Official Three Month Mark

So Since we got back from the south trip it´s been kind of difficult. Right after I got home and the re-culture shock began I became the most homesick I´ve ever been in Argentina and rereading everyone´s notes and letters didn´t exactly help. But nevertheless that is what happened. Everything has been so irregular since returning. School was fine but we were all looking forward to summer really intently. Classes ended on the 25 of November and right now I´m technically on summer break save the traditions of being a Senior. I feel very welcomed by my class and we actually did do a lot of fun things in retrospect. I was blessed with a class that had a bunch of field trips. I think I went on a total of about six. We went to a book fair, had a play day, a day to learn about indigenous cultures and traditions, a walk to the park, and the last day of school we went to a campground in the mountains where we had a barbeque and swam in the river all day. Now that it´s the end my class is seizing the day. On the last day actually at the school the whole grade was in tears, everyone was so sad to end this chapter of their life. They were all saying well since I´m going to university in this city all of you better visit me, or I´ll miss you. This was the exact oppositte of my last day of high school in the US. My last day I was jumping for joy, I went around waving the Argentine flag and I was told I was "the happiest graduate". I was. So to come to a world where everyone is so sad to leave eachother to start life in the real world is a little strange. But I do love my class´spirit, we always had fun and they really loved seizing everything especially when it was a competition with the school. We also had a sort of showcase for the school the second to last week of school where it was a parents night and every department showed off students projects. The school was transformed into the theme Technoscience with cds everywhere and even a robot near the courtyard stage. My class did an amazing dance where all memebers did something, but I was not in it because I haven´t really been there enough regularly to plan it out with them. However my input for the showcase was doing a presentation for the English Department. I did it with a rotex who just came back from Holland and a freshman at my school who actually lived in Berlin for three years. It went really well and I really enjoyed seeing and sharing all of our experiences. it was really interesting to hear about their experiences and great to share them because here everyone is so focused on Argentina. Now we´re preparing for graduation, and the traditional senior dinner which is a formal event. I will recieve an honorary diploma, and then I´ll be done until February when classes start up again but I will go to a school closer to my third family.

We were supposed to change families the first week of December but since my second family is going to Disney world in Florida and Cancun Mexico for ten days, (im missing yet another oppurtunity to go to disney world!) I will stay in my current family until they return. Last week I was worried about the subject because as far as I knew I was changing families December first or second and arriving to an empty home. So I went to talk to my counselor about it. I hadn't really been to his house before but I had met his wife and oldest daughter. He's really a cool guy and I had a nice time just hanging out in his house with his family. His youngest daughter is adorable. And he has a radio station so we talked about all kinds of music and movies. So now I think I'm going to do more things with my counselor. Especially this summer when I'll probably have some very bored moments. I'm really glad that I chose to come here. Especially here because in other places like western Europe I don't think I would've seen the same things. Especially the problems. Because here all of the hypothetical problems we talk about in he classroom are a reality. Like littering, water shortages, and gasoline rationing. Which were all issues in environmental science class last year and when I was kind of bored with those topics I got kind of impatient, natural to my senioritus and wanting to leave so badly. But now I see that we really have issues to think about like those, especially since in the us the products just keep coming and hey Try to make them cheap for us so we can maintain our lifestyle. School is really different here, university is too. Whenever I explain the concept of liberal arts colleges, everyone is fascinated. Here public school is free so most people end up going to la Rioja, staying in catamarca, or going to Cordoba which is the best and largest it makes OSU look puny. But they don't have the oppurtunity to do undecided or have the community that liberal arts provides. So I feel so lucky that I secured that scholarship at Denison. I feel ever more confident in my decision after coming here. It really makes you appreciate what you took for granted in the US. The attitude here is so different about organization, even with Rotary. Usually it takes a month for an idea to become a reality. So Among the exchange students we do spontaneous activites with the help of Facebook. Someone posts and we say "meet us in the center for ice cream at 7 at miles' family's shop" and people come. One of the great things is that by being around all the other the exchange students I'm picking up some words and phrases in their languages. I would say I'm the best at Dutch as there are three Dutch students here and I see them a lot plus with their language being a mix of English and German and with the little German I know I can understand them fairly well sometimes. It's pretty hot here already but everyone keeps saying "wait until summer" I'm getting kind of scared haha, but with a lot of host families that have pools we're gonna have some great pool parties. Sometimes it's the simple things that I miss like sleeping on the pink couch and watching Netflix. Here they only sleep on beds, and Netflix is coming here I've seen many adds for it but somehow my iPod knows I'm in a country that doesn't have it all the way yet so it won't let me watch anything. There is no ethnic food because there are no minorities or ethnicities, although they do refer to certain people as "blacks" even though they're not actually black. I've only seen one african American person here and that was in cordoba a really big city. This really confused me when I first got here, but what they really mean is the shady type of people who steal things.

THE BUS
Well I´ve never been claustrophobic or anything like that but when I´m taking the bus I may as well be. I´ve never been in a place with that little personal space in my life. The bus is actually safe in Argentina. And everyone says that Catamarca is very tranquil so I´m comfortable taking it quite often to get to the center for my culture classes duuring the day. Anytime after about 11:30 at night though I refuse to take the bus. This is because I went with my host sister once to eat with a friend and we took the bus back at around 1 or 2 am. The bus fare is usually 2.50 pesos, and the bus driver charged us 8 pesos. I asked my sister about it and she said that the drivers only hike up the prices at night because inspectors come during the day to check it out, but at night since no one is checking them and they have command of the bus they can do whateer they want. It´s for this and the other reason is that I don´t really know when exactly the last bus leaves to go to where I live, but even if I did who knows at what time the bus would actually arrive so I conclude taking a pricey taxi and being safe about it is far better than being stuck alone in a shady bus stop. This is really my main issue right now because I really like my family and all it´s just that all of my rotary activities and hanging out occurs in the center and getting back to where I live can be a real hassle sometimes and there were times when I actually had to stay over at people´s houses. Like once I went to a friends to watch a movie and the brother left and set the security alarm. He said that if we tried to leave or open a window or do anything the police would come, so we had to stay.

This summer I am trying to fill it with activities but it will be quite difficult and I´ve heard from other people that summer here can be kind of boring. Here the culture is to go out every day in summer, including Christmas which is like a dinner with family and then a huge party. It´s also a time for lots of pool time. I am perfectly fine with pool time and my second host famiy has a pool. I´ve only gone swimming for three days and already I´m tanner than I was all summer in Ohio. The pool is something to look forward to but right now in my family we dont really go out much, my family works and then we eat together, have siesta, they work some more, then we have dinner and wrap up the day. So lately I´ve been playing with my little brother but I´m yearning for an activity for me to do. So I´ve decided to get my butt up a little earlier each day and then I can learn to cook from the maid and help her with lunch. This and then I want to cook more for my family. And then in the center when I switch families I will take up swimming with another exchange student who has a different activity planned for every day of the week practically. I didnt really realize the wide variety of activities we had at GHS. I even told people that we had a cake club and bearded man club. my goals this summer are to cook more, learn more spanish, travel to some other cities, and swim a LOT. I´m looking forward to actually learning how to cook the argentine style because then I can bring it back with me and use it for years to come.

Life on a double decker bus for three weeks

So today is my first day home since October 24, now what have I been doing since then? I´ve been on the most amazing trip of my life. Sometimes when I describe it it might not sound that way to everyone, but even the bad things or the mistakes are all part of my fond memories of this trip now. We started the trip from Catamarca early in the morning on the 25, and I rode my first double decker bus! it was so cool, and then when we woke up we were in cordoba capital, where we hung out at the bus terminal for a while, and then walked around a bit to get to know some basic landmarks, then we went to a cool shopping center called patio olmos. It was there that I had my first American fast food bacon cheese burger in months, it made my soul and arteries happy. There we met up with some of the other exchange students from the other districts that would be traveling with us. Finally at 1pm we all were ready and heading out in the bus to start a great adventure. we spent the night in the bus, which was ok because it´s more comfortable than an airplane, and there were nice tvs and a dvd player so we watched lots of movies, and most of them I´d wanted to see for a long time so I was quite happy on the bus snuggled up eating an alfajore snack. Some of the best memories I had on the bus was when there was absolutely nothing to do and we just talked or joked around. like how the New Zealanders would criticize us jokingly over the American pronunciation of certain words, or word choice for example "the desert is called jelly guys, not jell-o!". We ended up having multiple debates about things like that, but they are some of the most hilarious people I know. And we actually got to know each other really well and we shared so many stories. One of my favorites is about one guy´s first experience with a bidet (which is in every single private bathroom in Argentina) he said at first he thought it was for washing your feet, and that he turned the knobs so much that the water hit the ceiling. Our first stop was Puerto Madryn which is a coastal town, it´s actually where the Welsh settlers landed to make a better life for themselves, and in that province there are still people of welsh descent that preserve their language and customs, which I thought was pretty cool. We stayed there for three days, and did some great things. We went whale watching, saw seals, and PENGUINS! Then we went to El Calafate, which I think was my favorite part of the trip. There we had these awesome mountain cabins with an incredible view of the mountains and the lake. We stayed for three days, and we walked down to the lake, which is one of the largest in Argentina and there´s actually flamingoes living there! which is cool and weird because the mountains stay snow capped all year and I always envision flamgingoes being in a very tropical climate. The second day we were there was the most incredible, we went to the parque de los glaciares, and saw the glaciar perito moreno, which is incredible! It´s a glacier that is right on the lake, but it´s very jagged and jaded, but then right next to it are the mountains in spring with so much green foilage and waterfalls. It´s the only advancing inland glacier in the world, and we got to trekk on it with crampons. Which was awesome, and we drank some of the water which tasted amazing. I´ll never forget it. It was also nice in Calafate to have green grass and nice sun, not overbearing catmarca sun. So we hung out alot in the backyard of our cabin and read, listened to music and took pictures. It was so nice not having to worry about anything, just enjoy the scenery. Then we left calafate at 3:30 in the morning to start making our way to Ushuaia, that was at least 35 hours in the bus. We had to go through customs three times because the only way to get to the little part of tierra del fuego that Argentina has is to go through Chile, take a ferry, and then reenter the country. Traveling in between cities in Patagonia and in Tierra del fuego is unlike any other traveling I´ve done because when we drive 30 hours in the bus, we only stop like three times, there´s a lot of nothing out there. It´s pure nature, it´s incredible. Tierra del fuego is close to New Zealand is what the kiwis tell me, just change the foilage. It has the same basic things of mountains, and the ocean, and lots of sheep. It was at this point where all of the New Zealanders were a bit home sick, I thought all of the landscapes were incredible, just so raw and wild. In ushuaia we went to the national park which was kind of cool, and we also got to play with some sled dogs just outside of the city. This was pretty fun there were so many of them and since it´s spring here it´s not the season so we just got to see some pictures and artifcats about sled dogs and then we got to play with them. Something else that´s cool is that Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world and so most of the antartic travel and expeditions leave from there, so in all the tourist shops one can buy just as many trinkets that say Antartica, and they say Ushuaia, because Ushuaia is closer to the south pole than it is to Buenos Aires. And it is a tax free city, this may sound amazing at first but in reality the cost to get products to the southernmost city in the world makes it pretty expensive, except for Electronics, which are manufactured on the island. That´s another thing, all of Patagonia is pretty expensive, especially food. On the way back from Ushuaia I was at my low point because I was getting sick and tired, but I still loved being on the trip with these incredible people who are like my family. From there we went onto Esquel which was our last place with awesome cabins. I really loved the cabins because I was sort of the "mom" of the house of 7 girls. I had everyone on a schedule, always making something in the kitchen and cleaning. In the morning we went to another national park which was cool, it had bamboo, some indigenous paintings on rocks and we did a hike which had an incredible view of another lake with a bunch of mountains. Then we were on our way to Bariloche! Bariloche is the 2nd or 3rd most touristic city in the whole of Argentina. It´s a huge party town, there is a tradition that all the seniors of every school go to Bariloche for a week and just party. When we went the season was over, so It wasn´t as crazy as everyone had told me. It was really cool though because it´s the section of Argentina that looks very German. It has amazing skiing, chocolate, and the architecture makes me think it´s a little mountain town in the alps. It also has a really big lake. All of the lakes in the south were beautiful. Then we made our final stop in San Martin de los Andes, which was a small town and famous for their gardens, while we were there it was raining the whole time so we just chilled when we were there. Which was nice because we needed a rest. And then we got ready for another long bus ride between san martin and cordoba which was about 24 hours and then we said goodbye and then the catamarca people had another 6 hour bus ride ahead of us. After such an adventure it´s almost impossible to describe what it´s like until you´ve lived it because it becomes normal, it becomes your life. And now that I´m back in my host family it seems like it was all a dream, but it wasn´t it was my life. And now I can´t wait to do it again in the north trip, but I will dearly miss the kiwis.
Traveling to other parts of the country it makes me realize how distinct each province is in their own culture. For example the people from Tucuman use some different words and phrases that I had never heard, the same for Cordoba, and the students from Santa Fe have a different accent, some of them told me my accent was wrong, and I was like well I speak like everyone in the northwest of argentina. And the Siesta is not really done in the south, they don´t really need to escape the heat so there´s is really just an extended lunch, it´s not like catamarca where things are closed for like 5 or 6 hours. Also in the south we met way more tourists from our countries, which was kind of cool because some of them had amazing stories to tell, like this one dutch couple had been all over the world and they had been doing it since they were 18, and they were telling us about Africa and how they really enjoyed Rwanda, and a week after they left the genocide started.
Then again it also cements commonalities in the argentine culture, especially food. Like how here cereal is not prepared with milk, it´s prepared with a very think yogurt which is typically flavored vanilla or strawberry or something. This type of drink I saw in France, so it´s actually really delicious with frosted flakes. Another trype of food is the alfajore which is like a cookie with dulce de leche sanwiched with another cookie and covered in chocolate, this can also be donce with a brownie like mini cake, both are amazingly delicious. One of my favorite foods here is like a grilled chese sandwich but it has jam and mayo in it to but the way it´s made is different, there are three layers of bread, and no crust. they´re called tostadas and it´s my comfort food. Another thing is the highway infastructure is not very good. Most of the time we were traveling on dirt roads, and there are even dirt roads here in Catamarca which is a sizable city, same goes for sidewalks there is commonly piles of gravel or things in the way when you walk around which is why I usually wear flats around, because it takes skill and pacience to walk around stuff like that in heels. Street dogs, there are so many dogs on the street here, there´s a plaza in every town we go to, and something has to be named after San Martin. Another thing is the money here is really worn out and most of the time cashiers don´t have enough change so they´ll ask you for change, or give you something that´s the equivalent of a peso or two, like a little candy.
Having to go back to a regular schedule will be kind of weird because for two weeks we had a different schedule every day, some days we´d leave at 3am, others at 7, others at 1 pm. I´ll have to regain knowledge in spanish, tango, and guitar. But I feel the bonding that we did on this trip was incredible and I want to see this group again. It´s weird to think summer is only two weeks away. I´m not sure what I´m going to do with all of that free time. There is so much change coming that I´m waiting to see when more definate things come so then I can plan out my time.