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.

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.

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.

Trip to the South

This is the much awaited post about my three week trip across the country, and of course, Christmas. This is going to be a long post because I plan on giving a day by day summary of the trip, so bear with me here.
I left for my trip the 1st of December, which meant that the 31st of November was my final day of school, which was partially sad but partially a relief to have made it through 3 months. I also got my report card the other day, but I will talk about that later.
Ok. So that Saturday I left in colectivo (or bus) to Buenos Aires with my host mother. The bus was just as nice as the one we took to get to Formosa in August. And at that point it was still exciting to be on the bus... after the trip I now never want to see another bus in my life. Anyway, we arrived in BA the following morning and went to the house of the family of my host mother. We ate asado, hung out, etc etc. The next day I spent with my host cousin and that afternoon, my uncle (real, blood uncle) came to pick me up. I spent Monday through Friday at his house, baking cookies (which turned out a disaster) and chipa (which was delicious) with my cousins, swimming a lot in the pool, etc. I was able to spend a little bit with my other cousins and see some of the family. The Thursday of that week was crazy, starting with a toxic cloud over the city and finishing with a huge rain storm and flood that prevented us from even being able to leave the apartment in car. But, Friday I got to the bus terminal okay and met there with four other exchange students from Formosa to head to Neuquen. 
So. Bus #2 to Neuquen. We arrived in Neuquen Saturday, but hours late, and our poor host families there were waiting for 3 hours in the terminal. My family had an exchange student from Canada, from just outside Quebec City. The two of us went to a dance recital type dinner thing, and the next day to a dinosaur museum and to the beach of a river to swim, tan, and spend the afternoon. It was gorgeous! But I burnt. Bad. So the next day I spent pretty relaxed until it was time to head to the bus terminal again to start the trip. There, the group was waiting, about 25 exchange students, 2 volunteers, and 5 or so older ladies that were traveling with the group. We spent a night on the bus, and in the morning arrived to Comodoro Rivadavia, a smaller city on the coast. We had the afternoon free to adventure, and a group of us went to the ocean to swim (but I didn´t swim, because I was so burnt) and then we hung around the center looking at shops, walking along the coast, until dinner. The next morning we took off in colectivo, first taking a tour around the city, to a bunch of different view points and there was a tour guide that gave us some information.
From there, we started south, another night in bus, and arrived in Calafate in the morning. There the hotel was nice, each room complete with kitchen and was actually two stories each room. Again, we had the day free. My friends and I went to the chocolate factory for a demonstration, and plenty of chocolate sampling. We left with bags of chocolate and went to eat it at the costanera of Lake Argentina, next to a bird sanctuary where we could see flamingos... And then we decided to be rebels and climbed down to the coast and chasing after some loose horses that we saw. Which resulted in some soggy shoes and muddy pants. We headed back to the hotel for get ready for dinner and afterwards went out to the town to look around. The next day we went all together to the national park of the glaciars, and had four hours to pass around trails that had different views of Perito Moreno, which was really fun. There were about 6 kilometers of trails, and that is all the photos you see on my Facebook. The next day was the excursion in boat to a bunch of different glaciars, which was about 6 hours. We had a lot of fun on the boat, and the glaciars looked amazing from the water. We spent one more night in the hotel, and the next day set out again in bus. And I forgot to mention, except for the first few hours in Calafate, there was no water in the town. At all. Which was annoying. But anyway.

First, in the bus, we went to Rio Gallegos for a couple hours, the southernmost city in Argentina not including Ushuaia, in Tierra del Fuego. Then we headed to Puerto Madrin, which was gorgeous. The hotel was amazing, and our room had a great view of the ocean. We went to the ocean, and that time I did swim. And in the five minutes we were in the water, my friend´s amazing camera with 2000 photos of the trip was stolen, and for that reason there´s some photo gaps on my Facebook because I was lazy and didn´t talke many of my own photos. So that afternoon was spent in the police station. And the next morning we began the return, stopping for lunch in a tea house that Lady Di visited. And we ate cake. Lots of cake. And we finally returned to Neuquen, and had one more night with our families from Neuquen before going to the terminal. And when we got to the terminal, the girls from Japan and Thailand were there... and the two Italians weren´t . And they weren´t there when the bus arrived. And so it was three of us on the bus. Until, the passenger behind me said "Te estan saludando!" (They´re waving at you) and I was confused, until I looked out the window and saw two Italians hanging out a car window waving at us. And they got on the next stop. And we arrived in BA, spent 6 hours in the terminal, then headed to Formosa, one more night on the bus. And finally got back.

Long time, no blog

So, my computer broke about a month ago, and so I have been using that as an excuse not to blog. But after multiple complaints, I am back too it.
There hasn`t been too much going on. My family celebrated Thanksgiving one Sunday, and I made scalloped potatoes and an arrollado (kind of a rolled up angel cake filled with dulce de leche and chocolate). Afterwards we took a little outing to a nearby lake for a swim and to play on the beach. I`m not using my computer right now, so no photos, but if I remember I`ll upload some. It was kind of strange to have no turkey, no gravy, and no pumpkin pie, but I also liked the fact that there was no snow and we could go to the beach.
More news: I finished school on Friday. No big goodbyes, I actually think the last memories of some of my classmates were of me on the bus trying to get the doors to open. When my host mother asked them later on what they last said to me, it was something on the lines of "Toca el timbre" or "Touch the bell", to alert the bus driver that the doors weren´t open. Next year I won`t be continuing in the technical school, because all of the high school has classes at night, so I will supposedly be going to one of the nearby private schools. That will definitely be a different experience from a public tech school.
And finally, I am in Buenos Aires right now. Yesterday I arrived in a bus (though a pretty swanky bus) and I stayed the night in my host aunt and uncle`s house. Today I will be picked up by my real uncle, and I will stay here until Friday, when I get together with a few other exchange students to head to the Neuquen (in the south), to start one of the AFS trips. We should be doing a whole tour of the south, lasting ten days. Afterwards, we return to Formosa for Christmas. And speaking of Christmas, we decked the tree on Saturday. Of course, it was hot and sunny, and a plastic tree, but same idea.
I`ll upload more photos once I get back from my trip!

Random differences between ARG and the USA

So some differences between the USA and Argentina that I have noticed thus far:

-Greetings: girls greet guys and other girls with a kiss on each cheek. Guys typically greet guys with a hand shake. It is important to kiss/shake hands with everybody upon arrival to and departure from anywhere.

-The ice cream is served in cones, but with spoons, which works well for me seeing as I am incapable of eating from a cone. It's also ridiculously inexpensive.

-The napkins at restaurants are more like wax paper, not paper, so they don't work as well.

-Facebook is used even more here than in the US, as hard to imagine as that may be.

-CocaCola (aka Coca) is very common, and most ice cream stores, hardware stores, you name it, have a refrigerator. It is the typical beverage of lunch and dinner.

-Instead of knocking on doors, some people clap their hands outside.

-Going barefoot indoors is strange. Shoes are more appropriate.

-Very few people have phone plans. It is common to just charge credit onto your phone every few weeks.

-The SIESTA! Between 2 and 6pm, many people take a siesta, a nap for a few hours. I take a siesta on Saturday and Sunday usually. It's the way the people here manage with going to sleep at midnight or one in the morning on weekdays. Also, between about 3 and 5, the city is a ghost town. Almost all the shops besides supermarkets close down. Which is kind of annoying because that is the time slot that I am always home looking for something to do.

-There is no peanut butter.

-There is no school transportation. Students walk, bike, get rides from their parents, or take city buses. The student rate is $1.25 pesos, or about 25 cents.

-In school, all the students stay in the same classroom and the teachers change rooms. Students cannot elect their classes (although they can elect tracks, for example natural sciences, humanities... in my school, things like construction, electricity, etc.)

-Students do not eat lunch in school. They either have morning classes, from around 8-12, afternoon classes, 10-2, or night classes, 6-10. Or in my case, 11-2 afternoon classes.

-The moon here is sideways. It looks like a smiley face.


And that's just the beginning. More to come.

Swimming and other water related events...

So lots of things have been happening recently. I´ve continued with field hockey, but yesterday I also started swimming! It takes place at one of the private schools, but on the team there´s kids from all different schools. Practice yesterday was from 7 to 8 and was great! The coach said we could come at 6 to do distance, so today I went at 6, did 2000 meters, then rested until the practice started at 7. It was a little chilly outside so it was actually nicer to stay in the pool. Practice ended at 8 and I needed to get to field hockey, so I ran from the pool to my friend´s house, 8 and a half blocks, in under ten minutes. Pretty impressive for after a swim practice. Then we got crafty and tried to make grilled cheese to eat before practice, but because we lacked butter we used eggs and did a french toast grilled cheese combo that wasn´t the height of American cuisine, but food is food, and we were hungry. Then, we left for field hockey, from 9 to 10:30. Lots of running. So I'm falling asleep while writing right now. But, I'm really happy that I'm getting out, doing things, and exercising.
On to other water related activities. Ironically, one morning last week I was looking up Formosa Weather in Wikipedia because it seemed odd that in the subtropics there hadn't been any rain for a month. Except for one time we heard it raining outside for a few minutes. I wondered, how could there be so much rain, as Wikipedia says, if it has been so dry? And later I found out.
Analise, the girl from the USA, and I were sitting outside of some arts building. We have to go there to take tango classes, but I will go into detail on those another time. We had 400 pesos (or 80 dollars) worth of documents with us that we had to give to our director for a refund for our doctor's visit. And 400 pesos is a lot to us, that is enough to last weeks here. Anyway, we were sitting on the windowsill of the building, waiting for our director's exchange students to pass the papers to them. And then the lampposts flickered on. Ok. Nothing weird there. Until they flickered off. Ok. Guess whoever turned them on changed their minds. And they flickered like that for a few seconds. And decided they wanted to stay off. And then, the man walking by in the street looked up, then walked faster. Ok. Then it began to drizzle. But just a little water. Analise puts the papers under her shirt, to keep the water off. And the people in the street begin to full out run. Ok. Come on guys, it's just a little rain. Honestly. And all of a sudden, it seemed like Niagra Falls had been transplanted right on us. Analise and I are the only ones left on the street. And we run. Full out book it. But the kioscos don't let us inside, because already we are absolutely soaked. Our favorite bakery is packed full of people. All the stores are locking up. As we run, Analise has an idea. Call a taxi! But of course. We pause under an overhang and I call a taxi. The phone disconnects. I call the other taxi number. The phone disconnects. Ok. Great. So, we look at each other. And we are in a perfect movie moment, with that perfect look without speaking, which means "We're in this together. Either we make it, or we die trying." And we run. Nine blocks to Analise's house, in the rain, hail, eight inch deep puddles, flying tree branches, mud, honking cars, and who knows what else. Finally we arrive to her house, our shoes fully soaked, not a dry inch on our bodies, and of course we take out our shoes on the street because god forbid we track water in the house. We proceed to the kitchen and take out the papers, our money, and our phones, and assess the damage. The papers, more or less legible but ripped beyond repair (AFS didn't accept them, we have to get more next week). Our money, completely soaked, but eventually dried. And our phones, suprisingly, worked. So no serious damage. And we get changed, get food, and watch movies on Analise's computer in the dark, because of course the power is out. So later, I go home, while I'm walking, observing all the destruction in the streets. And when I get home, who is my host mom Skyping with but my mom! Unfortunately the connection cut, but how funny that while they were Skyping I was running across the city in the downpour. Looking back, there were many things that would have made this situation better. Like just staying under an overhang in the street. Or calling someone to pick us up. Or actually listening to various host parents and friends that said it would rain. And how funny that earlier that day we were talking about how odd it was that they don't go to school when it rains. Well, I for one would not want to be outside more then five seconds in that weather. So now I get it. When it rains, it pours.