It has been cold here in Buenos Aires...quite cold, so yesterday when it felt as though it were in the 70's (our measurements of course), I couldn't wait to sport my warm-weather gear! I gleefully pulled my stylish blue tank over my head and rolled up the cuffs of my jeans and placed my painted toes into my leather sandles. I stepped out of my little yellow house happy to feel the warm sun on my skin. As I made my merry little way down the street I couldn't help but notice the extra layers everyone else was wearing... I soon became very conscious of my lack of additional layers and couldn't help but wonder if I was simply more excited than everyone else about the warm weather, or if I was commiting some horrible "fashion faux pas"? What if it was considered revealing for girls to wear tank-tops in this part of the world? Needless to say, I was glad to have my sweater with me and thought it better to roast until further notice.
I only saw three girls with tank tops on but they all had their hair covering their shoulders... curious. I decided the manicans in the shop windows might be able to tell me something. A manican wearing a straples - bingo. I decided it was still too early to bare all, so I spent the day like a true Californian with sandals and a sweatshirt.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
I Lied. My Dad Would Be So Proud!
So there is a verdularia (vegetable store) in my neighborhood that I like to get my produce from because its better than what is in the grocery stores. At verdularias here employees help you choose your produce and weigh it for you and everything. When I went for the first time a couple of weeks ago, a young man helped me get my things and he was very considerate about my limited speaking capabilities. Since then we´ve been on an "hola" basis whenever I pass the shop (we say hello as I pass). The other day however, he was outside so I stopped to chat with him. He asked me what my name was and I had to spell it out for him (people down here have a hard time pronouncing my name), so he took out his phone to write it out (I could see where this was going...), and then asked if I had a cell phone here so he could text me. I told him that I didn´t (which was a lie), and then he told me in heavily accented English "You are beautiful" and then proceeded to ask if I had a "novio" (boyfriend), to which I answered yes (also a lie). Then we kind of joked about it and he said I was breaking his heart. Better sooner than later, no? Daddy would be proud.
This last week I was introduced to two guys at the Institute because they speak English - turns out one is Canadian and the other is an MK (missionary kid). I happen to live between the two of them and the Canadian (Geordan) runs a youth program at an English-speaking church and teaches once a week at the Institute. The other (Stephen) is 21 and just got back to Argentina from taking classes at a university in Philidelphia (about the same time I did). Stephen is going to start working with Geordan as a leader for the youth program so they invited me to the group event this last Friday - a kind of progressive dinner kind of thing where all of us moved from house to house for each course of the meal. Almost all of the youth attend an International high school and almost all of them were American. I had gotten used to hearing English with the British accent because of the many British-Argentines in my area, but it was so strange to be in a room full of people speaking "American". This last Friday was the first time I´ve used the word "dude" here - it was so weird to say it! I met several Americans on Friday and most of them invited me to this event or that, which is great, but I don´t want to surround myself with English too much because I came to Argentina for the "Immersion Experience". I´ll have to limit my time with them, no matter how much I like spending time with them.
Random connection - Geordan´s sons play roller-hockey for the community team (I used to play when I was a kid), and he just put up a rock-climbing wall in his backyard (I just started getting into rock-climbing before I left for Argentina).
This last week I was introduced to two guys at the Institute because they speak English - turns out one is Canadian and the other is an MK (missionary kid). I happen to live between the two of them and the Canadian (Geordan) runs a youth program at an English-speaking church and teaches once a week at the Institute. The other (Stephen) is 21 and just got back to Argentina from taking classes at a university in Philidelphia (about the same time I did). Stephen is going to start working with Geordan as a leader for the youth program so they invited me to the group event this last Friday - a kind of progressive dinner kind of thing where all of us moved from house to house for each course of the meal. Almost all of the youth attend an International high school and almost all of them were American. I had gotten used to hearing English with the British accent because of the many British-Argentines in my area, but it was so strange to be in a room full of people speaking "American". This last Friday was the first time I´ve used the word "dude" here - it was so weird to say it! I met several Americans on Friday and most of them invited me to this event or that, which is great, but I don´t want to surround myself with English too much because I came to Argentina for the "Immersion Experience". I´ll have to limit my time with them, no matter how much I like spending time with them.
Random connection - Geordan´s sons play roller-hockey for the community team (I used to play when I was a kid), and he just put up a rock-climbing wall in his backyard (I just started getting into rock-climbing before I left for Argentina).
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Planting Trees
I got to help the youth of the church with their tree-planting project yesterday! There were about 35 students that went along, so the church rented a bus to take us all to the site, which was a Christian camp about an hour away. Their goal is to plant at least 250 trees over a bit of time, and by the end of just one day we had planted 128. Woohoo!
When I got to the church at 8:00 am (ugh), I didn't recognize anyone, so I was pretty excited to see a guy named Alvaro join the group. I had met Alvaro just two days ago at the college group and he had seemed like a fun character, so I was looking forward to having a day to get to know him, and I was just glad to see someone I knew. We talked on the bus the whole way to the camp - he really surprised me with his English. He is pretty much self-taught but he knows an amazing amount of vocabulary (much of which he's picked up from tv, haha), but the next time I see him I'm going to make him speak to me in spanish because it just wouldn't be right if I left Argentina without picking it up because everyone spoke to me in English!
Once at the camp, everyone was put into partners to plant trees... kind of. They weren't exactly trees; apparently the specific type of tree we were planting has the ability to sprout roots just from a branch, so we were planting spear-tipped branches in the ground. I hope they know what they are talking about! So Alvaro was my partner for the first half of the day - we had a fun time talking about pretty much everything. After lunch everyone switched partners but I didn't have one for a while so just planted trees on my own for a bit. Eventually another guy named Nacho asked if he could help me, so we worked together for the second half. Nacho and I found a grub in the hole we were digging (yuck), but he kept calling it a crag.
A shovel is called a "pala" which really translates to "spade." Alvaro was telling me about a "picada," from which I gathered is like a spread of snacks - I think specifically meats and cheeses; the kind of things you eat with toothpicks, but the actual snack itself is not called a pica. Apparently you can't use it that way.
I slept very well last night :)
About to plant me some trees!
Some little kid trying Mate for the first time (a really stong, hot tea)
The group of "jovenes"
Our garden!
One of the "trees" I planted!
When I got to the church at 8:00 am (ugh), I didn't recognize anyone, so I was pretty excited to see a guy named Alvaro join the group. I had met Alvaro just two days ago at the college group and he had seemed like a fun character, so I was looking forward to having a day to get to know him, and I was just glad to see someone I knew. We talked on the bus the whole way to the camp - he really surprised me with his English. He is pretty much self-taught but he knows an amazing amount of vocabulary (much of which he's picked up from tv, haha), but the next time I see him I'm going to make him speak to me in spanish because it just wouldn't be right if I left Argentina without picking it up because everyone spoke to me in English!
Once at the camp, everyone was put into partners to plant trees... kind of. They weren't exactly trees; apparently the specific type of tree we were planting has the ability to sprout roots just from a branch, so we were planting spear-tipped branches in the ground. I hope they know what they are talking about! So Alvaro was my partner for the first half of the day - we had a fun time talking about pretty much everything. After lunch everyone switched partners but I didn't have one for a while so just planted trees on my own for a bit. Eventually another guy named Nacho asked if he could help me, so we worked together for the second half. Nacho and I found a grub in the hole we were digging (yuck), but he kept calling it a crag.
A shovel is called a "pala" which really translates to "spade." Alvaro was telling me about a "picada," from which I gathered is like a spread of snacks - I think specifically meats and cheeses; the kind of things you eat with toothpicks, but the actual snack itself is not called a pica. Apparently you can't use it that way.
I slept very well last night :)
About to plant me some trees!
Some little kid trying Mate for the first time (a really stong, hot tea)
The group of "jovenes"
Our garden!
One of the "trees" I planted!
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Hey Look, A Post!
Hey everyone!
I was sick this week with a cold and stuck at home without internet. Hopefully I will be getting wifi soon though! I didn´t do a whole lot this week with me being in bed and all, but I did go into the city to pick up the package my mom sent me. Because it is international it had to go through customs, which is a long, grueling process - atleast in Buenos Aires. A couple of friends were nice enough to drive me into the city and help me get my package. We were there for a couple of hours waiting for them to get to my box (there were a lot of people waiting to get there´s too. There were about 60 people in front of us). Once they called out our number we got to go into a back room where they have the customs process; which is where they cut open your package and dig through it to make sure you aren´t smuggling anything illegal into the country. Fortunately for me the box was addressed to a church and apparently I don´t look too sketchy, so the employee just gave me my box without tearing it apart :) I love being a girl sometimes.
Saturday morning I went grocery shopping at the nearby supermarcado, where I learned to never go shopping Saturday morning at the nearby supermarcado. Apparently everyone and their cousin goes Saturday morning and all of the checkers are open and all of them have long lines... and for some reason checkers are just slower here than at Vons. You can wait 20 minutes in a line of 3 people. yep. And that´s without a pricecheck.
So I decided to make chocolate chip cookies for the college group Saturday night since these cookies seem to be few and far between. It takes hours to make cookies if you don´t have proper cookie sheets by the way. Needless to say, the cookies turned out great and everyone loved them, and I ate like 6. Once the bananas ripen I´m going to make banana bread!
I´m going to start posting a section we´ll call "Cultural Difference of the Day" where I´ll describe something that I notice about Argentina or the culture that is just "different" than what we are used to seeing in the Good ol´USA. But not today. Gotta go - talk to you all later!
Chao!
I was sick this week with a cold and stuck at home without internet. Hopefully I will be getting wifi soon though! I didn´t do a whole lot this week with me being in bed and all, but I did go into the city to pick up the package my mom sent me. Because it is international it had to go through customs, which is a long, grueling process - atleast in Buenos Aires. A couple of friends were nice enough to drive me into the city and help me get my package. We were there for a couple of hours waiting for them to get to my box (there were a lot of people waiting to get there´s too. There were about 60 people in front of us). Once they called out our number we got to go into a back room where they have the customs process; which is where they cut open your package and dig through it to make sure you aren´t smuggling anything illegal into the country. Fortunately for me the box was addressed to a church and apparently I don´t look too sketchy, so the employee just gave me my box without tearing it apart :) I love being a girl sometimes.
Saturday morning I went grocery shopping at the nearby supermarcado, where I learned to never go shopping Saturday morning at the nearby supermarcado. Apparently everyone and their cousin goes Saturday morning and all of the checkers are open and all of them have long lines... and for some reason checkers are just slower here than at Vons. You can wait 20 minutes in a line of 3 people. yep. And that´s without a pricecheck.
So I decided to make chocolate chip cookies for the college group Saturday night since these cookies seem to be few and far between. It takes hours to make cookies if you don´t have proper cookie sheets by the way. Needless to say, the cookies turned out great and everyone loved them, and I ate like 6. Once the bananas ripen I´m going to make banana bread!
I´m going to start posting a section we´ll call "Cultural Difference of the Day" where I´ll describe something that I notice about Argentina or the culture that is just "different" than what we are used to seeing in the Good ol´USA. But not today. Gotta go - talk to you all later!
Chao!
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Just Photos
Flight 51 to Buenos Aires. On Time.
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The first morsel of food I was offered at Neli's house. They are cookies (galletas), that are made up of a whole bunch of little cookies! How fun!!!
Some carrots that I bought to make some vegetable soup from the local verduraria (vegetable shop). All of the food is more fun in Argentina!
This is the view from my bedroom window.
My backyard :)
There are stairs directly in front of the front door.
My kitchen.
Living room.
The stairs up to my room. Did I mention I have bad knees?
Nope.
My bedroom! Yes, the ceiling is slanted. I can only stand up straight next to the window. That is just and extra bed (I have the room to myself).
My house is yellow! (Not our car.. :( )
The local SuperMarcado. They never have monedas!!! (coins!!!)
The local kiosco (they have tons of these)
Neli took me on a little tour of downtown. This is the entrance to a palace that we did not go inside of....
RIGHT??? hahaha.
Look familiar?
Monday, August 3, 2009
And So It Begins
Sorry that I haven´t posted in a few days - its not that I´ve been terribly busy, just that I have limited internet connection! Today I am at the church office and on their computer, so I wont be posting pictures today. For some reason my computer wont connect to their wireless - hopefully a problem that can be fixed soon. This week I will be finding out what my schedule will be looking like (more or less), and I will be having my first tutoring session today and attending my first youth group meeting on wednesday. It is difficult to set my schedule because I am working with so many different people - we are all meeting later this week to collaborate and fit everything together - they are going to tell me what my life is going to look like!
I went to church yesterday for the first time and was introduced to everyone! I understood nothing of the sermon and never knew if people were asking me how long I have been here or were asking me how long I am staying, so I ended up telling some people that I have been here for five months and others that I am only staying for a week!
My mind usually doesn´t have to start translating until the afternoon because Neli leaves for work before I come down stairs and I don´t go into the city until 2 or 3, so this Sunday morning was interesting! Neli and I were getting ready for church at the same and I could really tell a difference in my response time. She would ask me something and I ended up just staring at her, waiting for my mind to catch up with what she had said, but it never did. Goodness. Then she introduced me to all of her friends at church....
Needless to say, I am tired today even though I got plenty of sleep. And I still have tutoring to go to! I hope that I am more alert for my lesson!
I went to church yesterday for the first time and was introduced to everyone! I understood nothing of the sermon and never knew if people were asking me how long I have been here or were asking me how long I am staying, so I ended up telling some people that I have been here for five months and others that I am only staying for a week!
My mind usually doesn´t have to start translating until the afternoon because Neli leaves for work before I come down stairs and I don´t go into the city until 2 or 3, so this Sunday morning was interesting! Neli and I were getting ready for church at the same and I could really tell a difference in my response time. She would ask me something and I ended up just staring at her, waiting for my mind to catch up with what she had said, but it never did. Goodness. Then she introduced me to all of her friends at church....
Needless to say, I am tired today even though I got plenty of sleep. And I still have tutoring to go to! I hope that I am more alert for my lesson!
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