Just some general stuff...

So once again my family is pestering me to write a blog post (yes, you know who you are), so here we go. It's been just over one month, and so everything is falling into a routine. I started field hockey, I don't know if I already mentioned that. It's been going well, it's at a club a little ways away and we practice twice a week and have a game on the weekend. So far I've only been to two practices because I've been sick, but more details on that to come. It's really fun though, it's a nice way to meet some new people and get exercise. I started because another exchange student mentioned it, so we are doing it together. And being the two foreign girls that people assume don't speak Spanish, we miss out on a lot of the news, like games being cancelled. So we arrive at the field only to see nobody but our taxi driving away. And an example of Argentine lifestyle: we arrived at a 9:15pm practice at 9:00. And it was pitch black. Nobody was there, no lights were on, the building was dark... so we sat on the bench for a minute and then decided we might as well run a few laps just to say we did something, and then we would call a taxi or try to walk the 3 mile walk home. And so we ran, and as we were leaving the field (9:17ish) another team mate got there, and turned on the lights, and before long everyone was there. I guess getting to things early isn't really a thing here.
So I also got sick this past week, starting on Saturday. Your classic cough, fever, sore throat (I really need to remember how to spell throat, I've been having issues with that word). It was pretty bad on Saturday, which meant I missed out on going to a quinceañera, and I was home sick through Wednesday. So it was pretty boring, just sitting on my bed reading or on the computer. I was grateful to go to school on Thursday. I went to the doctor on Monday. I never intended on going, but I was with the other USA girl, who was also sick, so we went together with her family. Because it was a holiday, all of the public places were closed, so we went to the nearest private clinic, which happened to be a maternity clinic. So we got some looks. But oh well. We got some medicine and now it's a week later and I feel much better, although I still have a cough.
And as far as my birthday goes.Wednesday, my birthday, I went out with the exchange students and some volunteers for hot dogs (pretty deluxe hot dogs), then Friday I celebrated with my host family, seeing as it was my host father and my birthday that week. There were about forty people there that night for dinner, dancing, and a really sweet video that my host family made with clips from my family and classmates.
Besides that, life is pretty normal. Everything has settled into a routine, and every day I can tell that my Spanish is getting better!

A Day in the Life

So, after some requests for a blog update, here we go. My typical day here. Granted, I've only been here for two weeks, but I do have a basic routine.

Asado at a campo (not really related to this post)

Monday through Friday, I wake up at about nine for school. Get into my uniform (white polo, white skirt), sit at the kitchen table and eat some crackers or chipa (a type of bread) and have a cup of mate cocido. Here, breakfast isn't big, and a lot of people I know don't eat anything in the morning. Depending on the morning, I either go with my host mom to one of her English classes, or straight to school. Every day but Tuesday we drive, Tuesday I take the city bus (aka collectivo/bondi). School starts at 11:00. I have ten-ish classes, two or three per day. Because I go to a technical school, a lot of them are science related. I have math, chemistry, electrical engineering, technical drawing, history, geography, language arts, English, and physics. And at least one other thing, but I can't remember at the moment. Like I said before, the class is kind of crazy, but that's ok. I understand most of what goes on in my classes, especially chemistry and math. And English, obviously. I do most of the homework, which is more than I can say for a good number of my classmates hahaha. Once school ends, we all go out to the bus stop and take the bus to our houses. It's a city bus, and costs 1.25 pesos a ride, which is about 25 cents. I get home between 2:30 and 3:00, depending on when the bus comes. When I get home, my host parents are taking a siesta, so I heat up my lunch on the stove and eat, then either go to my room to do homework/take a siesta, or I go hang out with some of my friends. Between 2:00 and 5:00 there isn't much to do, most shops shut down until five. Dinner is at 10:00 more or less, so between 3:00 and 10:00 I'm really free to do whatever I want. I already know the city well, and from most areas I can find my way home easily. I walk a LOT here, some days as many as 40 blocks, which translates to 4 kilometers from walking to run errands, go eat, etc. Speaking of eating, I do a lot of that here to. All the food is so inexpensive and so good! But on Monday I start field hockey, which will be three days a week. Once the pools open, I'll start swimming on my own. Anyway, after dinner, I usually read, go online, whatever until about midnight when I go to sleep.

Before a party: nations represented:
Italy, USA, France, Japan, Germany, Argentina, Thailand, Denmark

Friday Night through Sunday, there is always too much to do. This is the time of year where there is la eleccion de la reina in every school, which is kind of a prom queen type election that is really a chance for the schools to show off and have parties. Each school has a theme (Tangled, Burlesque, Party Rock are a few examples) and the kids from each school dance and then all the girls that are contestants walk down the runway while they are scored. I went to one last weekend for a school called Don Bosco, and it went till about 4 in the morning. The one I went to last night was for San Martin, and tonight there is one for Santa Isabel. Most of the schools rent out giant athletic clubs or something similar to hold the parties, and between 500 and 1000 people go to the popular ones. The one at San Martin was not as good, so at 1:30 we all left to go out to eat and then walked to our houses at 4:30. I'm not going to the one for my school because it isn't supposed to be very good haha. Tonight is supposed to be the best one. I've been going with a group of exchange students/volunteers. It's really cool, because whenever we hang out the conversations are some mix of English, Spanish, and maybe Italian or German. So a general schedule for weekends: meeting up to go to parties around 10:00, leaving for the party at 11:00, go home and to sleep at 4:30, wake up at 10:00, hang around, take a siesta from 3:00 to 6:00, head out again at 10:00. It's been really fun, and a good balance between school and a social life.

First Day of School!

Today was my first day of school here in Argentina! Of course, I had my stylish white skirt and white polo shirt. I still need to buy white long socks, and I must say that the skirt is by no means in Academy dress code, but it isn't too bad. I arrived around 10:30am and talked to some teachers and classes began at 11:00. In my class there are between 20 and 30 boys, and only one girl besides me. Different from the US, to say the least. I went to school in the car with Maya because she teaches English in the school there. Today I had two classes. First, chemistry. I actually understood a lot of what was going on, because the teacher would read a sentence from the textbook and we all would copy it, so I also have all the notes from class. I could understand the content because I have taken chemistry before, though there were a few things that confused me. Next, math. At first my partner showed me the work they were doing and I didn't recognize anything, but once we started doing the math I understood it really well. Again, a few things confused me but the majority was good. Though I honestly had to ask my classmates to repeat things five times to understand them because they talk so quickly and with so much slang. Two AFS volunteers were at my school and at least one works there, so I know some people there.
In the past few days, I've gone to the ice cream store (which sells ice cream for about 75 cents... which may not be a good thing because I'll go there way too often) and spent some time with the other exchange students. My week already is filling up with all of the mate drinking and adventuring and everything!
Tonight they're supposed to show the exchange students on the local news station and have a segment on our arrival. And they interviewed me when I came and I was so tired that I didn't understand anything... and my Spanish was not at its best. So I'm looking forward to watching that haha.

Orientation and Arrival!

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

Orientation in Miami

Orientation for the day in Miami just ended, and now nine of the students are sitting on the lobby couch blogging, Facebook updating, tweeting... some are complaining about how slow the Internet is haha. Today we arrived between noon and four, and sat at the dining room and ate lunch. People are from all over! The plane ride here was pretty uneventful. A little girl was shocked that I was traveling all by myself. She thought that was pretty impressive. Getting off the plane, I kind of followed the mob to baggage plane but I think I took the roundabout way, which meant getting on a shuttle and up two flights of escalators and down two flights of escalators. The orientation at the hotel involved some ice breakers, some rules, and a really nice dinner. I met one other girl going to Formosa. Our flight leaves around midnight tomorrow!

Packing and Parties and all that other Pre Departure Stuff

Saturday night (two days ago) I had my going away party. There were about 18 people, from school, swimming, and Coutts. Of course, I forgot to take any pictures despite the fact that my camera was fully charged and on the counter, so there's no pictures of the cake (half USA flag, half Argentine flag) or the bonfire, or dinner, or s'mores with Nutella, or Liz getting hit in the face with a lacrosse ball (leave it to Liz). It was really fun though, and it was a nice way to say a group good bye. A lot of people were still out of town for the summer or busy, but in the past few weeks I've seen most of my friends. After the party I read some letters that my friends gave me, and I plan on taking those with me. I also got the Love Monkey, which is kind of a Traveling Pants-esque giant monkey that is passed around between some friends. There is no possible way that could fit in my suitcase, so I will make sure it gets passed to someone else soon after I leave.

And that brings us to packing. Which is a nightmare. I did a trial run packing last week just to get a general idea of how much space I have and what the weight is at. I think it's ironic that the people going to the subtropics can have heavier suitcases than those going to Ushuaia (the freezing cold city of the south) who have to bring heavy jackets and lots of pants. Either way, packing for a year is not easy. After a trip to Burlington last Monday I think I  am pretty well set as far as clothes go, but deciding what goes in which suitcase and how many of x to take and keeping track of everything is crazy. So I sat on the couch and made a list while my mom packed. Which is fine. Now all my clothes is packed and I'm currently in the process of getting my camera and phone and computer and all the chargers together. Or blogging as a method of procrastinating doing all that. It is really confusing that sometimes AFS says that we can have a carry on that's 22 lbs and others say 15 and others say something else. I'm going with the one that says 22.
So I leave tomorrow afternoon with my parents to Boston, where we'll stay overnight. Seeing as my brother leaves in the morning many hours before I think about waking up, we already had our heartfelt good bye in the car ("Bye Dylan." "Bye Dan.") The next day we go to the airport and part there, and I'll fly to Miami. We have an orientation there, stay overnight, then fly the next night to Buenos Aires, spend a night there, and then a few of us bus 14 hrs to Formosa, arriving Sunday. The next day I go to school, which is exciting... except for the fact that I don't know my school yet.

So something cool: in February when I first became sure I was doing this, I made a huge paper chain counting down the days until I left, each ring of the chain representing one day. And now after all these months there's one ring left out of a chain that used to be three times my height. Whoa.

By the way, after I leave the US, the best ways to contact me are via email: dmaghini@gmail.com, by commenting on the blog, or by Facebook. None of these will get a super fast response because I am limiting my email/Facebook use to once a week. Do not call/text my phone because that will not be going with me. Also, if you would like to send me that weird, old-fashioned thing called mail, send me an email and I'll give you an address. Just no guarantees on anything arriving there in a reasonable amount of time. I'll miss you all!

Lots of News from AFS

So in the past two months, a lot of things have happened. For the most part, the awful waiting game is over. In the middle of June, I finally got my host family placement! I'm placed in Formosa, Argentina, which is at the very north of the country in the subtropical region. The winter in Formosa (which is going on right now) is only about 10-15°F cooler than our summer, with occasional cold fronts. So this winter when it's -20°, just remember that  I'm living in 90°F and laughing all the while. According to the AFS motto, "It's not better, it's not worse, it's just different," but in this case I think it might be a tiny bit better. Anyway, I'm living in the capital city Formosa of the province Formosa. The city is on the smaller end of Argentinean cities, with 200,000 people. The city borders the Paraguay River and Paraguay itself, and I'll be living less than a mile away from the border. 
My host family is a family of four. I'll live with both parents and their two kids, a younger brother of 11 and sister of 6, which is really exciting. I've been talking via Skype to my host mom in Spanish. She's an English teacher at one of the local high schools. 
Speaking of schools, I still haven't gotten my school information but I know that the school my host mom teaches at is a possibility. It's a technical school, which would be a bit of a change from STJA. 
Just a couple days ago I received my departure date, which was a relief. I leave for Miami on August 22nd for an orientation with the other Americans going to Argentina. The next day we leave at night for a flight to Buenos Aires, and there we have another 1-2 day orientation with all of the international students traveling to Argentina. From there we will be sent off to our host families, in my case taking a 14 hour bus ride. Which I really don't think will be that bad, because I heard that it's super comfortable and it will be a way to see some of the other provinces. 
So now, all that's left is getting my school information, packing, and flying down to Miami. It's amazing how quickly my time left has gone!