Tuesday, March 13, 2012

A real post

I've been pretty much failing at this, so here are the first several days of life in Rosario!


The first day…

We touched down in Buenos Aires just before 10am on March 1st after leaving Houston at 9pm the night before (with the change in time zone our flight was about 10 hours). I got maybe 4 hours of sleep on the plane, not bad, but not great either. Once we got off we had to pay our entrance fees and go through customs and headed straight to get on the bus that would take us to Rosario. Like our quick trip between gates in Houston, we had no time to stop for anything at the airport in BA. The drive to Rosario was about 4 hours and then we were dropped off UCEL, our university for the semester where we had a quick little orientation and then met our families and headed off to our respective homes. My home is a little further from the UCEL than some, but it’s right next to the Rio Parana and a nice park in a pretty decent area. My host parents are very nice and are very patient while I get used to speaking Spanish all the time. They say their English is “muy malo” (very bad), but when we’ve gotten stuck in conversation we’ve been able to figure it out either through ridiculous looking hand motions or consulting either my very worn Spanish-English dictionary or the ever popular Google translate. I did not go out and about really today, it was 5pm by the time we got home and I spent the early evening unpacking and getting my little room organized. My first dinner in Rosario was vegetable soup and something very similar to shepherd’s pie, but a little spicier and with no ketchup! After dinner and getting cleaned up I brought out the gifts I’d brought for my host parents and that was the highlight of my day. They were so excited to see the different things- Girl Scout cookies, Simpson College mugs, popcorn we will pop from actual cobs of corn, a beer bread mix, Iowa magnets, and an Iowa picture/coffee table book. At 11:15pm I’m completely ready for bed and to see what tomorrow brings!



March 2nd, day 2

We had to wake up early to get to UCEL for orientation. We had a little tour and just talked about what we should expect and then we had a lunch altogether at a little restaurant near UCEL. We also met our student ambassadors from UCEL. They have a group of students who know and have studied English (most have studied in English speaking countries) put together for us and we can use them as a source to answer questions and they are there to help us find our way around the city and they like to make weekend plans and invite us to them among other things. It was nice to meet a few people before classes started. My host mom picked up from UCEL and we walked home together, it is about a 25 minute walk, but in Rosario they walk a lot! For dinner at my house we had soup, fish, and salad. It was good, and I’m picky about fish (has to be from the sea and fresh haha)! Maddie, Susan, a few others, and I went out with the student ambassadors to a couple small places to just talk and hang out. It was nice to start conversing in Spanish… even if they start speaking English a lot. Maddie, Susan and I tried to keep the Spanish going for practice. It was a good day, but very long.

Day 3

We  had a city tour on a bus, so we saw a few things, but it didn’t really help us get acquainted with Rosario. We saw the Flag Monument and walked around there for a while. The Argentine flag was created in Rosario 200 years ago. We also saw the huge bridge that connects Rosario to the neighboring city across the river which is extremely wide. After, a small group of us walked around a bit on one of the streets where there are just lots of shops and things and no cars are allowed. We had lunch at a café. I had my first Argentine empanadas con pollo (chicken). YUM! It was a very good choice, and they’re cheap! I walked home by myself for the first time from there because I live in the opposite direction than the girls I was with and I made it without getting lost! I saw a Vikings bar on my walk home that is just about 2 or 3 blocks from my house. It looks like it’s just getting put together on the inside and I really hope it opens before I leave. How sweet is that! SKOL VIKES! Dinner was another soup, carrot salad, a corn tart thing & hotdogs… hotdogs were not so good. They were boiled and a bit mushier than the hotdogs we’re used to. Here they also eat their hotdogs with mayonnaise. Gross, gross, gross… but maybe that’s just because I don’t like mayo! I was much too tired to try to go out with the UCEL students so I went to bed early!

Day 4

Today I got to sleep in. It was wonderful! When I got up around 10:30, my host mom told me I was up early, I like the sound of that! In the afternoon I met with Caitlyn, Nicole, and Kelsey and sat down by the river and a bit later the group met up to walk the paseo next to the river. On the weekends, it is very common for people to go sit in the parks and hang out, read, play soccer, and drink mate (a typical Argentine tea drink) and there were absolutely tons of people in the park! It was a very hot day, as the others have been, and we were all sweating buckets in the sun! My feet hurt now from so much walking! My parents invited Maddie & Susan over for dinner. We had empanadas de carne (meat) and beer and flan with dulce de leche for dessert. We had a great time eating and talking with them. Then I got some much needed sleep!

Day 5- Monday

First day of school! I rode the bus for the first time with my host mom. Today we just had Spanish class, it was not too bad at all since at the moment we are just reviewing. After class I finally went and exchanged dollars for pesos and shared a pizza with Caitlyn and Susan for lunch and it was delicious! We hung out in the UCEL café and it rained mucho. They have pop in glass bottles here- it’s so cute! I walked home in the rain, not so fun, but I’ll admit it’s much better than snow! Dinner: spaghetti! The sauce my host dad made was much better than the sauce on the pasta at the restaurant Friday, he actually does all the cooking in the house! For me, that’s very different from back home in Iowa. Dad runs only the grill there!

March 6th

It’s Susan’s birthday! It’s traditional here to bring treats for your birthday much like the US so her mom got her some to bring to our Spanish class this morning. We aren’t sure what they all were but they were pretty good. After Spanish we are supposed to have an Argentine history & culture class, but for some reason that professor didn’t come today so we got out a bit early. Maddie, Susan, Nicole, Caitlyn, Kelsey, and I ate lunch together at a café right next to UCEL and had different pasta dishes from the lunch menu. Very good, very cheap, and came with dessert! The flan there was extremely rich, but I have a huge sweet tooth so I really liked it! After, Maddie and I hung around the UCEL café and I did my homework and then we went on a mission and finally got cell phones. I had felt so disconnected because we had to communicate through Facebook and no one was ever on at the same time and it was a bit frustrating sometimes when we were trying to make plans to do things, so I am happy and set now. Dinner: soup, milonaesa (typical Argentine fried steak kind of thing) and rice. I’m tired again today, but tomorrow I don’t have class until 11:15 instead of the 8:30am classes on Monday and Tuesday!

Day 7

Today I got to sleep in a little bit longer before making my way to UCEL. We had an oral and written communications class with an UCEL professor before lunch and then our reflection class with our Simpson professor after lunch and we were free to go. Maddie, Susan, and I found some empanadas for lunch and then after class we scoped out the UCEL library and used the wifi and did some studying/homework until we went to go meet with some of our group for ice cream around 6 (since you know, dinner isn’t until around 9 or later!). After ice cream and hanging out for a while, I walked home and didn’t do too much of anything. For dinner we had soup, a potato “salad” dish, and another tart thing, but this one had cheese and something similar to spinach in it instead of corn. It was called torte pascaguala or something of that sort. After dinner I got ahead on homework and things since I don’t have a lot to do yet schoolwork wise.

Day 8

No class for me on Thursdays! Slept in a bit and went on a short walk down to the park and sat for a while so I could text my friends about plans because I get very little cell service in my apartment. We decided it was too hot to really do anything outside, so I decided to take a nice little siesta before heading to the university for a meeting about doing volunteer work with an UCEL group with some under privileged kids. After, Maddie, Susan and I walked around for a while again and then I headed back home. My host parents’ oldest son and his two boys were over for dinner so his wife could study for an upcoming test. The boys were so cute! The younger one was pretty intrigued by me, but the older one (kindergarten) wanted absolutely nothing to do with me. All he would tell his abuelo (my host dad, his grandpa) when he would tell him to ask me about where I was from was, “No me importa” (I don’t care). It was pretty funny. Since I had 8:30am class again Friday I packed it in early.

Day 9- Friday

I have officially been here for an entire week. It doesn’t really feel like that long, and I hope the time doesn’t go by this fast the whole trip! Class this morning was pretty much the same review stuff and not too interesting and then I stayed in the café to use the wifi and forgot to upload all this to my blog again… oops. Maddie and I went and found a little place to get some good salads for lunch and then parted ways to take a siesta before whatever plans we decide on for the night.

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