Instead of going day-by-day since that seems sort of boring, here's a bit of a summary of the last week.
On Tuesday evening everyone in the program finally got to meet at a little party that the program directors threw for us at the hostel. We were able to talk with them as well as some of our professors and again, get thrown right into the Spanish! All of us students here are at pretty different levels. I can understand almost all of what people say to me, but it's hard to formulate the sentences back to them. I think I've gotten by okay so far. Just when I start thinking that though, a person on the street tries to talk to me a million miles a minute and I feel like I'm back at square one. It's frustrating but part of the learning process!
Once the party was over, us students wanted to go out and explore the nightlife a little bit on our own. We learned quickly that moving in a pack of 15 Americans to various restaurants and bars is difficult to do and something that we'll have to modify in the future. It was fun to get out and see what was around us though! At one of the bars I ordered a white wine, little did I know that meant the whole bottle. Oops, not the worst problem to have I guess :) Same thing happened to us a different night so we're pretty positive they don't sell by the glass.
Anyways, I wish I had taken a picture of the backyard of the hostel because it was so serene, practically like a zen garden with a little pool and a tall brick enclosure with vines growing up the side.
Some other things we've done so far: Walking tour of the city, drank mate (traditional Argentine tea that you drink in a special glass and straw. I actually see EVERYONE here drinking it, always. It's very healthy, which is probably why it tasted like grass. Needless to say it wasn't my fav), Saturday night before Easter went to watch a reenactment of The Last Supper (it was sweet to see how many people were at El Monumento de la Bandera to see this), went on a boat tour of Río Paraná, and yesterday we watched El Secreto de sus Ojos, an Argentine film that won an Oscar in 2011. I highly suggest this movie, with English subtitles of course.
I'm now going to dedicate a whole section to my host mom, Graciela, because I think a lot of you want to know what she's like!
Graciela, my host mom!
Where to begin with this lady?! First off I'll say that she is tiny, probably less than 4'6" tall. She told me to call her Yuppy (pronounced "Shoopie" since that is what all her friends call her.) Side note: about 5 other people from the program have mothers named Graciela. Around the house, she rocks these dark blue Crocs as slippers and those oversized white tshirt dresses from the 90s on her tiny frame. When she goes out in public, though, she always dresses up, puts on makeup, and does her curly, firey red hair all nice. She is divorced, has two daughters that are 29 and 30 years old and two grandchildren who are 10 and 13 years old. I think I'll probably meet them at some point while I'm here.
She is very social, always going to movies or the lake with friends and the phone is always ringing off the hook to make plans with other friends as well. She has already brought 2 of them over to meet me. Her apartment is very nice and I'm comfortable here. If I had one complaint, it would be that my bed is sort of hard as a rock but I think I'll manage. From what I've heard from the other students, it sounds like our living situations vary in certain respects. A few live in houses, some have pets, some have more than just a host mom, some don't have wifi and some do, some have balconies, some are near the river, etc. It all just depends.
She told me she used to be big into theater and although she couldn't sing or dance, she was funny. Her last name is Minetti which is super Italian of course, and along with that comes all the drama in her voice! It's fun to just listen to her talk sometimes even if I don't understand all of it. Just imagine what you think a chef from Italy in a pizzería would say and how they'd say it: "DELICIOSA! (the hand to the lips kissing motion thing that they do) Yuppy is always talking like that.
I knew we would have misunderstandings when we try to converse, but the funniest one has to be from the first night. She made me dinner and there's a little TV in the kitchen that we were half-watching while I ate. Of course while eating and trying to remember all my Spanish right off the bat, it was hard to pay attention to the TV as well. Long story short, we talked back and forth for about 3 minutes seemingly on the same topic of what I thought was potatoes (papas) but Yuppy thought it was about El Papa (the pope) until she finally bursted out laughing. I think I may have said something about how tasty potatoes are which finally made it obvious as to how off track we were. It was a funny icebreaker! Despite sometimes major confusion, talking during meals has been super beneficial for me so far to practice speaking and to learn new words.
So yeah, I'd say so far so good with the living situation!
Words of the week!
aceitunas- olives (had to look this up when my host mom asked what foods I don't like)
hongos- mushrooms (same instance as above)
anfitrióna- host (as in "host mother")
huesos- bones. I noticed Yuppy had a large scar on her arm so I asked her about it and began telling her about my foot surgery. Of course halfway through my sentence I realized I couldn't remember the word for "bone." She was pretty certain I was trying to say tendon but without knowing the actual word I couldn't convince her otherwise...I think this is going to happen to me a lot. Keepin the dictionary handy!
vino tinto- red wine (not vino rojo)
compu- short for computer
celu- short for cellphone
bife- beef (not bistec like I learned in high school)
bombilla- metal straw used only for mate drink. I was told in high school that bombilla meant any type of straw. Now I know I guess!
puente- bridge
aca- here (hardly anyone uses aquí)
feriado- holiday
What I've learned so far:
1. There are no lanes for driving and people sort of drive like maniacs, to put it nicely. What is even more scary is to be a pedestrian! Barely any stoplights or stop signs so it's basically a blind guess when cars pull into intersections. No use of blinkers either. It's great.
2. Not many people from Rosario like the President, who believe it or not is a woman! That in of itself is very cool to me, but I don't know much about what she stands for yet. My host mother talked a lot about drugs and 40% of the population of Argentina is in poverty, so I'd guess it has something to do with that. Her name is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and that's about all I have to say about that.
3. Their currency (pesos) has lost so much of its value due to a 24% inflation rate. I'm really bad at understanding this side of math/business but I know that number can't be good. It is also presenting a problem for us to convert our US dollars because we get a 1 to 5 rate whenever we use a debit card when in reality our currency is worth so more much than that right now with the peso going down the sewer. Luckily we have some connections within our host families and professors that can get us better conversion rates with cash, which the Argentine government has technically deemed illegal for an Argentine person to be in possession of US currency or something like that...oh well. Lots of this stuff goes over my head.
4. 80% of the population is Italian and most of the rest is Castellano (Spain). Basically a lot of the young people I've seen look like models because they have the perfect Italian/Latin mix going on in all their features. Pshh like that's even fair.
5. I knew this coming in, but instead of a "y" and "ll" making a "yuh" sound, Argentinians say it like "sh." I struggled when my host mom said easy words like pollo (chicken) because I had to sound it out! I think the sound is more pronounced than I thought it would be.
6. So. much. bread. My host mom has made bread for breakfast everyday with either butter or dulce de leche, which is like the sweetest caramel you'll ever taste. To go along with that, most of us are trying to find a gym to work out at!!!
7. As far as greetings go, you always do a "fake kiss" on the cheek when you meet someone, say hello, say goodbye, leave a room and come back in again (really though) or say goodnight. So far I haven't seen that gender really matters. Saying "chao" for goodbye is very popular here as opposed to "adios" probably due to the Italian culture.
8. Maybe it's just the one restaurant we've been eating at because it's the only one that's been open and that takes our lunch tickets, but something is going on with the fries and chips. And not in a good way. Maybe they use a different oil or like them wet and soggy, but all of us are confused when there's been no crispness or crunchiness to any of it!
9. There's hardly any "one-stop shops" here, like a Target. You've got the jugetería (toystore), panadería (bread store), lavandería (landromat), perfumería (toiletry store), pastelería (cake shop), ferretería (a pet store for ferrets...just kidding, it's a hardware store :) ) But still you see the gist of it. When I actually have to start running errands it's going to be quite a haul around the city!
10. Just to make it a solid 10 things, I just ate 100 grams (like bigger than a king-sized) chocolate bar I found at the store. I think I've been deprived so far here. It's been decided, I'm getting more tomorrow.
10. Just to make it a solid 10 things, I just ate 100 grams (like bigger than a king-sized) chocolate bar I found at the store. I think I've been deprived so far here. It's been decided, I'm getting more tomorrow.
Due to a long holiday weekend for Easter and celebrating the lives of soldiers who died fighting Great Britain for the Falkland Islands (Malvinas), it has been a little difficult to get adjusted here when businesses aren't really open, or when they are it's very irregular hours. We've only had class 1 day too so we could get on a schedule, although having one class didn't really work because I have no clue what I'm doing when classes start tomorrow! The transition to this new life for the next 3 months will probably take awhile.
Hopefully all of this isn't too difficult to follow, but I can only remember so much! At the moment my thoughts are sort of scattered so I think my writing is coming off that way too. I'll update again soon :)
AHHH, love reading about your adventures thus far. It goes by so fast and you forget so much, so blog as much as you can...it's so fun to go back and reread it!! Best of luck, I am so very jealous and excited for you!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Katelyn :) I feel so lucky to be able to have this experience through all its ups and downs! It's been so long since we've seen each other, we should meet up when I'm home and go on a little photo expedition!
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