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.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
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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