aires I spent a whole bunch of time hanging out with these guys from Australia and New Zeland. If their accent wasn´t enough to make me love them, they taught me all these card games from their country and we spent hours comparing different words and pronunciations between our countries. It was absolutelly a blast!
So later that day Fran and I met up with the other students in the center park and went out for lunch. We chatted and laughed but the topic of their departure just kept coming up. As much as we all wanted to ignore it, they were leaving in just five days. I don´t think anyone of us could believe it. But even with that greyish cloud hanging over us, we enjoyed every minute. We spent the whole day together and walked over to a little mall near by. There we got icecream and I met up with my friends from school, Vero and Maria del Mar. One of the greatest changes that has begun to happen over the last month is that my ability to participate in conversation has hugely increased. It has given me so much more freedom to talk about whatever subject is on our minds. And that day it was boys... :) It was so good to be able to just chat with girlfriends again about all the crazy things guys do. I had been really missing that since I left Washington. Not only did I arrive here without any best friends but I also had this giant sign taped to my head that said "I am from the U.S. I don´t speak Spanish" so it made it a little hard to just talk about normal stuff. :) But time and hard work has paid off and that is changing! I didn´t get home till about ten that night and I was exhausted from being with people all day. I crashed in my bed and slept until one the next day. That is one of the greatest things about Argentina - sleeping in isn´t looked apon as a waist of the day. But don´t worry, most days I have my alarm set for nine or ten so I can get up and do something with my life. :)
Thursday, Harry Potter 7 part 2 came out in theaters in San Juan and after reading every single book twice and now reading them again in Spanish, I wasn´t going to miss the first showing. :) I went with Gime and Ivan and a couple exchange student guys and it was great! Thankfully we chose to watch it in 3D in English with Spanish subtitles. There was also a version in Spanish but I am not quite ready for that. I like my British accents thank-you-very-much. :) I also discovered a fasinating fact. The pop corn here is always sold sweatened. Some people have tried pop corn with just salt but to most of my friends, the thought of pop corn with salt AND butter is pretty much foreign! Well I am determined to change that because you just can´t go through life missing out on something as awesome as this. I am going to have a movie night at my house pretty soon.
And then Sunday came around. The day that we were all going to go to the bus station to wish the students well on their way back home. The truth was, as much as I got to know these guys, I didn´t expect to be super upset when they lefted. What I mean is that I wasn´t at all prepared for the crying and bawling that I encountered on the platform. As soon as they showed up the tears just started rolling. And I don´t mean a few sniffles and a tissue. These people were truly torn apart at having to leave, and they just let their feelins come poring out. And it got to me too. When I had to say goodbye to Laura, we both just started crying our eyes out. And I just couldn´t stop. I think the thing that made me so touched by everything was that I knew I would have to do this same thing in just six short months. I would be in the same place that they are now and have to say goodbye to my family and friends and the city that I have grown to love. Even now I am tearing up just writing this. So in order not to short out my keyboard from falling tears, I should probably move on. But first I just want to say that although I know it will be so hard to leave everything here, that isn´t stopping me from loving it even more. :)
So far my vacation has been busy and full of emotions. My whole time here has taught me so much about my self and about other cultures. I love learning things from my friends here and getting little facts about the countries they came from. I hope everyone in the world can have the chance to experience what I am feeling . Because really, there is no better way to learn about yourself and what really matters in life than what these students and I are going through now. :) Have a wonderful summer! Send us some warm weather!
Tuesday the girl from Tailand, Fran, came over to my house early in the morning. Her parents were going to Mendoza (a gigantic city just south of us) for the day but she wanted to stay home. She skyped with her family in Tailand for a while and it was really awesome to hear her speak in Tailandes! That is one of the coolest things about being en exchange student: not only do you get to live in a different country but you learn little things about other countries as well. I don´t think I ever mentioned this but when I was at my arrival Orientation in Buenos Aires I spent a whole bunch of time hanging out with these guys from Australia and New Zeland. If their accent wasn´t enough to make me love them, they taught me all these card games from their country and we spent hours comparing different words and pronunciations between our countries. It was absolutelly a blast!
So later that day Fran and I met up with the other students in the center park and went out for lunch. We chatted and laughed but the topic of their departure just kept coming up. As much as we all wanted to ignore it, they were leaving in just five days. I don´t think anyone of us could believe it. But even with that greyish cloud hanging over us, we enjoyed every minute. We spent the whole day together and walked over to a little mall near by. There we got icecream and I met up with my friends from school, Vero and Maria del Mar. One of the greatest changes that has begun to happen over the last month is that my ability to participate in conversation has hugely increased. It has given me so much more freedom to talk about whatever subject is on our minds. And that day it was boys... :) It was so good to be able to just chat with girlfriends again about all the crazy things guys do. I had been really missing that since I left Washington. Not only did I arrive here without any best friends but I also had this giant sign taped to my head that said "I am from the U.S. I don´t speak Spanish" so it made it a little hard to just talk about normal stuff. :) But time and hard work has paid off and that is changing! I didn´t get home till about ten that night and I was exhausted from being with people all day. I crashed in my bed and slept until one the next day. That is one of the greatest things about Argentina - sleeping in isn´t looked apon as a waist of the day. But don´t worry, most days I have my alarm set for nine or ten so I can get up and do something with my life. :)
Thursday, Harry Potter 7 part 2 came out in theaters in San Juan and after reading every single book twice and now reading them again in Spanish, I wasn´t going to miss the first showing. :) I went with Gime and Ivan and a couple exchange student guys and it was great! Thankfully we chose to watch it in 3D in English with Spanish subtitles. There was also a version in Spanish but I am not quite ready for that. I like my British accents thank-you-very-much. :) I also discovered a fasinating fact. The pop corn here is always sold sweatened. Some people have tried pop corn with just salt but to most of my friends, the thought of pop corn with salt AND butter is pretty much foreign! Well I am determined to change that because you just can´t go through life missing out on something as awesome as this. I am going to have a movie night at my house pretty soon.
And then Sunday came around. The day that we were all going to go to the bus station to wish the students well on their way back home. The truth was, as much as I got to know these guys, I didn´t expect to be super upset when they lefted. What I mean is that I wasn´t at all prepared for the crying and bawling that I encountered on the platform. As soon as they showed up the tears just started rolling. And I don´t mean a few sniffles and a tissue. These people were truly torn apart at having to leave, and they just let their feelins come poring out. And it got to me too. When I had to say goodbye to Laura, we both just started crying our eyes out. And I just couldn´t stop. I think the thing that made me so touched by everything was that I knew I would have to do this same thing in just six short months. I would be in the same place that they are now and have to say goodbye to my family and friends and the city that I have grown to love. Even now I am tearing up just writing this. So in order not to short out my keyboard from falling tears, I should probably move on. But first I just want to say that although I know it will be so hard to leave everything here, that isn´t stopping me from loving it even more. :)
So far my vacation has been busy and full of emotions. My whole time here has taught me so much about my self and about other cultures. I love learning things from my friends here and getting little facts about the countries they came from. I hope everyone in the world can have the chance to experience what I am feeling . Because really, there is no better way to learn about yourself and what really matters in life than what these students and I are going through now. :) Have a wonderful summer! Send us some warm weather!
Saturday, July 16, 2011
You Call That Juice?
One of the things I find most interesting about Argentina is the differences in the kind of food they eat. I have yet to find a kind of food that I don´t like but I have deffinetelly found a lot that are way different from what I have grown up eating. My favorite example of this is juice. In Washington, I have the pleasure of living on an apple farm sort of thing. That means that each fall we make fresh apple juice from our own trees and freeze it for the winter. But even without living with hundreds of trees, I can garantee you can find more than you can drink of fresh juice in Washington. And even if it is imported orange juice from Florida atleast it is still made from actual oranges. I am sorry to say that what Argentinians know as juice is not. The first time I went to pour myself a nice cup of apple juice with my morning cereal, I was surprised to find that it was white. Kind of like a watered out milk. Hmmm....ignorantly I figured that was just the color of apples here or something. After tasting it (and almost spitting it back up with surprise at the flavor) I found it was deffinetelly nothing like apple juice. As you might have guessed, I figured something was wrong with it. Maybe it was old or had something else poured into the carton. But after asking my Mama about it, she explained that the juice here is "fake" or atleast most of the juice is. It turns out that the apple juice here (or atleast the kind you can easily buy in stores) is actually milk based with apple flavoring (that would explain the white coloring!) It also comes in a nice carton decorated with Barbies or Race Cars; that should have been my first sign something was up! :) A few weeks ago I got to taste "real" orange juice which was deffinetelly made from real oranges but unfortunetelly for my taste buds it had absolutely no sugar and tasted....well, not at all sweet! It has taken me a while to adjust to this thing they call juice. :) And although I still can´t manage to drink the apple juice with out worrying I am drinking rotten apples, I have found that peach juice is much more to my liking. Maybe it is cause I have never drunken peach juice that much before and therefore don´t have a lot to compare it to. All in all, I am finding things I love about Argentina and things I won´t be missing very much. Whether it is apple juice, the buses, my family, or the cute little dog that always sleeps on the side walk outside our front door. But no matter the outcome, it is always a funny process to figure them out. :)
Monday, July 4, 2011
Boliche Nº 2: Popeye!
Last night I went to my second club here in Argentina. It was my friend Juli´s 17th birthday, and she wanted to go out partying to celebrate. Before I get into the details of the night, I want to explain a little about boliches (clubs) in San Juan. Technically you are supposed to be 18 to legally enter a club but that rule isn´t always followed. Places like Kika and Popeye actually don´t let you in if you are OVER 18 years old. They are clubs designed for teenagers between sixteen and eighteen. You might think that the cops would have places like this shut down in an instant, but think again. Sure there were cops there last night but they acted more as bouncers than as cops. They didn´t stop us from entering, they didn´t stop us (or should I say my friends) from buying alcohol, and they sure didn´t carry out any fire safety regulations (I will explain that a little later). So I have learned that as long as you know where to go, you can get into clubs even though you are under age. There are ofcourse clubs that check ID and that my mama wouldn´t let me into even if I could slip past the guards. But that is okay with me. I am happy just hanging with my friends at the younger clubs. :)
Where to begin? I guess that only way to describe the night it to go through it step by step because otherwise you just might get lost. My parents dropped me off at Juli´s house at about midnight where we packed eight people into a four person car. Yep, they recently invented seatbelts for a pile of kids stacked ontop of eachother...in Argentina they call them arms :) When we arrived at Popeye I decided to leave my jacket in the car as I figured I wouldn´t need it once getting inside. There are no windows in the building and if we were going to be dancing a lot, I didn´t want to be stuck carrying my jacket all night. Of course, we get out of the car and then have to wait five minutes in the freezing night air to be able to get in. I was wearing my flats, black leggings, and a long sleeve shirt (with an undershirt underneath) so basically I started missing that jacket REAL fast. Thankfully we inside it was the perfect temperature and I warmed up to a more normal and not deadly low body temperature. The inside was a lot nicer than Kika (the other club I went to). It had disco balls and tons of strobe and colored lights. It also had a roof (which I don´t know if I mentioned but Kika didn´t). The only thing that made it worse than Kika was that it was tiny. For those of you who know about how big my living room and kitchen are combined, it was about like that. By two a.m. they was probably close to a hundred teenagers packed in there and you could barelly move enough to dance. At one moment I had the scary thought about what would happen if a fire broke out as surely whoever was in the middle would be trampeled (that is where the police comment came in). At first I was a little uncomfortable. I felt awkward being my my leggings as I am used to something a little less...tight fitting and curve showing. Also, people were smoking inside and given that there weren´t any windows, my eyes started burning. Then add a strobe light so everything is moving all weird and music that was unimaginablly loud. But soon I was able to relax and start dancing. My eyes got used to the smoke and I actually started to enjoy the stobe light. Three girls, me, and about four other boys were able to open up a little circle and danced together for a while. A lot of my classmates were there to party with Juli so I got to check out some of the boys dancing. That is one of the things I absolutelly love about Argentina. Guys actually dance. And it is not just the swaying side to side that many guys at Homecoming try to pull off. They are busting moves, singing along to the music, and basically making a fool of themselves like the girls. I have also found out that many of the guys often dance more than the girls. If you are looking for some fun dancing all night long, deffinetelly find your guy friends. :)
I was super glad that I ended up leaving my jacket in the car. With so many people inside, there was a ton of body heat and by the end of the night every one who was dancing was sweating and trying to stay cool. The music in boliches is also fantastic! As I might have mentioned in a previous posting, at first I really didn´t like it. It was weird to dance to and since I didn´t know any of the words, I couldn´t sing along with everyone either. But now I love it! Potentially more than music in English but I am not ready to officially say that yet. :) As the night went on the music just kept getting louder and louder until I couldn´t even hear. You know that feeling when the music gets so loud that you can´t even hear the words any more and only the bass? Probably not since I didn´t know the feeling until last night either. It was litterally so loud that I couldn´t hear the words to the music and we were all just singing by memory. :) I also couldn´t hear myself talk. It was like when you plug your ears and you feel like your voice is almost echoing inside you heard. I know that by posting that I am probably going to get some hearing loss lectures from my parents but I figured you guys should know every little detail. :)
The boliche shut down at about four thirty and Gime´s papa brought me home. I got in bed at about five a.m. and slept soundly until my alarm went off at two this afternoon. I figured I would probably sleep the whole day if I didn´t set an alarm and I was right. Even after lunch I could only think of sleep but I knew that if I slept more today, I wouldn´t be able to sleep tonight. But given that I have to get up early for school tomorrow, I think I will go to bed a little early tonight. :)
Where to begin? I guess that only way to describe the night it to go through it step by step because otherwise you just might get lost. My parents dropped me off at Juli´s house at about midnight where we packed eight people into a four person car. Yep, they recently invented seatbelts for a pile of kids stacked ontop of eachother...in Argentina they call them arms :) When we arrived at Popeye I decided to leave my jacket in the car as I figured I wouldn´t need it once getting inside. There are no windows in the building and if we were going to be dancing a lot, I didn´t want to be stuck carrying my jacket all night. Of course, we get out of the car and then have to wait five minutes in the freezing night air to be able to get in. I was wearing my flats, black leggings, and a long sleeve shirt (with an undershirt underneath) so basically I started missing that jacket REAL fast. Thankfully we inside it was the perfect temperature and I warmed up to a more normal and not deadly low body temperature. The inside was a lot nicer than Kika (the other club I went to). It had disco balls and tons of strobe and colored lights. It also had a roof (which I don´t know if I mentioned but Kika didn´t). The only thing that made it worse than Kika was that it was tiny. For those of you who know about how big my living room and kitchen are combined, it was about like that. By two a.m. they was probably close to a hundred teenagers packed in there and you could barelly move enough to dance. At one moment I had the scary thought about what would happen if a fire broke out as surely whoever was in the middle would be trampeled (that is where the police comment came in). At first I was a little uncomfortable. I felt awkward being my my leggings as I am used to something a little less...tight fitting and curve showing. Also, people were smoking inside and given that there weren´t any windows, my eyes started burning. Then add a strobe light so everything is moving all weird and music that was unimaginablly loud. But soon I was able to relax and start dancing. My eyes got used to the smoke and I actually started to enjoy the stobe light. Three girls, me, and about four other boys were able to open up a little circle and danced together for a while. A lot of my classmates were there to party with Juli so I got to check out some of the boys dancing. That is one of the things I absolutelly love about Argentina. Guys actually dance. And it is not just the swaying side to side that many guys at Homecoming try to pull off. They are busting moves, singing along to the music, and basically making a fool of themselves like the girls. I have also found out that many of the guys often dance more than the girls. If you are looking for some fun dancing all night long, deffinetelly find your guy friends. :)
I was super glad that I ended up leaving my jacket in the car. With so many people inside, there was a ton of body heat and by the end of the night every one who was dancing was sweating and trying to stay cool. The music in boliches is also fantastic! As I might have mentioned in a previous posting, at first I really didn´t like it. It was weird to dance to and since I didn´t know any of the words, I couldn´t sing along with everyone either. But now I love it! Potentially more than music in English but I am not ready to officially say that yet. :) As the night went on the music just kept getting louder and louder until I couldn´t even hear. You know that feeling when the music gets so loud that you can´t even hear the words any more and only the bass? Probably not since I didn´t know the feeling until last night either. It was litterally so loud that I couldn´t hear the words to the music and we were all just singing by memory. :) I also couldn´t hear myself talk. It was like when you plug your ears and you feel like your voice is almost echoing inside you heard. I know that by posting that I am probably going to get some hearing loss lectures from my parents but I figured you guys should know every little detail. :)
The boliche shut down at about four thirty and Gime´s papa brought me home. I got in bed at about five a.m. and slept soundly until my alarm went off at two this afternoon. I figured I would probably sleep the whole day if I didn´t set an alarm and I was right. Even after lunch I could only think of sleep but I knew that if I slept more today, I wouldn´t be able to sleep tonight. But given that I have to get up early for school tomorrow, I think I will go to bed a little early tonight. :)
In order to help you better get a feeling for my boliche experiences, here are some videos that I took: Oh! And the weird light and skipping thing isn´t your computer. That was literally how everything looked from my eyes. :)
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Travel To Tucuman
Home sweet home. Or atleast as close as I am going to get to Washington whether in Argentina. For Father´s Day weekend my family drove up north to the Province of Tucuman to visit family. It was my cousins fourth birthday and my mama wanted to be there for it. Now I have always been a lover of road trips so I was super excited to go...until, that is, that I found out it was an eleven hour car ride with me, my aunt, and my sister Sofi all packed in the back seat. It might have been fine if our car was a cadillac and had a back seat like a bed and us three women didn´t all have hips but unfortunetelly none of that was true. It was an awfully long car ride with very little room to move. We left at six in the morning which thankfully gave me something to do for the first couple hours - sleep. The rest of the car ride was filled with starring at the changing scenery. Which I was happy to find was quite interesting. San Juan is generally really flat and really dry but as we started up north some mountains came along. I also got to see GIANT cactusas. These cactusas were as tall as trees and as wide as a car. I would hate to get one of those prickers stuck in your foot! Once we passed the mountains and arrived to the city of Tucumán, I found the I could practically breathe in the rain in the air. It was wonderful!
The weekend was spent meeting my family and having many lunches, dinners, brunches, late night coffees, and birthday parties until I was completelly exhausted. On the night that I arrived I was introduced to so many relatives that I could hardly keep track of who was my aunt, who was my cousin, and who was an aunt of my cousin! I still have yet to remember all of there names. :) But I can tell you about some of them. I have four cousins: Lourdes (who was turning four), Santiago (who is five), and Valentina and Amelia (nineteen and twenty two). I was so happy to be able to hang out with young kids again! I have been really missing volunteering at the special needs preschool in Washington and I got to play "the crocodille is going to eat me!" with Lourdes and Santiago. It still makes me smile so much. Here are some pictures of when they decided to tackle me:
Sunday was Lourdes birthday party and Father´s Day. We all had asado and lunch together and then a bunch of Lourdes school friends came over. They were all dressed up as princesses and had face paint on. It was all very sweet. I hung out with my cousins and talked with a girl I met at the party. I always love when I meet people who are really interested in going on an exchange. She was only thirteen so had few years to wait but you could just see the thirst in her eyes to get to explore other countries. She reminded me of myself just a few months ago. :) In terms of Father´s Day, we really didn´t do much. I was able to send my Dad in the U.S. a quick email at about midnight when I finally got around a computer but Santiago was trying to tackle we and give me kisses so it was awfully short (I later sent him another email and a couple days later we got to Skype).
Sunday night (We were going to leave early Monday morning), Sofi, Valentina, Amelia, Santiago and I all went out to McDonalds for dinner. Afterwards Santiago was feeling sick and was sent to his mother´s room to lie down and watch cartoons. Us girls put on a romantic movie and curled up on the couch. You might have heard of this movie. It is called "Beastly" and comes out in theaters this July 31st. Yep, that wasn´t a type-o, this movie hasn´t even been officially released! How in the world we got it I have no idea but Valentina had it on a pen drive and it was actually in pretty good quality. Argentiníans are famous for their pyrighting abilities. :)
Monday morning our car wouldn´t start because the battery was dead. My parents decided that we could let it charge and have lunch with the family. Well lunched turned into tea time and soon it was five o´clock and we were just leaving. With an eleven hour drive ahead that ment we would be arriving at the wee hours of the morning. And unforuntely I had school the next morning. I was able to sleep a little in the car but it was never very solid. When we finally arrived home and I got into bed at about three a.m. that only gave me three and a half hours of sleep to work with at school. I am starting to get pretty good at functioning on little to no sleep. :) I was also really sick that weekend so it took me the rest of the week to get better.
It was so awesome to be able to meet more of my family and I always love it when I get to talk about my home country and teach people different things about who I am. My soul was refreshed with the rain and I came back home a smiley (but very tired) happy Sanjuanina.
P.S. Don´t forget to check out my photos by following the link!
Friday, June 17, 2011
The Results Are In!
One of the things I had to mentally prepare myself for before I came here was that I was going to get bad grades in my classes. As many of you know, I have been a little bit of a fanatic for striaght A´s and it was hard to think about me failing classes here. Well have no fear, because my reputation is still intact. I mean to say that I haven´t failed anything yet since I clearly wasn´t able to keep up my straight A´s. :) Here, we are graded from one to ten with ten being the best and one being the worst. You might find it interesting to know that it is impossible to get a zero. If I turned my test in blank, well what do you know? I got one point! I don´t quite understand the logic behind it but for all I know there might not be any! :) I have a total of twelve classes and the beginning of June was the end of our first trimester. That means report cards! So here is the general outline of my grade update:
Lengua y Literatura II - 8.80
Lengua Extranjera: Ingles II - 10
Matemática II - 9.75
Educación Física II - 9.60
Biología I - 8.50
Geografía I - 9.33
Derecho I - 8
Teoría y Gestión de las Organizaciones II - 7.50
Sistemas de Información Contable I - 8.50
Economía II - 8.25
Tecnología de la Información II - 10
Catequesis II - 9
Incase that you can´t read Spanish or are to lazy to look the words up, here is the list of classes in English:
Literature
English (Foreign Language)
Math
P.E.
Human Biology
Geography
Law
Theory and Management of Organizations
Accounting
Economy
Computer Excel
Religion
So in general I would say I am doing amazing for having taken all of these in Spanish! Of course, I studied my butt off and spent lots of time translating all of my notes. Now though that I have proven that I can recieve good grades, I think I am going to take a little break. :) Starting with the Teory and Management test that I took today which I only spent an hour studying for... Yeah.... it may seem like a lot but when it is in Spanish that is just enough time to translate it all into English and read it over once. So I can´t not study completelly but I sure didn´t study enough to get a good grade! There is something in my blood that just makes me start to have a nervious breakdown at the thought of a failing grade. Which is why I am determined to get one here. :) What better place to get more relaxed than when my grades don´t mean anything? And this way, when I come back and start college I will have had a year off of studying hard and have saved all of my energy for getting good grades when it counts! If you think about it, it really makes sense. Why push myself to spend my time studying when I could be hanging out with my family or friends? The first trimester here I spent HOURS each day studying, translating, and reading all of my notes. I could have taken that time to explore my city or play a board game with my sisters. I have got six more years of college to do all the studying I want. :) But I am only in Argentina for one year! I deffinetelly think I should live it up as much as possible even if that means having to get mediocor (I really have no idea how to spell that!) to failing grades. Don´t you agree? :) Yep, I knew you would.
Lengua y Literatura II - 8.80
Lengua Extranjera: Ingles II - 10
Matemática II - 9.75
Educación Física II - 9.60
Biología I - 8.50
Geografía I - 9.33
Derecho I - 8
Teoría y Gestión de las Organizaciones II - 7.50
Sistemas de Información Contable I - 8.50
Economía II - 8.25
Tecnología de la Información II - 10
Catequesis II - 9
Incase that you can´t read Spanish or are to lazy to look the words up, here is the list of classes in English:
Literature
English (Foreign Language)
Math
P.E.
Human Biology
Geography
Law
Theory and Management of Organizations
Accounting
Economy
Computer Excel
Religion
So in general I would say I am doing amazing for having taken all of these in Spanish! Of course, I studied my butt off and spent lots of time translating all of my notes. Now though that I have proven that I can recieve good grades, I think I am going to take a little break. :) Starting with the Teory and Management test that I took today which I only spent an hour studying for... Yeah.... it may seem like a lot but when it is in Spanish that is just enough time to translate it all into English and read it over once. So I can´t not study completelly but I sure didn´t study enough to get a good grade! There is something in my blood that just makes me start to have a nervious breakdown at the thought of a failing grade. Which is why I am determined to get one here. :) What better place to get more relaxed than when my grades don´t mean anything? And this way, when I come back and start college I will have had a year off of studying hard and have saved all of my energy for getting good grades when it counts! If you think about it, it really makes sense. Why push myself to spend my time studying when I could be hanging out with my family or friends? The first trimester here I spent HOURS each day studying, translating, and reading all of my notes. I could have taken that time to explore my city or play a board game with my sisters. I have got six more years of college to do all the studying I want. :) But I am only in Argentina for one year! I deffinetelly think I should live it up as much as possible even if that means having to get mediocor (I really have no idea how to spell that!) to failing grades. Don´t you agree? :) Yep, I knew you would.
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