Settling In, Slowly But Surely

Hello everyone!

As the title says, I'd say this last week has involved a lot of settling in, slowly but surely. You'd think that I'd be settled right after I arrived and unpacked my bags in my new home, but I can tell you that is definitely not the case. Today we began our first full week of classes (well, Monday-Thursday. Yay study abroad schedules!) and it is just occurring to me how crazy it is that I am living in another country for THREE months with someone I've never met who doesn't speak a word of English. Except Yuppy's microwave has english words on it if you want to count that, and every night she tells me "sweet dreams" and I can tell she's so proud of herself haha. It's weird how I don't even think about the fact I'm listening, understanding and speaking Spanish on a daily basis anymore. I feel like I know Yuppy fairly well now and I've learned about her all in a foreign language! It's becoming second-nature to transition from English to Spanish so quickly.

I'm so glad that I'm already pretty comfortable with the whole situation. I know my way to school now and most of the main streets, I understand how to turn the water heater up or down for the shower, I hailed a cab for the first time by myself Saturday night, etc! I'm movin' up in the world.

Other than sporadic required events with the program, we've been able to have quite a bit of free time to ourselves now this past week. On Friday since we didn't have class we went to the beach (Playa Florida) on the river which was sooo wonderful. Beautiful sunshine-y day & caught some rays! Of course not too many people were there because it was during the day on a weekday and some have already ruled out the beach now that it's autumn, but it was still an unseasonably hot day! I hope Argentina keeps having weather like that :)

Later that night...okay wait, back up so I can explain how the nightlife works here. Basically to get cheaper drinks, some people go to a kiosco, which is essentially a mini-mart with tables and chairs inside where you're allowed to drink. I've only been to this particular kiosco twice, but when other people from our group have gone out it seems they always go there so we're probably considered regulars now (and these same older men are always there waiting with plates of...wait for it... MEAT... for us girls. First it was steak, and last time it was sausage. Yeah, doesn't make sense to us either, so just go with it I guess. For the record I did not eat any.

We basically get to the kiosco at midnight, drink wine or beer or whatever else for an hour or two, and THEN you go to the bars or boliches (I haven't been to one yet, but from what I hear it's essentially a crazy nightclub that opens at 2am-6am.) It's definitely an adjustment to be able to stay up so late! No wonder these people need siestas! Actually though, the city is practically a ghost town from 2-4 in the afternoon for "siesta time." Businesses close and everything!

Anyways, Friday night we met up with a girl who grew up in California and moved to Rosario when she was 16. It's nice to have her around to show us the ropes and she's obviously comfortable with the city by now. She speaks both English and Spanish and likes connecting with the international students here. She brought along two friends from Great Britain who were nice enough, although a little odd. I think they got progressively weirder as the night went on. I did like listening to their accents though! So around 2am we went to a bar/half boliche. It was ladies night so we got in free, and ladies night also of course meant all the 30+ men came a'flockin. That was a little weird too, but pretty normal for back home I would guess too. But anyways, we stuck in our familiar group and danced the night away with all the disco lights and such. I think all the bars and dancing is just as crazy as you'd imagine a South American bar to be! It doesn't help we don't really have "club clothes" and Americans are notorious for having no rhythm or moves on the dance floor. Oh well, I think we've all accepted that we don't quite fit in and just have to embrace it.

Saturday we went out for pizza for lunch for the first time! It was pretty good, we had a choice of like 60 different topping options so we just picked at random and got one with 4 different toppings. Four cheese (my fav), chicken, tomato and basil, and one really weird one with palm hearts and flavored mayonaise drizzled on the top. Yeah, for obvious reasons none of us were a fan of that last one. Blegh.

Saturday night we went to a really cool bar called El Paso. It must be popular because it was super packed. There was like 7 of us and we sat outside under a heat lamp and drank probably too much cheap wine. It was a very laid back and fun evening though :) I almost didn't go out because I was tired, but then I reminded myself that I'm in another country and I need to put myself out there and seize a social life whenever possible, that's what the Argentinians do!

One of the things I've had to adjust to here are the beggars who come into cafes and such to ask for food or money. My friend Callie who is studying in Spain said the same thing happens to her. It's always in a different way it seems--dropping off pieces of paper on the table with a written plea on it and later coming by to pick up the money if you leave any, a dad came in to the cafe where I ate lunch today carrying his baby girl and asking for money to pay for feeding her, or when we went to eat pizza some boys that were probably 10 years old straight-up asked if they could have the rest of our pizza. It was the leftover palm hearts/orange mayo drizzle slices...so we said "Go ahead! It's all yours!"

I feel bad for people that have to resort to tactics such as this to get by and it's probably something I'll never get comfortable with. The one 16-year-old boy that left papers on our table had a stray dog following him that did NOT like him one bit. The dog practically snarled, barked and chased him out of the outdoor seating area. Once he left, the dog was totally chill and patrons were petting him to calm him down. This dog then proceeded to curl up in a ball under our table and take a 3-hour long nap on our feet. He was so nice to everyone but that teenager asking for money! It makes me wonder if he had drugs or something on him that the dog could smell. Dogs are so smart and have such incredible instincts, it's insane.

It sounds sad that this city has so many street dogs, but they all seem very clean and well-fed. There were some strays when I went to Trinidad almost 3 years ago, and these dogs are nothing like the starved and sad ones we saw there. Our professors told us that the way people treat pets here is just different. If a family has to move and their next home doesn't allow pets, they just let the dog go. That's why many of them have collars still and they become "community dogs." There's even organizations that go around to fix the animals for free so they don't keep reproducing. When we went to the beach on Friday, there were so many dogs just running along the shore and playing in the water. One even came up to my friend Bianca for no apparent reason, sat practically on her beach towel, and started pawing at her to pet him. He sat there for like 5 minutes--it was so cute! Besides the strays though, the majority of people here own a dog or two. Lots of golden retrievers and chow-chows, believe it or not! All the chows are red and look exactly like my Cookie Monster back home. I miss her ;(

What else...I've gathered that the social life here is so important to Argentine culture. Taking the time to call friends (we've discussed that all of our host moms are super social and their phone is always ringing off the hook), make plans with friends, go to the park and play fútbol or drink some mate, sitting down at a café for some coffee for no particular reason other than the fact you want it, is all so prevalent here. In the states we're so used to the "go go go" mentality that it's hard to transition to just "chillin" basically. Connecting with people at all times takes precedence here for sure.

I know I get stared at like I'm a tourist, but it really doesn't feel like I am. Yes I've just moved here and I'm seeing new things, but I also technically live and go to a university here!

Words of the week!

mudarse- to move (locational)
moverse - to move oneself, for example your body
Buen finde- have a good weekend!
inundación- flood (in the province of Buenos Aires in the city of La Plata...major flooding occurred last week so we've been following the news quite a bit here)
viñedo- vineyard
corcho- cork
manteca- butter
tijeras- scissors
perros callejeros- stray/street dogs
pulpos- octopi
mariscos- shrimp
frontera- border (of countries or states)
cerdo- pig
chi chi- an expression you use when you want to clink glasses for "cheers"

Facebook tells me that this link will work to view all my pictures thus far from this trip, even if you don't have a Facebook, so it's worth a try! La Vida Argentina Facebook Album

For my favorite weekly photos, go to my other blog: Pacovsky Photography. Hasta la próxima!