Today I got home from a weekend trip to a small town in the province called San Hilario. It's where a classmate of mine is from, and she goes there every weekend to be with her mom. It also happens to be the town of the Japanese student Ruka. So, this weekend, she invited me to go with her.
We left straight from school on Friday and got on a little, fourteen passenger mini bus to the town. It was more or less an hour and a half, partially on the highway and partially dirt roads. We arrived to her house around 2 in the afternoon starving, and we sat down to some delicious beef and salad for lunch. Afterwards, we went out so she could show me the town. It has a population of about 600 people, and is super rural. Rural, not like Vermont, where everything is just spread out. Rural in the sense that to take a hot shower, one has to go and fill up the tank with water and wait for it to heat up, and when it runs out, it doesn't matter if you still have shampoo in your hair. Rural in the sense that a lot of houses don't have glass in their windows or doors that close tight, or that most of the family sleeps in one room. What surprised me was that here in Formosa (the city), there's a lot of people that talk about how impoverished they are and how tough their living situation is, but there in the town, everybody seemed pretty content and grateful for what they have.
I had a chance to go to the school and talk to a few classes there in English, and then Spanish. The English teacher had a very good accent, and although he talked reallyyyy slowly, he didn't sound like an Argentine.
Apart from that, my friend and I passed most of our time going from house to house, drinking terere and chatting. It was nice to have a laid back weekend for once. I enjoyed it.
Monday morning (aka today) we got up at 4:20am to get the bus around 5:00 and head to school, arriving at 7:28am as they were about to close the doors. So obviously, seeing as I went to bed around 1am, I am exhausted. Time for a siesta. There's photos on my Facebook if you all want to see, but don't google San Hilario Formosa because none of the pictures that show up on Google are actually from the town.
And... 43 days till I leave, 45 till I get home. Six weekends left. Woah.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Why I will never use public transportation again...
Just seeing me walking down the street, I can usually pass for a local. I mean, I'm not a platinum blonde, blue eyed European, I'm a brown haired, brown eyed American. Until I open my mouth most people don't realize that I'm not from Formosa. Today, it was definitely obvious not only that I'm not from Formosa, but that I'm not from a city... or suburb... or any place with public transportation (RCT doesn't count, that's for old people).
Here's the back story. I was at a friend's house for the night, and when I got up in the morning I wanted to head home for lunch. She, on the other hand, had no intention whatsoever of changing out of pajamas and groggily explained to me how to get to the bus stop (seeing as her house is on the other side of the city from my own). I made my way to the bus stop and waited about 10 minutes till the bus arrived.
Now, I'm no stranger to the city buses. Last year I had to take the bus to school and back every day, and I know how to get to most of the other neighborhoods of the city by bus. Taking the same line as I always took home from school shouldn't have been a problem...
The bus came, I paid for my ticket ($2.50 pesos, .30 dollars) and took my seat, expecting to have a short twenty minute bus ride to get to my house. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes passed. Passengers were getting off and nobody was getting on. Finally, we were driving down some dirt road in the middle of one of the poorest neighborhoods that I had driven through maybe two times all year. I was the only one left. And the bus stopped. Ok. The bus driver looked back at me and said "Aca termina," (it ends here), and I, confused, asked "Como que aca termina?" (What do you mean, it ends here?). Until today, I had assumed that the buses go in a loop. That they circle and circle in a never ending cycle. I knew that each line went in two directions, but I had figured that they do the same circle, and no matter in which direction one gets on the bus, it will always get you to your destination at some point. That is apparently not true.
The bus driver simply told me that I had to get off the bus, and that in awhile he would be back. Ok. Awesome. I was stuck sitting at the intersection of two dirt roads in the middle of nowhere, where there were kids running loose, horse drawn carts, and lines of one room huts with outhouses out back. A phone with no credit to call and no numbers for taxi services. A backpack with a wet bathing suit, a towel, and a hundred pesos. I figured I would just sit there and wait, while the bus went about another block and parked. The bus driver got off, walked around the bus, entered, exited, entered, exited, and about a half hour later the bus driver got back in the bus, started in up, and came back to my little dirt street corner. I got on the bus and started to make my way towards the back when he paused me and asked "y tu boleto?" (and your ticket?). I pulled my ticket out of my pocket and showed him. He lauged and said I had to pay for another ticket. I explained that I only had a hundred peso bill. Luckily, he had change, if not, he would have left me there on the corner. I paid for my ticket and went to sit, and a full hour later I got back to my stop.
Now, that traumatic experience was not my fault. How was I supposed to know that I had to wait for the bus driving in the opposite direction? I figured that either way, the bus would pass by my part of the city. I place 100% of the blame upon my friend, who was too lazy to get herself out of bed. Oh well. Won't make that mistake again.
Other quick news: I have gained a little respect from my swim team recently. In the past week we have been betting on who swims faster in certain events, and I had already racked up two bottles of Coke and an alfajor. Tuesday, we decided to do the ultimate challenge. I, the distance swimmer, would swim 600 meters nonstop. The two fastest sprinters on the team, who swim fast but get tired after 60 meters, would swim legs of 120 meters and trade off. And I won. So I'm awesome. We actually hadn't bet anything on that race, but I think I deserve a few liters of Coke for that one.
Here's the back story. I was at a friend's house for the night, and when I got up in the morning I wanted to head home for lunch. She, on the other hand, had no intention whatsoever of changing out of pajamas and groggily explained to me how to get to the bus stop (seeing as her house is on the other side of the city from my own). I made my way to the bus stop and waited about 10 minutes till the bus arrived.
Now, I'm no stranger to the city buses. Last year I had to take the bus to school and back every day, and I know how to get to most of the other neighborhoods of the city by bus. Taking the same line as I always took home from school shouldn't have been a problem...
The bus came, I paid for my ticket ($2.50 pesos, .30 dollars) and took my seat, expecting to have a short twenty minute bus ride to get to my house. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes passed. Passengers were getting off and nobody was getting on. Finally, we were driving down some dirt road in the middle of one of the poorest neighborhoods that I had driven through maybe two times all year. I was the only one left. And the bus stopped. Ok. The bus driver looked back at me and said "Aca termina," (it ends here), and I, confused, asked "Como que aca termina?" (What do you mean, it ends here?). Until today, I had assumed that the buses go in a loop. That they circle and circle in a never ending cycle. I knew that each line went in two directions, but I had figured that they do the same circle, and no matter in which direction one gets on the bus, it will always get you to your destination at some point. That is apparently not true.
The bus driver simply told me that I had to get off the bus, and that in awhile he would be back. Ok. Awesome. I was stuck sitting at the intersection of two dirt roads in the middle of nowhere, where there were kids running loose, horse drawn carts, and lines of one room huts with outhouses out back. A phone with no credit to call and no numbers for taxi services. A backpack with a wet bathing suit, a towel, and a hundred pesos. I figured I would just sit there and wait, while the bus went about another block and parked. The bus driver got off, walked around the bus, entered, exited, entered, exited, and about a half hour later the bus driver got back in the bus, started in up, and came back to my little dirt street corner. I got on the bus and started to make my way towards the back when he paused me and asked "y tu boleto?" (and your ticket?). I pulled my ticket out of my pocket and showed him. He lauged and said I had to pay for another ticket. I explained that I only had a hundred peso bill. Luckily, he had change, if not, he would have left me there on the corner. I paid for my ticket and went to sit, and a full hour later I got back to my stop.
Now, that traumatic experience was not my fault. How was I supposed to know that I had to wait for the bus driving in the opposite direction? I figured that either way, the bus would pass by my part of the city. I place 100% of the blame upon my friend, who was too lazy to get herself out of bed. Oh well. Won't make that mistake again.
Other quick news: I have gained a little respect from my swim team recently. In the past week we have been betting on who swims faster in certain events, and I had already racked up two bottles of Coke and an alfajor. Tuesday, we decided to do the ultimate challenge. I, the distance swimmer, would swim 600 meters nonstop. The two fastest sprinters on the team, who swim fast but get tired after 60 meters, would swim legs of 120 meters and trade off. And I won. So I'm awesome. We actually hadn't bet anything on that race, but I think I deserve a few liters of Coke for that one.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Month of May update....
It's been awhile since my last blog, so I figured I would give you all (you all aka Mom and Bui) an update. There isn't a whole lot of news, but hey...
I've been at La Ribera more than two months now. I absolutely love my school. I have: Math, Geography, English, Biology, Chemistry, Philosophy, Business, Economics, Culture and Communication, Language (like English class in the US) and Community Investigation and Intervention.
Culture and Communication is a class where we supposedly learn about culture... I guess. Usually the teacher just lets us chat the whole class, because the other exchange student and I are "sharing our cultures" ahem ahem doodling and talking about what we did over the weekend ahem ahem.
Community Investigation and Intervention (Proyecto de Investigación e Intervención Comunitaria) is a class where we have the whole year to choose a problem in the city we would like to know more about and possibly change (eg lack of water in the poorer areas, graffiti, lack of knowledge when voting, etc). The class is actually pretty interesting, because the teacher just came to Formosa from Buenos Aires and expects more of the students. Expecting more... meaning that we have to actually do the homework and take tests (the horror!).
Philosophy. What can I say about Philosophy. I'll put it this way: history bores me out of my mind, but it's a useful subject. Philosophy bores me out of my mind, and no one can explain to me why it's useful. So. For those of you that know my feelings about history, multiply that by about 10 and you'll understand my feelings towards Philosophy.
I actually really like our Business class. We've been doing a lot of accounting, and being a number person, I like doing the work in that class. It's a lot of keeping track of accounts and sales and debts. The teacher is also my Economics teacher, which I also find interesting, but I only have that class once a week so we don't get a lot done.
I must say, I'm kind of awesome. Not so humble... but pretty awesome. I've passed every test we've taken so far:
Language: A+
Economics: A
Business: A+
*Chemistry: B+
CII: A
Math: A+
* I didn't understand a thing, but I passed due to rote memorization. The day before the teacher put all of the questions AND the answers to the exam on the board for us to study. The only question I got wrong was due to the fact that I misread the teacher's handwriting and thought that he put a 2 on the board when he actually put a 7. I think first quarter grades come out next week or the week after, so we'll see how everything turned out. The kids at this school are a lot more responsible about doing their homework and usually have it done in time for class, although usually that just means copying a classmate as the teacher is walking in.
I also had to do a presentation for my class about Vermont. I was actually kind of scared at first, thinking that they would be entirely uninterested and just chit chat throughout the presentation, but I swear, I have never seen them so concentrated in over ten weeks. Afterwards, they actually had intelligent questions, and the rest of the week kept asking me about all sorts of things from the US. I had to make the same presentation for a few other grades, and they were all pretty interested too (though their questions afterwards weren't so intelligent; they asked things like "Do you like McDonalds?" and "Do goats bite?".)
What I really like about La Ribera is that the students are very friendly. I spend a lot of time with my classmates outside of school. I've been to birthdays, to friends' houses, out to eat, and just to hang out and drink mate. All in all, so far so good in school.
Other news (although it is old news): swim team is back! In mid April we started again, but not in Don Bosco. There is an "indoor" pool (a pool with a metal removable roof) a few blocks from my school where we train every night from 9 to 10. It's late, but it is actually pretty convenient because it doesn't interfere with my Italian classes or tutoring my cousin. The pool is superrrrrrrrrrrrr hot, (I actually don't think 13 "r"s acutally explain how hot it is) so it's hard to do long sets, but a hot pool is better than no pool. There aren't many of us that go, but it's nice getting more attention from the coach. We still hang out as a team, including those that don't swim any more, but it usually means walking over 30 blocks (no exaggeration) looking for a place where we can all agree to eat, then arguing, then deciding to get empanadas delivered and eating at 1:30am, walking another 15 or so blocks to go get ice cream and ending up going to the ice cream store that was right next to the house where we ate dinner. But hey. We have love-hate relationships. Last night we hung out, but I decided to make life easier. Being the organized American that I am, I put on our Facebook group "Friday night after swim practice. Hipermercado. Who's going?" We got together after practice, went to the Hipermercado, ate dinner, played pool, and nobody cried or argued or died from hunger or exhaustion. It was actually pretty fun.
More news: Formosa has actually gotten a bit chilly. It has been around 50 degrees the past few days. Although 50 isn't that cold, it's a humid cold, a cold that is inescapable by putting on a jacket. The cold arrived quickly. Last Tuesday I was walking around it shorts and a tank top, and come Wednesday, I was in leggings, a long sleeve shirt, a sweater, and a sweat shirt, huddled up in the kitchen drinking coffee. My reputation as a polar bear that is incapable of feeling cold has been ruined. :(
Travel news: I am probably going on the India 2014 trip with the Academy, which I am super duper excited about. Time to start learning the language (though I still have no idea what language that would be...) and I have decided to backpack Europe summer after freshman year in college. Just saying. Two thousand bucks, a backpack, a cellphone, and a passport.
Also, I was accepted into the Coast Guard AIM program. For those of you who don't know, it's a week long summer camp at the Coast Guard Academy for rising seniors who are interested in attending the CGA. I applied in March and got my acceptance notification the first week of May. That means I have to train, because there is a lot of physical work at the camp. Running. Push ups. Sit ups. And I have school. And swimming. And Italian. And a social life. So far, I've managed to stick to a schedule, so hopefully I'll be in shape for the camp. I've made it through some tough swim camps, so fingers crossed, this won't be too different. The annoying this is that almost all week it has been raining, which has messed up my running schedule a bit. But I can't change it, so there's no worth complaining.
Sticking with the college theme, I've been looking a lot into colleges lately. Most of the schools I'm looking at are in the greater Boston area, DC, or other urban areas in the East. That means that I get home, have a weekend at home, go to the CGA for a week, go to Coutts for two weeks, and have two weeks of college visits down the East Coast, then back to school. Yayyy.... (I actually am kind of psyched though... kind of).
And, last but not least, I have decided that I'm probably going to be hospitalized or in a psych ward by next December. Four AP classes, college apps, capstone, snow, lifeguarding, swim team... in freshman health class they voted me as the first one in the class who would be declared mentally unstable and I'm kind of thinkng they're right. We'll just have to see. Are there even mental wards in Vermont?
This part actually is it: I got my return date. I leave FSA on Tuesday, July 16th. I get home on July 18th. Less than two months. Eight and a half weeks. Sixty days. Wow. Time flies.
LAST THING, I PROMISE: If anybody wants to Skype, send me a message. Today is rainy and I have nothing to do till 8 tonight.
I've been at La Ribera more than two months now. I absolutely love my school. I have: Math, Geography, English, Biology, Chemistry, Philosophy, Business, Economics, Culture and Communication, Language (like English class in the US) and Community Investigation and Intervention.
Culture and Communication is a class where we supposedly learn about culture... I guess. Usually the teacher just lets us chat the whole class, because the other exchange student and I are "sharing our cultures" ahem ahem doodling and talking about what we did over the weekend ahem ahem.
Community Investigation and Intervention (Proyecto de Investigación e Intervención Comunitaria) is a class where we have the whole year to choose a problem in the city we would like to know more about and possibly change (eg lack of water in the poorer areas, graffiti, lack of knowledge when voting, etc). The class is actually pretty interesting, because the teacher just came to Formosa from Buenos Aires and expects more of the students. Expecting more... meaning that we have to actually do the homework and take tests (the horror!).
Philosophy. What can I say about Philosophy. I'll put it this way: history bores me out of my mind, but it's a useful subject. Philosophy bores me out of my mind, and no one can explain to me why it's useful. So. For those of you that know my feelings about history, multiply that by about 10 and you'll understand my feelings towards Philosophy.
I actually really like our Business class. We've been doing a lot of accounting, and being a number person, I like doing the work in that class. It's a lot of keeping track of accounts and sales and debts. The teacher is also my Economics teacher, which I also find interesting, but I only have that class once a week so we don't get a lot done.
I must say, I'm kind of awesome. Not so humble... but pretty awesome. I've passed every test we've taken so far:
Language: A+
Economics: A
Business: A+
*Chemistry: B+
CII: A
Math: A+
* I didn't understand a thing, but I passed due to rote memorization. The day before the teacher put all of the questions AND the answers to the exam on the board for us to study. The only question I got wrong was due to the fact that I misread the teacher's handwriting and thought that he put a 2 on the board when he actually put a 7. I think first quarter grades come out next week or the week after, so we'll see how everything turned out. The kids at this school are a lot more responsible about doing their homework and usually have it done in time for class, although usually that just means copying a classmate as the teacher is walking in.
I also had to do a presentation for my class about Vermont. I was actually kind of scared at first, thinking that they would be entirely uninterested and just chit chat throughout the presentation, but I swear, I have never seen them so concentrated in over ten weeks. Afterwards, they actually had intelligent questions, and the rest of the week kept asking me about all sorts of things from the US. I had to make the same presentation for a few other grades, and they were all pretty interested too (though their questions afterwards weren't so intelligent; they asked things like "Do you like McDonalds?" and "Do goats bite?".)
What I really like about La Ribera is that the students are very friendly. I spend a lot of time with my classmates outside of school. I've been to birthdays, to friends' houses, out to eat, and just to hang out and drink mate. All in all, so far so good in school.
Other news (although it is old news): swim team is back! In mid April we started again, but not in Don Bosco. There is an "indoor" pool (a pool with a metal removable roof) a few blocks from my school where we train every night from 9 to 10. It's late, but it is actually pretty convenient because it doesn't interfere with my Italian classes or tutoring my cousin. The pool is superrrrrrrrrrrrr hot, (I actually don't think 13 "r"s acutally explain how hot it is) so it's hard to do long sets, but a hot pool is better than no pool. There aren't many of us that go, but it's nice getting more attention from the coach. We still hang out as a team, including those that don't swim any more, but it usually means walking over 30 blocks (no exaggeration) looking for a place where we can all agree to eat, then arguing, then deciding to get empanadas delivered and eating at 1:30am, walking another 15 or so blocks to go get ice cream and ending up going to the ice cream store that was right next to the house where we ate dinner. But hey. We have love-hate relationships. Last night we hung out, but I decided to make life easier. Being the organized American that I am, I put on our Facebook group "Friday night after swim practice. Hipermercado. Who's going?" We got together after practice, went to the Hipermercado, ate dinner, played pool, and nobody cried or argued or died from hunger or exhaustion. It was actually pretty fun.
More news: Formosa has actually gotten a bit chilly. It has been around 50 degrees the past few days. Although 50 isn't that cold, it's a humid cold, a cold that is inescapable by putting on a jacket. The cold arrived quickly. Last Tuesday I was walking around it shorts and a tank top, and come Wednesday, I was in leggings, a long sleeve shirt, a sweater, and a sweat shirt, huddled up in the kitchen drinking coffee. My reputation as a polar bear that is incapable of feeling cold has been ruined. :(
Travel news: I am probably going on the India 2014 trip with the Academy, which I am super duper excited about. Time to start learning the language (though I still have no idea what language that would be...) and I have decided to backpack Europe summer after freshman year in college. Just saying. Two thousand bucks, a backpack, a cellphone, and a passport.
Also, I was accepted into the Coast Guard AIM program. For those of you who don't know, it's a week long summer camp at the Coast Guard Academy for rising seniors who are interested in attending the CGA. I applied in March and got my acceptance notification the first week of May. That means I have to train, because there is a lot of physical work at the camp. Running. Push ups. Sit ups. And I have school. And swimming. And Italian. And a social life. So far, I've managed to stick to a schedule, so hopefully I'll be in shape for the camp. I've made it through some tough swim camps, so fingers crossed, this won't be too different. The annoying this is that almost all week it has been raining, which has messed up my running schedule a bit. But I can't change it, so there's no worth complaining.
Sticking with the college theme, I've been looking a lot into colleges lately. Most of the schools I'm looking at are in the greater Boston area, DC, or other urban areas in the East. That means that I get home, have a weekend at home, go to the CGA for a week, go to Coutts for two weeks, and have two weeks of college visits down the East Coast, then back to school. Yayyy.... (I actually am kind of psyched though... kind of).
And, last but not least, I have decided that I'm probably going to be hospitalized or in a psych ward by next December. Four AP classes, college apps, capstone, snow, lifeguarding, swim team... in freshman health class they voted me as the first one in the class who would be declared mentally unstable and I'm kind of thinkng they're right. We'll just have to see. Are there even mental wards in Vermont?
This part actually is it: I got my return date. I leave FSA on Tuesday, July 16th. I get home on July 18th. Less than two months. Eight and a half weeks. Sixty days. Wow. Time flies.
LAST THING, I PROMISE: If anybody wants to Skype, send me a message. Today is rainy and I have nothing to do till 8 tonight.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Iguazu!!!
Two weeks ago I was able to fulfill a dream I've had since when I was about five years old, that dream being a trip to Iguazu Falls. I went with a group of exchange students during the long weekend for Easter (which did mean, sadly, that I missed my host mother's birthday and Easter). We left Saturday night, a group of 9 students and 3 volunteers, from the Formosa bus station. In a couple hours we arrived to Corrientes (for those of you that don't know, that would be the capital city of the province Corrientes), got a bite to eat, and got on the tour bus. We were in a group of about 40 total. We spent the night on the bus, and I was naive enough to think they would give us blankets and pillows like most of the buses do and against the advice of my entire family I wore a pair of shorts and a tank top ... which meant I spent a very sleepless night coughing and blowing my nose from the awful cold I had had for the past week and shivering while trying to curl up into the tightest little ball possible. I don't know why they insist on putting the air conditioning so high at night when everybody is freezing, but every bus does.
Around nine or ten in the morning we arrived to the Wanda Mines, which are some mines of semi precious stones, like quartz, and we got tours throughout the mines. The photos are awful because we had just spent a night *trying* to sleep on a bus, and were exhausted, but it was really cool! Afterwards we continued on to the hotel, and after an hour or two in the bus we arrived, went to our rooms, and got ready for lunch. I was sharing one room with three girls, an Austrian, an Italian, and a volunteer from Formosa. The room had space to sleep six people! It was great, two stories, bathroom, air conditioning... By that point it was around 12:45 so we headed out with the group of exchange students to go get lunch. We walked through the blazing heat to one restaurant- there was an hour wait. We walked a few more blocks to another restaurant- hour wait. We walked back towards the hotel to a cheaper looking restaurant and the whole group was able to get a spot to sit, and we waited about a half hour, before the owner of the restaurant said he wasn't sure if he was going to serve us or not. So we up and left. Finally we found a place that served food where there was space and waiters that were actually decent, and we ordered our food. And waited. And waited. And after an hour and a half were finally served. By that point it was 3 in the afternoon and the only thing we had eaten all day were a croissant and a piece of toast each, so you can imagine that we ate pretty fast.
Afterwards, we went to the hotel, slept, slept, slept, went to the pool, and had dinner from the hotel buffet. And, because it was the German girl's birthday the following day, we went to the center of town and we all sung happy birthday in our respective languages and we got back to the hotel late... allowing us an hour and a half of sleep before waking up the next day for Iguazu.
A little bit of sleep would have helped, seeing as that day we walked over 6 miles of trails around the falls. It was incredible! I don't know if you all have been to Niagara, but Iguazu is Niagara times 10. There's not only one major fall but dozens, and instead of hotels and streets and noise, it's all nature, crocodiles, coaties, fish, birds, and rainforest. It was amazing. We got to go in boat to the falls and actually went completely under a few of them and got soaking wet! The only downside of all that was that to get back from the boat trip we had to climb a never ending set of stairs, and we were all so tired our legs were literally quivering by the time we reached the summit. Thankfully we got to sit for lunch, which was a huge buffet. But, we are all stingy people, and although the buffet cost about $10, that is pretty pricey for an Argentine lunch, so half of us paid and we just stuffed our bags with fruit and cookies.
On our way back to the hotel we went to a nature reserve type place that had some huge buildings made of huge trees and all this information about mate (a common bitter tea-like drink in Argentina made from a plant) and we tried ice cream with mate flavor, which was strange, to say the least. We were all ready to be back at the hotel, so pretty quickly we got back on the bus. We got back, slept, had dinner, and then had a nice night in the hotel, drinking mate and terere in a group of about 6 students, the volunteers, and some other Argentines and Israelis that we met in the hotel.
The next day we headed out early. We went to the San Ignacio Ruins, which are ruins of a Guarani village from the 1700s. It was interesting but we got distracted taking a bunch of pictures and we didn't really listen to the guide. Afterwards, we had lunch (and there was a huge scandal; apparently there was a blonde girl who ate and left without paying and they sent the bus driver after her. The blonde girl turned out being me, not the platinum blonde girls from Germany, Denmark, Iceland, or Austria, and it turns out I did pay, so ha). Then we headed back for Corrientes. We spent the bus ride all in the back of the bus drinking mate and sleeping. Finally we got to Corrientes and later on, to Formosa, around 10:30pm, and then headed to our respective houses. It was a great trip, we all had a lot of fun and it's definitely a place I would like to visit again. Photos are on my Facebook, I'm too lazy to upload them here.
Around nine or ten in the morning we arrived to the Wanda Mines, which are some mines of semi precious stones, like quartz, and we got tours throughout the mines. The photos are awful because we had just spent a night *trying* to sleep on a bus, and were exhausted, but it was really cool! Afterwards we continued on to the hotel, and after an hour or two in the bus we arrived, went to our rooms, and got ready for lunch. I was sharing one room with three girls, an Austrian, an Italian, and a volunteer from Formosa. The room had space to sleep six people! It was great, two stories, bathroom, air conditioning... By that point it was around 12:45 so we headed out with the group of exchange students to go get lunch. We walked through the blazing heat to one restaurant- there was an hour wait. We walked a few more blocks to another restaurant- hour wait. We walked back towards the hotel to a cheaper looking restaurant and the whole group was able to get a spot to sit, and we waited about a half hour, before the owner of the restaurant said he wasn't sure if he was going to serve us or not. So we up and left. Finally we found a place that served food where there was space and waiters that were actually decent, and we ordered our food. And waited. And waited. And after an hour and a half were finally served. By that point it was 3 in the afternoon and the only thing we had eaten all day were a croissant and a piece of toast each, so you can imagine that we ate pretty fast.
Afterwards, we went to the hotel, slept, slept, slept, went to the pool, and had dinner from the hotel buffet. And, because it was the German girl's birthday the following day, we went to the center of town and we all sung happy birthday in our respective languages and we got back to the hotel late... allowing us an hour and a half of sleep before waking up the next day for Iguazu.
A little bit of sleep would have helped, seeing as that day we walked over 6 miles of trails around the falls. It was incredible! I don't know if you all have been to Niagara, but Iguazu is Niagara times 10. There's not only one major fall but dozens, and instead of hotels and streets and noise, it's all nature, crocodiles, coaties, fish, birds, and rainforest. It was amazing. We got to go in boat to the falls and actually went completely under a few of them and got soaking wet! The only downside of all that was that to get back from the boat trip we had to climb a never ending set of stairs, and we were all so tired our legs were literally quivering by the time we reached the summit. Thankfully we got to sit for lunch, which was a huge buffet. But, we are all stingy people, and although the buffet cost about $10, that is pretty pricey for an Argentine lunch, so half of us paid and we just stuffed our bags with fruit and cookies.
On our way back to the hotel we went to a nature reserve type place that had some huge buildings made of huge trees and all this information about mate (a common bitter tea-like drink in Argentina made from a plant) and we tried ice cream with mate flavor, which was strange, to say the least. We were all ready to be back at the hotel, so pretty quickly we got back on the bus. We got back, slept, had dinner, and then had a nice night in the hotel, drinking mate and terere in a group of about 6 students, the volunteers, and some other Argentines and Israelis that we met in the hotel.
The next day we headed out early. We went to the San Ignacio Ruins, which are ruins of a Guarani village from the 1700s. It was interesting but we got distracted taking a bunch of pictures and we didn't really listen to the guide. Afterwards, we had lunch (and there was a huge scandal; apparently there was a blonde girl who ate and left without paying and they sent the bus driver after her. The blonde girl turned out being me, not the platinum blonde girls from Germany, Denmark, Iceland, or Austria, and it turns out I did pay, so ha). Then we headed back for Corrientes. We spent the bus ride all in the back of the bus drinking mate and sleeping. Finally we got to Corrientes and later on, to Formosa, around 10:30pm, and then headed to our respective houses. It was a great trip, we all had a lot of fun and it's definitely a place I would like to visit again. Photos are on my Facebook, I'm too lazy to upload them here.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
First Day of School, take 2
As most of you know, this year I changed schools. Before I was going to Industrial, a public technical school, but this year our schedule changed to the night classes, until 9:30pm. And 9:30pm classes would be awful, not to mention having night classes in one of the more dangerous neighborhoods. So, I was changed to la Ribera, a private school 11 blocks from my house.
Now, most exchange students say that apart from the first five minutes after getting off the bus at the start of their exchange, the first day in school is the most nervous feeling anyone has. So imagine not having to go through that once, but twice. Awesome.
One difference with my old school is that this school starts at 7:30am and ends at 1:30pm (though this week and the following, at 12:30pm), which means it is a six hour school day, not three. Which also means waking up at 6, not 10. I like the uniform better, though. At Industrial, just wearing the shirt would probably have covered just as much skin as putting the skirt on over, but the skirt at la Ribera actually is close to St. J dresscode standards. The downside is that the new uniform cost 840 pesos, plus the shoes, which rounds out to a good 1000 pesos ($160).
I got to school at 7:15, and when I entered, I asked one of the women in the office where I needed to go. She kind of just pointed me down a hall, and after wandering about with a scared little deer in the headlights look on my face for about five minutes a student asked me where I needed to go and helped me find the classroom. When I entered, there were already about eight students waiting, and as I took a chair off a desk to sit, one of them warned me that I shouldn´t sit there... when I asked why, he said "ahi se sienta la mala" or "the mean girl sits there." So I changed seats. It turns out that in my class there are two other kids from the swim team and one other exchange student from Italy, so I already had a couple friends. After about five minutes the bell rang to go downstairs for formation, where each grade lines up and they raise the flags and blah blah blah. Then the director started to talk, and she called me out in front of the whole school to introduce myself. Which was awesome.
Class started with economy, then technology, with the same professor. I have never in my life had either of those classes so although I understood the Spanish, the actual content was confusing. Afterwards was Geography, and finally Chemistry. In each class we did a "diagnostic", questions about the subject to judge what point we were at. We also had two blocks of recess, about ten minutes each, to buy snacks or go to the bathroom.
There were a ton of differences with this school. It is much cleaner, without writing on the walls. The desks work and the students are pretty well kept. Everyone I had talked to before said that private school students aren´t very respectful and are noisy and whatnot but I found that they were actually much better behaved than those in my previous school. They were also a lot more sociable, very willing to chat and offer help. Hopefully it will all stay that way.
Other news: today is my six month birthday in Formosa. It actually is way more than halfway, because the program isn´t a full year, it´s actually about ten and a half months. So there are about 140 days left, or a little over four months. We haven´t received our travel information yet, but AFS made a change. Now they won´t have orientation in Buenos Aires or Miami, we will spend a night in the bus from FSA to BA, pass the day in BA, take a plane that night, and arrive in Miami the next day, and from there go home. I don´t like that change, I liked the orientation and think that another meeting with all the exchange students will provide a nice close to the exchange. But anyway, that´s still a ways away.
As far as swimming goes, the pool at Don Bosco is officially closed for the season. We have weekend practice in a 50m indoor pool, and weekdays we are free. My friends and I are looking into getting one lane to ourselves three days a week to train in the afternoons, because we have an important meet coming up in late March. Apart from that I am working up to going for a run. One morning I actually set my alarm for 5am to go run, seeing as the early morning and late nights are the only times physically possible to go running because of the heat, but I woke up, wondered what in the world I was thinking the night before, and went back to sleep. But one day. It will happen.
Now, most exchange students say that apart from the first five minutes after getting off the bus at the start of their exchange, the first day in school is the most nervous feeling anyone has. So imagine not having to go through that once, but twice. Awesome.
One difference with my old school is that this school starts at 7:30am and ends at 1:30pm (though this week and the following, at 12:30pm), which means it is a six hour school day, not three. Which also means waking up at 6, not 10. I like the uniform better, though. At Industrial, just wearing the shirt would probably have covered just as much skin as putting the skirt on over, but the skirt at la Ribera actually is close to St. J dresscode standards. The downside is that the new uniform cost 840 pesos, plus the shoes, which rounds out to a good 1000 pesos ($160).
I got to school at 7:15, and when I entered, I asked one of the women in the office where I needed to go. She kind of just pointed me down a hall, and after wandering about with a scared little deer in the headlights look on my face for about five minutes a student asked me where I needed to go and helped me find the classroom. When I entered, there were already about eight students waiting, and as I took a chair off a desk to sit, one of them warned me that I shouldn´t sit there... when I asked why, he said "ahi se sienta la mala" or "the mean girl sits there." So I changed seats. It turns out that in my class there are two other kids from the swim team and one other exchange student from Italy, so I already had a couple friends. After about five minutes the bell rang to go downstairs for formation, where each grade lines up and they raise the flags and blah blah blah. Then the director started to talk, and she called me out in front of the whole school to introduce myself. Which was awesome.
Class started with economy, then technology, with the same professor. I have never in my life had either of those classes so although I understood the Spanish, the actual content was confusing. Afterwards was Geography, and finally Chemistry. In each class we did a "diagnostic", questions about the subject to judge what point we were at. We also had two blocks of recess, about ten minutes each, to buy snacks or go to the bathroom.
There were a ton of differences with this school. It is much cleaner, without writing on the walls. The desks work and the students are pretty well kept. Everyone I had talked to before said that private school students aren´t very respectful and are noisy and whatnot but I found that they were actually much better behaved than those in my previous school. They were also a lot more sociable, very willing to chat and offer help. Hopefully it will all stay that way.
Other news: today is my six month birthday in Formosa. It actually is way more than halfway, because the program isn´t a full year, it´s actually about ten and a half months. So there are about 140 days left, or a little over four months. We haven´t received our travel information yet, but AFS made a change. Now they won´t have orientation in Buenos Aires or Miami, we will spend a night in the bus from FSA to BA, pass the day in BA, take a plane that night, and arrive in Miami the next day, and from there go home. I don´t like that change, I liked the orientation and think that another meeting with all the exchange students will provide a nice close to the exchange. But anyway, that´s still a ways away.
As far as swimming goes, the pool at Don Bosco is officially closed for the season. We have weekend practice in a 50m indoor pool, and weekdays we are free. My friends and I are looking into getting one lane to ourselves three days a week to train in the afternoons, because we have an important meet coming up in late March. Apart from that I am working up to going for a run. One morning I actually set my alarm for 5am to go run, seeing as the early morning and late nights are the only times physically possible to go running because of the heat, but I woke up, wondered what in the world I was thinking the night before, and went back to sleep. But one day. It will happen.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Open water swim
Today was my first international open water swim! I went with my team for a swim in the Paraguay River, which is between 300 and 500 meters wide in this area and separates Argentina and Paraguay. The swim wasn´t a competition, it was organized by one of the Formosa teams to give swimmers a chance to experience open water. My coach, always trying to be helpful, explained to me that I didn´t have to be worried about swimming in the rivers, there aren´t any crocodiles.... because the piranhas already ate them. There actually are piranhas, but apparently they don´t do anything to swimmers while they´re moving. Though I have to say, the number of dead piranhas I saw on the bank before swimming didn´t help much.
The race started at 8am, or supposedly started at 8am. We actually got in the water around 11am. There were two swims, an 800 meter swim and a 1800 meter swim. I originally was going to do the 1800m swim, but in the end did both. Two of the kids from the team signed up for the 800 needed someone to accompany them and help them out, so I went with them. And wow, do I love river currents. I just floated alongside them as they swam, and in the end it took about 15 minutes. There were only two minor problems. One was that every swimmer needed a noodle attached to them by a rope in case of emergency. And the two kids swam close to eachother so they got tangled. The other part was that near the end of the race there is a very strong current, and the kids didn´t believe me when I told them we had to aim wayyyyy to the other side of the finish line. So the girl was pushed a lot by the current and I ended up towing her in. Apart from that, everything was great, I never even had to put my goggles on.
It was really cool to get to do an open water swim in Argentina, and that it was technically in international waters. It definitely wasn´t the super organized Kingdom Swim (never thought I would be calling it super organized), but it pulled together. For example, there was no count of how many swimmers entered the water. Even if I didn´t have the permission slip, I could have just jumped right in. There were a ton of safetly boats, kayaks, and jetskis, along with lifeguards swimming in the water and the obnoxious noodles we had to have. We had a lot of fun. Anybody who has been to an open water swim with me knows that I usually am just a bucketfull of sunshine, happiness, and all good things in the world before a swim, but today that was actually true. All the swimmers entered smiling and left smiling, which was great.
Other news: the new exchange students arrived in FSA yesterday! Boys from Japan and Thailand and girls from Iceland and Austria. We all went to the terminal to meet them, and wow, I hope my face didn´t look that scared when I got off the bus. I was impressed by the Japanese boy, who got off and immediately tried out his Spanish (hola, mucho gusto, hace calor, etc etc). Later that night, we all went to the birthday party of the Iceland girl´s host sister, and I got a nice chance to talk to the Japanese boy Ruka and the girl from Iceland, Salome. It is really weird to be the older exchange students. It really makes me realize that there is very little left, less than 5 months. Woah.
The race started at 8am, or supposedly started at 8am. We actually got in the water around 11am. There were two swims, an 800 meter swim and a 1800 meter swim. I originally was going to do the 1800m swim, but in the end did both. Two of the kids from the team signed up for the 800 needed someone to accompany them and help them out, so I went with them. And wow, do I love river currents. I just floated alongside them as they swam, and in the end it took about 15 minutes. There were only two minor problems. One was that every swimmer needed a noodle attached to them by a rope in case of emergency. And the two kids swam close to eachother so they got tangled. The other part was that near the end of the race there is a very strong current, and the kids didn´t believe me when I told them we had to aim wayyyyy to the other side of the finish line. So the girl was pushed a lot by the current and I ended up towing her in. Apart from that, everything was great, I never even had to put my goggles on.
After that we went to the start of the next race, in which a couple other kids from my team were competeing. We weren´t many, because a lot of parents didn´t give the kids permission. That race started around noon, and I was strongly tempted to give in to the peer pressure from the other kids on the team and just hang on to the noodle and go for a float down the river. But, my competitive side took over and I swam. It went by quickly, the current definitely makes a difference. At the end, I totally couldn´t see the finish line and everyone was yelling at me to go the other way.... but anyway... I don´t know how much time it took, because when I finished we all started looking for the other kids that competed. When they finally came in, it was obvious that they had a lot of trouble crossing the current to get to the bank. Two swimmers from the team actually swam out to help the last girl. But everything turned out well and nobody had major issues. I think overall I came in 4th out of all the swimmers.
It was really cool to get to do an open water swim in Argentina, and that it was technically in international waters. It definitely wasn´t the super organized Kingdom Swim (never thought I would be calling it super organized), but it pulled together. For example, there was no count of how many swimmers entered the water. Even if I didn´t have the permission slip, I could have just jumped right in. There were a ton of safetly boats, kayaks, and jetskis, along with lifeguards swimming in the water and the obnoxious noodles we had to have. We had a lot of fun. Anybody who has been to an open water swim with me knows that I usually am just a bucketfull of sunshine, happiness, and all good things in the world before a swim, but today that was actually true. All the swimmers entered smiling and left smiling, which was great.
Other news: the new exchange students arrived in FSA yesterday! Boys from Japan and Thailand and girls from Iceland and Austria. We all went to the terminal to meet them, and wow, I hope my face didn´t look that scared when I got off the bus. I was impressed by the Japanese boy, who got off and immediately tried out his Spanish (hola, mucho gusto, hace calor, etc etc). Later that night, we all went to the birthday party of the Iceland girl´s host sister, and I got a nice chance to talk to the Japanese boy Ruka and the girl from Iceland, Salome. It is really weird to be the older exchange students. It really makes me realize that there is very little left, less than 5 months. Woah.Monday, February 18, 2013
Random Differences Part 2
-After almost 6 months, I realized I have never seen a smoke detector.
-Nobody wears helmets when they ride bikes.
-While driving through the city, my friends marvel why the police don´t pull over a motorcyclist for not wearing a helmet... I marvel why they don´t pull us over, because we are 11 kids sitting in the bed of a truck.
-My twelve year old cousin can go to the corner and buy beer. I was honestly shocked when I saw him walk through the front door with four liters of beer in his arms.
-My house has mango, lemon, guava, and grapefruit trees.
-There are a ton of stray dogs here. In the US if I saw a dog walking alone down the street, I would take it in and look for its owner. Here, they are just something normal. And honestly, some of them are pretty picky with their food. One night I was eating empanadas with friends and a skinny little dog came over to beg for food, so we gave it a piece of bread. And the dog just stared at it. Guess it never heard of beggars can´t be choosers.
-Wood flooring is almost obsolete. It´s all tiling and linoleum. I actually can´t think of any wood flooring that I have seen here.
-Motorcycles (well, they say motorcycles but they are really just mopeds or something like that) are very common here. It makes sense, because everything is nearby and the roads are flat and there is no snow or ice.
-The voting age is 18 and is more or less obligatory, though at 16 it is optional to vote. 18 is also the drving age, though 16 for motorcycles.
-There is no spicy food. The occasional semi-spicy sausage. But in Formosa at the least, there is very little spicy food.
-Nobody wears helmets when they ride bikes.
-While driving through the city, my friends marvel why the police don´t pull over a motorcyclist for not wearing a helmet... I marvel why they don´t pull us over, because we are 11 kids sitting in the bed of a truck.
-My twelve year old cousin can go to the corner and buy beer. I was honestly shocked when I saw him walk through the front door with four liters of beer in his arms.
-My house has mango, lemon, guava, and grapefruit trees.
-There are a ton of stray dogs here. In the US if I saw a dog walking alone down the street, I would take it in and look for its owner. Here, they are just something normal. And honestly, some of them are pretty picky with their food. One night I was eating empanadas with friends and a skinny little dog came over to beg for food, so we gave it a piece of bread. And the dog just stared at it. Guess it never heard of beggars can´t be choosers.
-Wood flooring is almost obsolete. It´s all tiling and linoleum. I actually can´t think of any wood flooring that I have seen here.
-Motorcycles (well, they say motorcycles but they are really just mopeds or something like that) are very common here. It makes sense, because everything is nearby and the roads are flat and there is no snow or ice.
-The voting age is 18 and is more or less obligatory, though at 16 it is optional to vote. 18 is also the drving age, though 16 for motorcycles.
-There is no spicy food. The occasional semi-spicy sausage. But in Formosa at the least, there is very little spicy food.
Swim meet with the Focas!
The long awaited swim meet finally arrived! This weekend, my team competed in a swim club about 15 minutes away via car in Club Vialidad. There were about 8 teams, each team bringing between ten and a hundred swimmers. Las Focas (the seals), which is my team, took 32 swimmers to compete. In my age group, the available events were fifty meters in each stroke, and a freestyle relay. I competed in the five event.
The meet started on Saturday morning with a little parade at 7:30am. Which meant that I got a total of two hours of sleep the night before, which was entirely not my fault. I´ll explain that later. Anyway, the parade was just a little display of each team. The Focas definitely had the most team spirit, all with matching shirts, group cheers, and a very loud snare drum that was great for about the first hour of the meet, but realllllly annoying after ten hours of sitting on a bench.
Warm ups started at 8:00am, with our team of 32 swimmers plus another team of about 12 swimmers all in one lane. And as any swimmer knows, 44 swimmers in one lane is a disaster. Especially when there is little knowledge of the amazing "circle swimming" or the general custom of not diving into a pool when there are fifteen people right below you. So I got to do a total of 200 meters with no flip turns and no dives.
My first event was the 50 free. It went well, except for the fact that I almost slipped off the block, which was super inclined and slippery. I wasn´t the only one, though. Pretty much every person slipped a bit as they stepped up. My flip turn was pretty bad, there were no lines on the bottom of the pool to show where the wall was and so I didn´t realize I actually was at the wall until about my head was about .2 seconds away from being cracked open. But it all ended well and I got first, hitting the wall about 3 seconds before the next girl. The 50 meter breaststroke was pretty uneventful as breaststroke typically is for me, but suprisingly enough I was able to get third, probably for the first and last time in my swimming career. Those were my only events on Saturday. I was actually in the bullpen for my 50 back, but it was getting dark so they cut the competition at the event before, number 111. I was 112. So I was pretty annoyed seeing as I was super ready for my backstroke and I didn´t want to be first in the morning. But oh well. Then they started giving out the medals, and I swear, that is the slowest awards process I have ever seen. It took an hour and a half just to get through freestyle awards, and we didn´t even get to the breaststroke. Ah, and lunch that day the team bought empanadas and we went to the Aguara Club (a hockey and rugby club about two blocks away where I played hockey before that team kinda just stopped practicing) for lunch, water balloon fights, and card games. When I got home that night, I went to sleep at 9pm, the first time all summer vacation that I went to sleep before 2am.
The next morning we were back in the pool at 8am. I was the first person in the pool for warmups because I really wanted a chance to practice a backstroke flipturn because I hadn´t had an opportunity to count my strokes from the flags since last season. Right off the bat was the 50m backstroke, and I must say, I crushed it. I know my time wasn´t the best but I finished a good half pool in front of the others. Later was the 50m butterfly, and that was my first time competing in a butterfly event since the 25y fly when I was 8. I took first in that too, though I was really tired at the finish. After that was the freestyle relay. For the relays here, all the teams are mixed, so it has to be boys and girls. I was on a team with the three fastest guys. In the relay, we had to compete against the "promocionales", which is a higher level than us. It´s kind of hard to explain, but teams compete either at the school level or promotional level. The promotionals are faster and the officials are more strict about disqualifying. So everyone on the team, being supportive as usual, told us that we were going to lose by a full pool length and everyone was going to laugh. But in the end, we ended up getting third by a finger length, beating two other promotional teams and getting a medal. It seems like that was the first time any of our relay teams has placed in a race in a couple years (seeing as we always compete against the higher level) and so when the last swimmer touched the wall we all jumped in the water and cheered and got yelled at by the official and didn´t really care. After that we had the whole awards ceremony, which lasted for hours. Our team did really well, in every event we competed in, we medaled. Of course, we should be competing as a promotional team, and I think we will for the next meet, which means that we will probably get knocked off our high horse. But it was a lot of fun even though we finished exhausted and sunburnt and hungry. But today we don´t have practice, so we can rest a bit.
Other news: today I should get registered for Italian. That should be two days a week. Valentine´s Day was super romantic here, I went with a couple friends to Señor Panchos (aka Mr. Hotdogs) which is obvioulsy a classy, candlelit, cozy restaurant ideal for couples on Valentine´s Day. Friday night I went to a concert to see the band Agapornis, which is a group that copies known songs but changes them to have a cumbia style. See the link below. And the concert started at 10pm, so, being an American as usual, I figured a concert that starts at ten ends before midnight, I get home, sleep a solid six or seven hours, and then head to the meet. But apparently it doesn´t work that way. A concert that starts at ten means that the opening group arrives at eleven, then three other groups play until 2 in the morning, then the announcer stalls for about a half hour, then the actual band arrives at 3, plays for a half hour, and goes. And then I had to walk a half hour to get home, I had to get my swim bag ready, and, at the god awful hour of 4:15am finally go to sleep. On top of it all, every group that played before Agapornis played Agapornis songs, which meant that after four hours of that, when Agapornis finally arrived, everybody was sick of those songs and just wanted to go home. But no way that my friends and I were going to leave after paying a whole five bucks for the concert. We did have fun though, kind of in that sense of "oh my gosh, remember that miserable night that we waited four and a half hours on a cement bench for that band to arrive?" type of have fun. Apart from that, there´s not much news. The exchange students come in about five days! And school starts next week.... bleh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSsIbOUoUv8
Here is the link to one of Agapornis´s songs, I think this is the only one in English. But as you can see, they take popular songs and make them more like cumbia.
Ah, and I forgot. Last week, around 8:30pm, I was minding my own business and making my normal trek home from the pool. Imagine me, the sweet little American, totally inoccent and trusting and whatnot. Anyway, I was on my way home when all of a sudden there was a big splash of water in front of me. And I heard laughter. And then a splash behind me, and next to me, and in front of me, and all around. And I realized that I was under a water balloon attack. Now, it isn´t uncommon to be walking down the street and have people talk to you or yell at you or whatever, but a water balloon attack? In six months nothing like that had happened. But like everybody says, if someone is harrassing you just keep walking and don´t pay attention. So I just continued on my way, water balloons coming from all sides. After about a block, I thought they had stopped, and I looked around and saw nobody. And I continued. Until three balloons hit me simultaneously on the head, back, and legs. And at that point I turned around, saw three guys about 13 or 14 years old, and I used some choice words in English. And they got kind of confused and ran off. I finally arrived home, and after dinner I mentioned what happened to my aunt, and she broke down laughing, and explained to me that the water balloons are a tradition of Carnival. Carnival is a festival that is a few days long, though I still don´t really get what it is besides an excuse to just have parties. But anyway, for the next few days I took a different road to go to the pool, and after that took my normal route. Until a couple days ago when they got me again with the ballons on the way to the pool. And I was soaked by the time I arrived there. And everyone laughed and laughed and laughed. Now, thankfully, Carnival is over so I can go to the pool in peace.
The meet started on Saturday morning with a little parade at 7:30am. Which meant that I got a total of two hours of sleep the night before, which was entirely not my fault. I´ll explain that later. Anyway, the parade was just a little display of each team. The Focas definitely had the most team spirit, all with matching shirts, group cheers, and a very loud snare drum that was great for about the first hour of the meet, but realllllly annoying after ten hours of sitting on a bench.
Warm ups started at 8:00am, with our team of 32 swimmers plus another team of about 12 swimmers all in one lane. And as any swimmer knows, 44 swimmers in one lane is a disaster. Especially when there is little knowledge of the amazing "circle swimming" or the general custom of not diving into a pool when there are fifteen people right below you. So I got to do a total of 200 meters with no flip turns and no dives.
My first event was the 50 free. It went well, except for the fact that I almost slipped off the block, which was super inclined and slippery. I wasn´t the only one, though. Pretty much every person slipped a bit as they stepped up. My flip turn was pretty bad, there were no lines on the bottom of the pool to show where the wall was and so I didn´t realize I actually was at the wall until about my head was about .2 seconds away from being cracked open. But it all ended well and I got first, hitting the wall about 3 seconds before the next girl. The 50 meter breaststroke was pretty uneventful as breaststroke typically is for me, but suprisingly enough I was able to get third, probably for the first and last time in my swimming career. Those were my only events on Saturday. I was actually in the bullpen for my 50 back, but it was getting dark so they cut the competition at the event before, number 111. I was 112. So I was pretty annoyed seeing as I was super ready for my backstroke and I didn´t want to be first in the morning. But oh well. Then they started giving out the medals, and I swear, that is the slowest awards process I have ever seen. It took an hour and a half just to get through freestyle awards, and we didn´t even get to the breaststroke. Ah, and lunch that day the team bought empanadas and we went to the Aguara Club (a hockey and rugby club about two blocks away where I played hockey before that team kinda just stopped practicing) for lunch, water balloon fights, and card games. When I got home that night, I went to sleep at 9pm, the first time all summer vacation that I went to sleep before 2am.
The next morning we were back in the pool at 8am. I was the first person in the pool for warmups because I really wanted a chance to practice a backstroke flipturn because I hadn´t had an opportunity to count my strokes from the flags since last season. Right off the bat was the 50m backstroke, and I must say, I crushed it. I know my time wasn´t the best but I finished a good half pool in front of the others. Later was the 50m butterfly, and that was my first time competing in a butterfly event since the 25y fly when I was 8. I took first in that too, though I was really tired at the finish. After that was the freestyle relay. For the relays here, all the teams are mixed, so it has to be boys and girls. I was on a team with the three fastest guys. In the relay, we had to compete against the "promocionales", which is a higher level than us. It´s kind of hard to explain, but teams compete either at the school level or promotional level. The promotionals are faster and the officials are more strict about disqualifying. So everyone on the team, being supportive as usual, told us that we were going to lose by a full pool length and everyone was going to laugh. But in the end, we ended up getting third by a finger length, beating two other promotional teams and getting a medal. It seems like that was the first time any of our relay teams has placed in a race in a couple years (seeing as we always compete against the higher level) and so when the last swimmer touched the wall we all jumped in the water and cheered and got yelled at by the official and didn´t really care. After that we had the whole awards ceremony, which lasted for hours. Our team did really well, in every event we competed in, we medaled. Of course, we should be competing as a promotional team, and I think we will for the next meet, which means that we will probably get knocked off our high horse. But it was a lot of fun even though we finished exhausted and sunburnt and hungry. But today we don´t have practice, so we can rest a bit.
Other news: today I should get registered for Italian. That should be two days a week. Valentine´s Day was super romantic here, I went with a couple friends to Señor Panchos (aka Mr. Hotdogs) which is obvioulsy a classy, candlelit, cozy restaurant ideal for couples on Valentine´s Day. Friday night I went to a concert to see the band Agapornis, which is a group that copies known songs but changes them to have a cumbia style. See the link below. And the concert started at 10pm, so, being an American as usual, I figured a concert that starts at ten ends before midnight, I get home, sleep a solid six or seven hours, and then head to the meet. But apparently it doesn´t work that way. A concert that starts at ten means that the opening group arrives at eleven, then three other groups play until 2 in the morning, then the announcer stalls for about a half hour, then the actual band arrives at 3, plays for a half hour, and goes. And then I had to walk a half hour to get home, I had to get my swim bag ready, and, at the god awful hour of 4:15am finally go to sleep. On top of it all, every group that played before Agapornis played Agapornis songs, which meant that after four hours of that, when Agapornis finally arrived, everybody was sick of those songs and just wanted to go home. But no way that my friends and I were going to leave after paying a whole five bucks for the concert. We did have fun though, kind of in that sense of "oh my gosh, remember that miserable night that we waited four and a half hours on a cement bench for that band to arrive?" type of have fun. Apart from that, there´s not much news. The exchange students come in about five days! And school starts next week.... bleh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSsIbOUoUv8
Here is the link to one of Agapornis´s songs, I think this is the only one in English. But as you can see, they take popular songs and make them more like cumbia.
Ah, and I forgot. Last week, around 8:30pm, I was minding my own business and making my normal trek home from the pool. Imagine me, the sweet little American, totally inoccent and trusting and whatnot. Anyway, I was on my way home when all of a sudden there was a big splash of water in front of me. And I heard laughter. And then a splash behind me, and next to me, and in front of me, and all around. And I realized that I was under a water balloon attack. Now, it isn´t uncommon to be walking down the street and have people talk to you or yell at you or whatever, but a water balloon attack? In six months nothing like that had happened. But like everybody says, if someone is harrassing you just keep walking and don´t pay attention. So I just continued on my way, water balloons coming from all sides. After about a block, I thought they had stopped, and I looked around and saw nobody. And I continued. Until three balloons hit me simultaneously on the head, back, and legs. And at that point I turned around, saw three guys about 13 or 14 years old, and I used some choice words in English. And they got kind of confused and ran off. I finally arrived home, and after dinner I mentioned what happened to my aunt, and she broke down laughing, and explained to me that the water balloons are a tradition of Carnival. Carnival is a festival that is a few days long, though I still don´t really get what it is besides an excuse to just have parties. But anyway, for the next few days I took a different road to go to the pool, and after that took my normal route. Until a couple days ago when they got me again with the ballons on the way to the pool. And I was soaked by the time I arrived there. And everyone laughed and laughed and laughed. Now, thankfully, Carnival is over so I can go to the pool in peace.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Trip to CORDOBA!
Pretty impressive that I´m writing two posts in the same week, no? Pat on the back for Dylan. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, my family and I went to Villa Carlos Paz, Cordoba, for a week. "My family" includes: me, my host parents, my host brother and sister, my host aunt and uncle, and my three host cousins. Ten total. We left on a Friday night for Cordoba, and drove allllll night until about midday the next day. We were staying in apartment type housing, each apartment housing five. Villa Carlos Paz is a very touristic city, with a population of about 200,000 (a little bit bigger than Formosa) but during the summer, around 500,000 with all of the tourists or people with vacation homes.
We did a lot in Cordoba. We visited a German village, went to haunted houses, went ziplining (and be "we" I mean my uncle, 9 yr old cousin, and me, seeing as everyone else was too chicken), went to the center, which is like Church Street in Burlington times 20), went to the river and the coastanera, and of course, spent hours upon hours in the pool. And I didn´t get (that) burnt. The asado that we ate in Cordoba was also absolutely delicious. It was a great trip. We did a lot, but it was never overwhelming family time and there was plenty of time to relax. Of course, 14 or 15 hours in the car could be a little much, but the trip was great. I loved the city, there were a ton of people and stores and things to do. I don´t have photos on this computer but one day if it occurs to me, I´ll put them on my Facebook. For the moment you can find them on the Facebook of my host mother (Maya Doubrova).
Other news: swim team is going well. Now I´m going to the pool around 4pm and practicing until 8pm. Though it typically turns out to be 45 minutes of swimming, hour plus of doing nothing, 45 minutes of weight training and stretching, and an hour of pretty laid back training with the team in the pool. I think we´re going to have a meet in around three weeks, which is exciting. Though I think it might be our only meet for the whole season. And the pool might close after that.... so I don´t know what the plans are for the team after.
Also, this Saturday will be the HALFWAY point of my exchange (from the date I´m guessing we leave FSA) which is pretty crazy. I am glad that I did the year program, I feel like four and a half months would be really little, because we all recently got settled in and into our routines, and no one speaks perfectly, we could all use the practice. And it will be nice to have 5 more months with our families. I don´t know when my mentality changed, but at the start, I never wanted to return early but I was kind of just waiting for the time to pass so I could get back, but now I´m really glad to be here and really shocked that in a little over four months I´ll have to start thinking about packing and thank you gifts and finishing my "things to do in Formosa" list. And in 5 months I´ll have to actually be saying good byes... the time really flies.
And more news: my host mother left on Saturday for the USA, and she arrived there the other day and tomorrow will meet my grandmother and in two months will meet my mom (and it scares me that my two families get to meet each other -no offense Bui or mom). And she gets back in... March? The end of February? I don´t really know...
And that´s it for news. So I think I am all caught up on everything I said I would say... so a big blogging pressure is now off my chest. Feel free to send me emails or Facebook messages. I feel very out of the US loop. Did I read something the other day that said John Kerry would be the next Secretary of State? Totally missed that.
We did a lot in Cordoba. We visited a German village, went to haunted houses, went ziplining (and be "we" I mean my uncle, 9 yr old cousin, and me, seeing as everyone else was too chicken), went to the center, which is like Church Street in Burlington times 20), went to the river and the coastanera, and of course, spent hours upon hours in the pool. And I didn´t get (that) burnt. The asado that we ate in Cordoba was also absolutely delicious. It was a great trip. We did a lot, but it was never overwhelming family time and there was plenty of time to relax. Of course, 14 or 15 hours in the car could be a little much, but the trip was great. I loved the city, there were a ton of people and stores and things to do. I don´t have photos on this computer but one day if it occurs to me, I´ll put them on my Facebook. For the moment you can find them on the Facebook of my host mother (Maya Doubrova).
Other news: swim team is going well. Now I´m going to the pool around 4pm and practicing until 8pm. Though it typically turns out to be 45 minutes of swimming, hour plus of doing nothing, 45 minutes of weight training and stretching, and an hour of pretty laid back training with the team in the pool. I think we´re going to have a meet in around three weeks, which is exciting. Though I think it might be our only meet for the whole season. And the pool might close after that.... so I don´t know what the plans are for the team after.
Also, this Saturday will be the HALFWAY point of my exchange (from the date I´m guessing we leave FSA) which is pretty crazy. I am glad that I did the year program, I feel like four and a half months would be really little, because we all recently got settled in and into our routines, and no one speaks perfectly, we could all use the practice. And it will be nice to have 5 more months with our families. I don´t know when my mentality changed, but at the start, I never wanted to return early but I was kind of just waiting for the time to pass so I could get back, but now I´m really glad to be here and really shocked that in a little over four months I´ll have to start thinking about packing and thank you gifts and finishing my "things to do in Formosa" list. And in 5 months I´ll have to actually be saying good byes... the time really flies.
And more news: my host mother left on Saturday for the USA, and she arrived there the other day and tomorrow will meet my grandmother and in two months will meet my mom (and it scares me that my two families get to meet each other -no offense Bui or mom). And she gets back in... March? The end of February? I don´t really know...
And that´s it for news. So I think I am all caught up on everything I said I would say... so a big blogging pressure is now off my chest. Feel free to send me emails or Facebook messages. I feel very out of the US loop. Did I read something the other day that said John Kerry would be the next Secretary of State? Totally missed that.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Christmas in Argentina... and a bunch of other stuff
So after being notified multiple times that I am an awful person for saying I would write about Christmas and my report card and a whole bunch of things and then disappearing, I am finally going to write the holidays post.
Here they celebrate Christmas differently. The whole family (cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, second nieces twice removed who knows what) get together on Christmas Eve for a big dinner. Asado. And they stay up until midnight, toast, and then open presents. There are no cookies for Santa Claus and no waking up at 5:30 Christmas morning to go open gifts... here they stay up, until about 5:30 in the morning, then sleeeeeeeep all day. Except in my case.
I went to the big dinner with my family, then afterwards, around 1:30am went with my friend Miya (from Japan) to the house of our exchange director because Christmas is her birthday. We stayed there for awhile, and then went to some "awesome Christmas party" which wasn´t anything interesting, so we went to my house. At that point, it was around 5:30am, so we thought we would have some breakfast... but here´s the thing. I had the key to the house, so I could get it... but the door that goes to my room and the kitchen was locked... so that meant no breakfast, and no bed. Which meant that my friends left and I slept in the hallway... in a dress... on Christmas... until the rest of the world woke up at noon. But all in all, Christmas was nice.
Next comes my report card. I passed all my classes except for electrical engineering, which I knew I wasn´t going to pass, seeing as I had no netbook and nearly all the class is on the computer, and I also only passed 2 of who knows how many exams. And believe it or not, those two exams were the very first ones and I didn´t even know we were going to have exams those days. Haha. Math, I barely passed... I don´t know how that worked out, because I got the equivalent of a D when I got 100% on every exam and did all of the homework... hmmmm. But all in all, I´m pretty satisfied. I did best in Chemistry and Physics, and pretty well in Geography and History, and decent in all the others. I still don´t know what credit I will get.
And next comes New Years. New Years is celebrated pretty much like Christmas. Big dinner, toast at midnight, then all go off to their separate parties with friends. The whole family gathered at my house, and after that I went with a few exchange students to get together at the French student´s house. We stayed there until it started to rain, around 6am, then headed off to our houses. Something different is that here, they shoot fireworks for New Years and Christmas, though they´re not big fireworks, just ones that people buy to shoot themselves. In the US we pretty much only have fireworks for July 4th.
And more news: the exchange students that arrived in February and the one that arrived in August for the semester program left on January 13th, five students in total. I wasn´t in Formosa on the 13th to go to the terminal, but I was here when Miya left one week early (headed to BA for a week). Everybody went to the terminal, all the exchange students, all her family and friends... I´m sad I missed the other departure, but I was traveling in Cordoba. That will be explained in another post (but no promises on when that is coming... could be in five minutes or five weeks). Four new exchange students come near the end of February.
And that´s it for this post. I know it was kind of choppy, but oh well. Comment on my blog if there´s any specific things you would like me to write about or if there´s any questions you have, or just to say hello.
Here they celebrate Christmas differently. The whole family (cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, second nieces twice removed who knows what) get together on Christmas Eve for a big dinner. Asado. And they stay up until midnight, toast, and then open presents. There are no cookies for Santa Claus and no waking up at 5:30 Christmas morning to go open gifts... here they stay up, until about 5:30 in the morning, then sleeeeeeeep all day. Except in my case.
I went to the big dinner with my family, then afterwards, around 1:30am went with my friend Miya (from Japan) to the house of our exchange director because Christmas is her birthday. We stayed there for awhile, and then went to some "awesome Christmas party" which wasn´t anything interesting, so we went to my house. At that point, it was around 5:30am, so we thought we would have some breakfast... but here´s the thing. I had the key to the house, so I could get it... but the door that goes to my room and the kitchen was locked... so that meant no breakfast, and no bed. Which meant that my friends left and I slept in the hallway... in a dress... on Christmas... until the rest of the world woke up at noon. But all in all, Christmas was nice.
Next comes my report card. I passed all my classes except for electrical engineering, which I knew I wasn´t going to pass, seeing as I had no netbook and nearly all the class is on the computer, and I also only passed 2 of who knows how many exams. And believe it or not, those two exams were the very first ones and I didn´t even know we were going to have exams those days. Haha. Math, I barely passed... I don´t know how that worked out, because I got the equivalent of a D when I got 100% on every exam and did all of the homework... hmmmm. But all in all, I´m pretty satisfied. I did best in Chemistry and Physics, and pretty well in Geography and History, and decent in all the others. I still don´t know what credit I will get.
And next comes New Years. New Years is celebrated pretty much like Christmas. Big dinner, toast at midnight, then all go off to their separate parties with friends. The whole family gathered at my house, and after that I went with a few exchange students to get together at the French student´s house. We stayed there until it started to rain, around 6am, then headed off to our houses. Something different is that here, they shoot fireworks for New Years and Christmas, though they´re not big fireworks, just ones that people buy to shoot themselves. In the US we pretty much only have fireworks for July 4th.
And more news: the exchange students that arrived in February and the one that arrived in August for the semester program left on January 13th, five students in total. I wasn´t in Formosa on the 13th to go to the terminal, but I was here when Miya left one week early (headed to BA for a week). Everybody went to the terminal, all the exchange students, all her family and friends... I´m sad I missed the other departure, but I was traveling in Cordoba. That will be explained in another post (but no promises on when that is coming... could be in five minutes or five weeks). Four new exchange students come near the end of February.
And that´s it for this post. I know it was kind of choppy, but oh well. Comment on my blog if there´s any specific things you would like me to write about or if there´s any questions you have, or just to say hello.
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