Orientation and Arrival!

Oh my gosh, there is so much to say! From the beginning... we all got to the airport, were escorted to security, then were on our own to wait for the plane. That is when it hit us all, that we were going to Argentina! Some of us had a nice conversation with a man from Cordoba, and later on a woman from Buenos Aires. The plane... was a plane. With plane food, and plane blankets and plane pillows. So I got about three hours of sleep. Getting through baggage claim was no big issue, but going through the visa line was awful just because there were 25 of us trying to speak Spanglish and find papers and stay organized. We made it out alive, and AFS volunteers took us on a three hour bus ride (with the Icelanders- who had fish jerky- and the Canadians) to three different orientation locations. Each location had about 80 students. My location was a church camp where we slept in bunk beds. There were a lot of countries represented, mainly the twenty or so Italians and 8 Americans. The orientation was in English, so although the other students from Europe all seemed to speak four languages, we were the only ones that understood everything easily. After a spontaneous dance party at midnight, we went to bed, and after one more day of activities and mate drinking most of us took buses to the station and then split up by province to our long distance buses. Which were awesome. And had the best food, and fully reclining chairs and curtains. It was the best I slept since leaving home. We arrived in Formosa a little before eleven, and there we met the AFS Formosa president and the current exchange students and our families. When I arrived, my family wasn't there because we arrived sooner than expected (and later I learned that they had a flat tire) but a student from my school came with their family, so there was someone waiting. After about ten minutes, my family showed up and we headed out. We had lunch, then I hung out in my room with my host aunt, Jimena, my host sister, Maya, my host brother, Nicholas, and the student from my school, Gianfranco. It was nice to get to know them, and Spanglish was serving me well. Later we went on a walk to the coast, and Paraguay was right across the river. Afterwards, we went to have dinner at the house of another aunt and some cousins, who are all younger than me and absolutely adorable and absolutely non-understandable hahaha. Sign language is a helpful tool. I am supposed to start school Wednesday!