¡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.