I’ve had a pretty low-key weekend after Friday night, which is why I’m only putting up one post for Saturday and Sunday. After not getting home until 4am, I slept in until about 11:00 yesterday morning. It was gray and overcast nearly all day; therefore, I used that fact to justify staying in my pajamas until after lunch. I spent some time online in the morning, and after lunch I went on a walk. I mostly just wanted to check on mass times at the cathedral, and it started to drizzle while I was out, so my walk was cut short to about an hour. Once I was back, Zulema kept asking me if I wanted to watch TV so I gave in. I flipped past Disney Channel, partidos de fútbol, what looked like Argentine VH1, and eventually settled on watching about half of Spiderman en español. It was actually really interesting; since I already kind of knew what was going on in general, I had fun trying to figure out what everyone was saying. After a while I went to my room to read, and later I heard someone come over. I wandered into the kitchen where Zulema and (who seems to be) her novio, Hugo, were having mate. I sat down with them for tea and we had fun talking. Hugo is quite a character! I hope he comes around more often. He’s funny and very animated when he talks, which makes it easier for me to understand him. He kept making us laugh, and Zulema kept asking him why he’s never taken theater classes. They went to the grocery store together and came back and made dinner and we all ate together. After dinner they told me that they take a drawing class together (like a sketching class), and Hugo had fun showing me all of his drawings. Around 9:30 they went to the movies together, and I have to say that I definitely give them my vote for the cutest elderly Argentinean couple ever! This morning we all got up and had breakfast together, and afterwards I walked to the cathedral for mass at 10:30. La misa (mass) was muy linda (very beautiful)! The cathedral is gorgeous and reminds me of the elaborate churches in Europe; it has paintings covering nearly every inch of the walls and ceiling, ornate golden décor, gorgeous arches, and beautiful statues. It was also interesting for me to try to figure out what they were saying. For those of you who went to mass this weekend you can correct me, but I’m pretty sure the Gospel was about the Last Supper and how Jesus told the disciples that they wouldn’t understand what he was doing until later. I know the homily was about the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and how although it’s hard for us to understand we must have faith and believe. I’m not completely sure, there were no books to follow along with so I had to rely solely on my listening skills (which sometimes aren’t even that good at masses in English…), so I was quite proud of myself that I wasn’t completely lost! After mass I came back home where Hugo and Zulema were already cooking. Zulema’s daughter, her husband, and their three kids came over for a big family lunch, and it was a lot of fun! The oldest grandchild was a girl who seemed close to my age, and the other two were boys age 11 and 8; therefore, there wasn’t really a boring moment around the apartment today! After lunch we all sat around the table and talked for a while. The boys wanted to go to the movies and asked me if I wanted to go with them, and of course I said yes. The movie theater is across the street only about half a block away, so all three grandkids and I walked over there together and we saw The Prince of Persia, or El principe de Persia. It was pretty good, and for the most part I understood what was going on. After, we returned to the apartment where the adults were sitting around talking and drinking mate and we all joined them and had tea. They left around 6:45 and now things are back to normal. I really enjoyed getting to meet Zulema’s family and hang out with the kids, and I think this has definitely qualified as a great weekend!

¡Vamos salir!

My second day of getting to campus went much better! Armed with enough cospeles to get me through the day, I left the apartment at 8:30 and even arrived to my first class a few minutes early. Our actual 312L professor is still in the U.S. at UT and is traveling back this weekend, but both of our subs have been great. All of the professors here are interesting and make class fun. 318 was great as well, and afterwards I had no problems getting home. Because I remembered to take the correct street this time, I was able to relax while walking home and take in what was going on around me. I even bought some shoes (they were on sale for less than nine American dollars) and stopped in to look around a pet shop (and yes, for those of you who are wondering, they did have Argentine rabbits!). I got home around 1:30 and afterwards took what is starting to become my daily afternoon siesta. We had our introductory meeting for the Speaking Partner Program at 6:15, so I left the apartment a little after 4 so I could take my time walking there. I went in and out of shops just looking around, took a short stroll through the mall, and ended up at a cute coffee shop near the place where our meeting was going to be. I had my merienda of coffee and a medialuna, and just stayed there and read for about an hour. Some of the other UT students walked by and saw me through the window, so we all ended up walking together to Palacio Ferreyra (which, by the way, I’ve given up on trying to pronounce correctly). The Palacio, where our meeting was, is a beautiful building that used to be one of the wealthiest colonial homes in Córdoba; however, it is now owned by the city and serves as the main classical art museum. Once we were all in the meeting room we found out who our partners were and got to spend time getting to know one another. They are all super nice and fun to be around! My partner’s name is Victoria, and although we didn’t get to talk much yesterday I already like her and think we will get along well. We were divided up into groups and were given topics to choose from to discuss (for example, differences in campus life, food, stereotypes, etc.), and after about 20 minutes people from each group went to the front and presented what they had talked about. It was so much fun because the Argentine students are trying to improve their English and we are trying to improve our Spanish; therefore, each partner would speak the other’s native language and we would help each other out. Also, although Zulema couldn’t be nicer or more accommodating, it was really fun getting to talk to and hang out with young people from here. After the meeting a large group of us walked to Patio Olmos and had dinner together in the food court and continued talking and getting to know each other. After dinner we went back to our houses to change and then all met up once again at Paseo del Buen Pastor (which is kind of a plaza area with a big fountain and nice restaurant in the middle of the student area of Córdoba) at midnight. Although we knew it was still really early to be out by Argentinean standards, none of us really wanted to just sit in our houses. Most of us ordered drinks (I split a bottle of Argentine white wine with some of the girls) and we just hung out and talked while we waited for all of the group - which was made up of UT students as well as some of our new Speaking Partners - to get there. After an hour and a half or so we set off to experience the local nightlife with our new Argentinean friends. We had a good time, but they definitely weren’t lying when they told us about how late the young people go out here! Most of the clubs we went to were almost completely empty until about 2:30, and it took until about 3:30 for the one we were at to finally seem full! They definitely can out-party me any day, and by 4:00am we were mostly all home or in taxis on our way.

El primer día de mis clases

Today was my first day to do things on my own and get into the routine I will have for the next few weeks. However, it seems that nothing can ever go smoothly the first time, and getting to campus this morning was quite an adventure in and of itself. I woke up, got dressed, and had my now-normal breakfast of coffee, cereal, and what looks like a shot glass of orange juice (Zulema says it has vitamins that are good for my health), and left the apartment a little before 8:30. Yesterday Zulema had bought me my two cospeles for the day and told me that tomorrow I could come to the same place on the corner and buy more. That was my first problem: the store that we had gone to yesterday was closed when I got there this morning. Trying my best not to panic, I went to the next kiosco that I saw; however, the man working there told me he didn’t have cospeles and to try the next one. Of course it didn’t have them, and neither did the one after that. I was just about resigned to walk to campus and just be late when finally I saw another woman buying them from another store and followed suit. After securing four cospeles I faced my next challenge: getting on the correct bus. When I asked Zulema which one to take she had told me, “A2, A6, A7…there are many, if you have any doubts just ask the bus driver if he’s going to the university.” What I said in reply was gracias, but what I was thinking was “Oh great.” So, standing on the sidewalk, I had no clue which one to get on. I used my observation skills and saw that there were some other people that seemed about my age with backpacks and notebooks getting on bus A. No number, just A. So I decided to follow them and just hope for the best. However once I got on the bus my confidence level fell and I asked the bus driver, ¿Va a la universitaria? (the phrase I had carefully practiced with Zulema) and he looked at me like I was an idiot, nodded, took my cospel, and we were off. Fortunately, after about 15 minutes we arrived at the UNC campus. Afraid of missing my stop, I anxiously got off of the bus at the stop before the one I had gone to yesterday. Thus commenced challenge number 3: finding Casa Verde. Fortunately this was probably the easiest of the day, and I just wandered in the direction that I thought it was and finally found the building. Miraculously, after all of my morning adventures, I still arrived about 7 minutes early. I can honestly say that I’ve never been more relieved to get to class! I had my first class, SPN 312L, from 9-11 and my second class, SPN 318, from 11-1. I have to say that, so far, I love my classes! There are 8 of us in the first one and then it’s the same 8 plus two others in the second. The professors couldn’t be nicer and it’s fun having such a small class of people that I know. My 318 professor, Profesora Ingrid, told us that they don’t get paid much extra to teach these classes but she teaches them every year because she loves helping international students. Also, studying in this situation provides such a different atmosphere than I’ve ever experienced. For the first time I don’t want to go to class just in order to make a good grade. Here, all of the students participate and strive to improve not because we have to, but because we want to. Here the learning doesn’t stop when class ends: for the first time I know that whatever I learn in class I’m going to step out of Casa Verde and immediately use. Whereas one hour of Spanish class at home would most days seem to drag on, our four straight hours of class today seemed to fly by. After class I set off to once more tackle the bus. I knew that todos los colectivos azules (all of the blue buses) would take me to Plaza San Martín, and from there I could easily walk home. However, even though that part was easy, I somehow took a wrong turn at the plaza once I got off. Therefore I was presented with my fourth and final challenge of the day: finding my way home after getting lost. Fortunately I bring my map with me everywhere I go, and once I figured out where I was I was able to eventually make my way back home. I arrived at the apartment around 1:45 and ate lunch, took a nice siesta for a couple of hours, and then got up and did my homework. A little before 7 I met up with Thor, another one of the UT students, and we went walking around downtown. We went to Patio Olmos, the mall, and then he showed me where he lives and walked me back so I could show him where Zulema’s house is. I got back home around 8:30 and Zulema and I went around the corner to a pollería, which was a small store where they pretty much just had a huge charcoal grill covered in cooking chickens, and Zulema bought half of one. Then we went to the bakery next door and she bought some fresh baked rolls and we came back home and ate dinner. Something important that I’ve forgotten to mention is the temperature of my current home. As many people know I am a strong believer in that everything happens for a reason, and after a year of complaining I finally know why I was forced to live in a dorm room of arctic temperatures: I can’t think of a better way to have prepared myself for not having a heater. During the day the temperature is perfectly fine, but after about 8:00pm the house is muy fría! After going out tonight I’ve discovered that, I guess since we live on the tenth floor, it’s even colder inside than it is outside. She kept telling me something about it and I was hoping she was telling me that the heater was broken (because that would mean that it eventually might be fixed). I finally somewhat understood on our way back tonight that a pipe broke somewhere and the water got in the motor of the heater and now it doesn’t work. She said hopefully it will be fixed sometime in the next week. But I don’t really mind, it’s a small price to pay for being able to be in this awesome place and after dear old Moore-Hill I’m very used to wearing sweat pants, jackets, and my fuzzy socks indoors.

¿Cómo...¿sos?!

Today was a day to get acquainted with our new schedules. This morning Zulema made me coffee and breakfast and we left the apartment a little before 9:00. We went to the kiosko on the corner to buy some cospeles, which are the tokens you need in order to get on the bus. It was a little confusing because there are multiple buses I can take. Also, they don't call buses los autobuses here, but instead los colectivos. Once we got to the campus Zulema walked me to Casa Verde, the university building that houses the program office and where my classes will be, and I met up with all of the other UT students. In the morning we had our extracurricular orientation and found out that we meet our speaking partners Friday evening! We all had lunch at a place near campus; of course it was three courses with the main dish being none other than a huge steak. The other half of today's orientation was our Spanish orientation, which was a two hour class to help familiarize us with differences in Argentine Spanish and the Spanish we've been taught. Mostly, how to use the "vos" instead of the "tú" form. It's not necessarily difficult, it's just different and something I haven't practiced. It will definitely take getting used to - I'm pretty sure my brain was a little overloaded when I left. Since it was my first day Zulema came to pick me up and we came back and had tea and hung out at home. Dinner conversation was much better today; I felt that it was slightly less one way than yesterday's meals. Today on our way back Zulema told me that she hosted an Australian student who didn't talk and didn't talk for a while in the beginning, but by the end of her stay she couldn't get her to stop talking in Spanish. So I told Zulema that hopefully after the next five and a half weeks that will be me!

¡Feliz bicentenario!

Or in other words, happy bicentennial of Argentina! Today marks 2oo years of the country's independence from Spain and I have to say it's quite awesome to be here during the celebration! Last night we missed the first round of fireworks, but after dinner we went back to Plaza San Martín to watch the changing of the guard. It was so packed with people that we couldn't see very well, but it was an awesome experience to just be there. When most of us Americans hear the word patriotism and visualize being patriotic all we know are mental images of red, white and blue and Uncle Sam. However, last night was an extremely special experience; to be amidst a sea of white and sky blue and listen to everyone around me, from the old man to my right to the 4 year old boy on his father's shoulders in front of me, singing their national anthem gave me a new image of patriotism. Although I am a proud American, it was difficult to not catch the enthusiasm of nearly everyone around us! This morning we packed up our things and at noon we checked out of the hotel and I finally got to meet mi madre anfitriona (my host mom)! Zulema is one of the nicest women I have ever met; she has completely welcomed me into her home and continues to put up with my awful Spanish. She is an elderly woman who has three children and seven grandchildren, so I guess it would be more appropriate to call her mi abuela anfitriona. She showed me around her apartment and then made lunch and we began to get to know each other. I asked her how many international students she has hosted and her reply was too many to count. After I unpacked I told her I wanted to go on a walk and she gave me some general directions and I left to begin to acquaint myself with my new neighborhood. Her apartment is in an awesome location and is basically in the middle of downtown. I'm only about three or four blocks from Plaza Italia and Paseo Sobremonte, two very beautiful plazas that we saw during our tour yesterday, and only a little farther away from Plaza San Martín. I had a good time taking pictures and people watching. Although most of the stores are closed right now for the holiday, I wandered into some of the grocery stores to just look around. Once I made it to San Martín I had a lot of fun wandering around and looking at all of the street vendors. There was such a variety of stuff from clothing to accessories to movies - basically anything you can think of. Before leaving the plaza I was able to go inside the cathedral and walk around, and to say it was beautiful would be an understatement. I'm hoping to be able to go to mass there at least once while I'm here. I made my way back home, and around 6:00 Zulema made tea and we had our merienda. The meal schedule is a little different here; you have a light breakfast, lunch around 12:30 or 1:00, merienda, or tea time, around 6:00 and dinner between 9:00 and 10:00. We had our tea and pastries and sat in the living room and watched the Bicentennial celebration in Buenos Aires on the news. They said that there are about 3 million people there celebrating, and we were watching the president of Argentina (who, by the way, is an extremely beautiful woman if you have never seen her) welcome most of the heads of state of other Latin American countries to La casa rosaria, the Argentine equivalent to the White House. I couldn't have asked for a better home away from home and I'm looking forward to getting to know Zulema better over the next 5 weeks!

Before Opening Your Mouth, You Must Open Your Mind

...that was Roxana's message at our first orientation meeting last night, and I feel like it was wonderful advice. In other words, we must be willing to submerge ourselves in the local culture before we are able to reach the ultimate goal: becoming fluent in Spanish. To kick off our cultural experience they took us to a restaurant called Mariachis that is only about a block down the street from our hotel to have Lomitos, or Argentine hamburgers. They were extremely different from American hamburgers but also extremely good! First, they were huge...about half of one equaled the size of a normal American hamburger. Also, in addition to lettuce and tomatoes they had a fried egg and a slice of ham, and the meat was more like a very thin slice of steak rather than ground hamburger. After dinner, a group of us decided to go out and do a little exploring of our new home. We stopped at a very nice bar down the street and, to celebrate our first night, we ordered a bottle of wine from Mendoza and had fun visiting and getting to know one another. Before heading back to the hotel we took a little walk in the direction of Plaza San Martín, the main plaza in the center of the city. Although it was about midnight, it was interesting to see the local vendors set up on the main pedestrian streets. They offered items from DVDs to scarves to bras and it was interesting to peruse the merchandise. Once we made it to the plaza we were immediately struck by the cathedral lit up at night. We had fun taking pictures and just being together in this amazing city. They also have a stage set up in the plaza, and Roxana told us today that, along with a fireworks show, there is going to be a concert tonight for the bicentennial celebration and we are most likely going to get to go. We walked back and arrived at the hotel around 12:45, which would be considered extremely early to locals, but we were all tired after traveling. This morning we started our next orientation session at 9:30 and finished at 1:00 to have lunch. We will be leaving soon for our city and campus tour and can't wait to see more of the city. 24 hours left in the hotel until we meet our familias anfitrionas (host families)!

We Made It!

¡Hola a todos! After about 16 hours of traveling I finally made it to Córdoba! My first flight from Houston to Atlanta went smoothly aside from running out of space in the overhead bins. I honestly thought people were going to throw down in the aisle and flight attendants were yelling, but after that was settled and we took off the rest of the flight went well. Upon landing I had about 40 minutes to traverse the entire Atlanta airport but I made it in plenty of time to board. I can't tell you much about my 9 and a half hour flight from Atlanta to Santiago because it seems that I have not lost my gift and pretty much passed out for the entire flight. It helped that my seat partner also seemed to possess the same gift; needless to say, we made up a pretty boring row. After we landed I was faced with my biggest challenge thus far: tackling the Santiago airport/customs. First of all, the airport was SOO cold! I had been in South America for about ten minutes and I was already freezing! I went through multiple checkpoints and had some confusion with where to go to catch my next flight, but thankfully I had a two and a half hour layover and got everything worked out in time. When I finally made it to the gate I met up with some other UT students, and it was great to have people to talk to. We finally landed in Córdoba about 12:25pm (10:25am Texas time), picked up our bags, and headed to customs together. Going through customs made me realize how glad I am to be here; although I can understand most people around me, as soon as I open my mouth to respond my Spanish seems to fly out of the window. We met up with Roxana (the program director here) and a group of 5 or 6 other students who had flown in from Buenos Aires and all took a bus to the King David Hotel. From what we saw on our way over here I already love the city! However everything seems really dead right now. Roxana told us this weekend is Argentina's bicentennial, so in celebration most places are closed for a four day weekend. When we got to the hotel we checked in and dropped our bags off to head back down to the lobby for lunch. Apparently many people had major flight issues (I'm one of the few lucky ones who didn't), and there is a whole group from Dallas stuck in Atlanta overnight, so even though there are supposed to be three of us together it's just me and my roommate Dakota right now. Now we are resting before our first orientation meeting at 7. Our rooms are nice, and free wi-fi equalled a happy Kyndal! Tomorrow is a full day of orientation, and we all can't wait for the city and UNC campus tours! Introductions to host families come Tuesday after lunch...I think that's what we're all most excited about!