first (almost) week in argentina!!!!!!
Well, i'm officially over the equator now (actually i was as of 3:15am EST thursday morning :P) lol but yea... its AMAZING.
THE FLIGHT OVER: MIAMI TO BUENOS AIRES
it was fine... but i didn't sleep a wink. couldnt even close my eyes for more than a minute :P o well it was fine. the us kids (who i flew over w/ and spent the first 24 hrs of orientation with) are SOOOOO nice :D we all got so close so quickly... exchange kids tend to do that i've found.... we just seem to open up to each other immediatly and almost always click ^-^ then again, when there're 70 kids made to spend 5 hrs at an airport before all travelling to a foreign country for 6 months - a year with nothing else to do... you talk about a lot ^_* one of the guys somehow made my ipod work... after i spent 2 hrs the night before trying to figure out what kind of "update" it kept saying i needed, refusing to work... blahhhh. lol XP o well at least it works ^-^ thats what matters. however. special me. i forgot that DUH when i unplugged it from the comp, it would stop charging. it was only in the comp for maybe half an hr.... so one song after the flight left, and it was dead. a;slidraw. lol o well. at least there was ok music on the plane, and a very funny movie (RV, with robin williams) and the dinner was actually edible!!! disgustingly edible but edible nonetheless. the breakfast however.... EW. completely inedible. le sigh. customs/immigration was surprisingly easy and quick considering the amount of ppl we had... lol : )> we had to wait a while in the b-a airport as well, but then we all got on 2 busses to go to the orientation camp place... my bus, lotsa fun we watched (the first part at any rate) of happy gilmore (in spanish of course, but with engish subtitles :P lol)
FIRST ORIENTATION CAMP: somewhere, BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE
got there, after about an hr bus ride... OMG IT WAS SOOOOO COLD!! the only heating was some gas heating in about 3 rooms... we were all walking around in hats, gloves, a thousand layers... :P lol o well. the food was ok... coffee was gross... but aw the little servers were adorable ^-^ i mean they weren't very young, about 14 and 17, but aw. had the cutest expressions : )> lol of course, the orienting part was excessivly boring. and stupid. and cold. but whateverrrrr. lol the girl who works for afs in b-a, valeria, she gave us this whole talk on like keeping ur reputation, not becoming the slutty american... scared us all shitless cuz she made it sound like if we sat next to a guy and talked to him, he'd go off and tell all his friends he hooked up with us... pablo (the volunteer who let us watch happy gilmore... SUPER PABLO!! lol >: )>) and ale, another volunteer, all assured us it wasn't that bad but still, she scared us pretty good, and i mean... pablo and ale are guys so its a little hard for them to do much assuring... :S lol no im sure its fine. ANYWAYS. except for 3 girls from switzerland and an australian and a kiwi, we were all american... most of the euros (europeans) were arriving the next day (friday). so yea... took a bunch of pics, will post them once they're on my comp and i figure out how to do so (aka actually try) lol yea. thursday night we had a mini dance party, tho i spent most of the time trying to find kids who hadnt gotten their sheets/towels cuz the stupid volunteers wouldn't give bea (one of the swiss girls, who spoke VERY little spanish and not very good english... tho much better english than my spanish lol) anyways, wouldnt let her get her towels/sheets till we found the other 5 kids who needed them :P lol o well we eventually did. so yea. slept in these tiny rooms with a bed about 2'8" wide but luckily with heavy blankets, so it was ok... hung out in one girl, ash's room w/ a couple other girls till pretty late looking at pics and talking and such ^-^ then, friday morning, we were told that 25 of us, the ones of us staying in b-a (aka me and the other lang. campers) or those who had to fly out of b-a to get to their host fams were going to a diff. orientation camp... so we had to pack up really quickly and say goodbye to everyone :P also we ddnt get to meet the majority of the euros (only about 15 were going to the other camp w/ us) but i had time to hear the ADORABLE british accent of one of the swedish guys... like the perfect accent. lol ^-^ at any rate, tho none of the ppl i was closest to were coming to the second place, whatev. just meant i got closer to them as well : )
SECOND LANGUAGE CAMP: somewhere else, BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE
this one was OMG SO MUCH NICER!! still freezing cold, but only about half as cold :P lol and a beautiful old monestary/university building thing (not really sure what it was) anyways sooo pretty and yea ^-^ very different lol also, the food was much better (tho no adorable little servers) lol but the rooms were nice and warm... double ones, i shared a room with a girl named kyla, from alaska. also, jilly came as well so that was nice i hadnt spoken with her much before at the other place, and we sat next to each other on the ride over so yea. lol : )> once the euro's got there, we had a orienting session thing. guess what it was. THE EXACT SAME TALK WE'D GOTTEN THE DAY BEFORE!!!!! ;aslkdjrea. i was soooooo boredddddddddddd. lol :P o well. the euro's are very nice, i got to kno a bunch of them pretty well, so it's lots of fun ^-^ anyways, at least the cool volunteers (pablo, stephen - an american who went on exchange to argentina... crazy guy. but very funny lol - and mili - a very sweet argentinian girl) all came so that was nice ^-^ anyways, after dinner we all sat around till about midnight, drinking matte and one of the italians was really good at guitar, and kyla it turns out is AMAZING at the violin, so they played a bunch of stuff... lotsa fun. then we played this version of musical chairs: everyone is seated in chairs in a circle, and each person gets a playing card. then, the one in the middle (who's not playing, just reading cards) chooses a card from the rest of the deck (2 decks if not many cards left) and reads the suite. if ur card has that suite, u move one to the right (yes, sitting on the person next to u, unless they happened to have the same suite) the game continues, always moving one to the right if ur suite is called.. however, if someone is sitting on u, u can't move, even if ur suite is called, so u'll get 6 ppl on the same chair >: )> lol the game's over and won by the first person to get back to their original seat. i won the second game :D lol yea.. next day, more boring orienting... we were split into groups, organized by where ppl are going, so everyone in my group was staying in b-a, and with the exception of 3 ppl, an american girl, a girl from germany, and a girl from holland, were all doing the language camp. so that was cool i got to kno them before we started, and its a very cool group. also, pablo and mili are our group head ppl, so that makes it more fun ^_^ saturday, we took a bus ride to the city of b-a (the place was actually about 30 minutes away) and went on a mini tour of b-a... had 4 stops, the first ones about 20 minutes each, but nice to see it a bit, then the last we had sandwiches and walked around one part, so it was fun ^-^ that evening we had a "talent show" but not really... in our groups, we had to come up with a skit thing about what we learned... my group had an argentinian class, and joachim (the only guy in the group, from belgium) was the prof. and he introduced 2 new exchange students... neither of whom spoke any spanish. so the first one goes "how do u say 'may i go to the bathroom?'" and of course, us students tell her the spanish equivalent of "i'll kick you're ass," and then when the teacher flips out, and says GO TO TEH PRINCIPALS OFFICE, we were like "he says take ur time!" so yea. it was all improv-ed cuz we couldnt come up with anything. then the second one, we tell her to raise her hand as in giving the middle finger... lol yea. the others sucked just as much tho, so it was ok lol :D so yea... we ddnt go to bed till like 2am. and got up at 4:30. to get on busses and go to the airport :P cuz some of the kids' flights left really early and blah. lol
AIRPORT: BUENOS AIRES
yea... i was there from about 5am till 1pm... hung out with various ppl, changing as they kept leaving to go to their different host families... not much happened lol we were too tired. lots of funny pics tho of all of us completely knocked out on the airport floor... lol >: )> i FINALLY had some very good coffee ^_^ lol the orientation coffee and of course the airplane coffee was nasty, tasted like cardboard, but the stuff from the cafe was very good... now that i'm eating the "real" food... im gonna get soo fat. tis bad. well no actually starting tomorrow im gonna go running and stuff but ugh the portions are HUGE. like... its practically impossible to ever finish completely what u're given. lol XP
TEMPORARY HOST FAMILY!!!
so yea!! juan (my temp host father) picked me up around 1pm and took me to this country club where he and his wife and their two kids - juanchi, who turned 3 on 8/7, and a baby girl, who's name i forget - spend most of their weekends... it's got tennis, golf, cricket (!) (lol weirdest sport EVER) and in the summer, polo and swimming... very pretty place ^-^
afterwards, we went to mariana (temp host mom)'s dad's house, where he lives with his 2nd wife, and had dinner, which was very good, tho not stuff i really liked. but whatev, i ate it at any rate lol but i was sooo exhausted, as soon as we got home i just went to sleep.
the next day, after lang. camp, it was juanchi's bday, so juan and i went over to his school and met up wtih mariana, then we went to the class.. teh kids all went to this little sitting room type thing iwth a fireplace, and then me and the host parents set up decorations... balloons, etc, and set up a little party, all in the classroom. when the kids got back, they had chips and cookies and such. then the teachers gave them all pompoms and turned music on and they all danced... soo cute!! lol the kids are tiny, 2-4 years old... lol aww! haha yea then they pulled a string from a pinata a al teh movie Cars (which joanchi's obsessed with) and candy and confetti fell everywhere.... by the end, the classroom floor was COVERED in confetti. then we had cake, INCREDIBLY rich cake, lots of dolce de leche in the middle (reallyreallyreally sweet caramel spread thing... very good but only in small amounts... my host fam at least eats a ton of it tho lol) anyways, we had AMAZING steak for dinner.. the beef in argentina truly is the best anywhere ^_^ lol also they eat a lot of pumpkin-like squash that i thought at first was sweet potatoes, cuz it looks/tastes just like our sweet potatoes, apparently their sweet potatoes are completely different tho lol
today, didn't do much.... mariana took me to an amazing ice cream place tho ^-^ so that was cool. i swear theyre trying to make us fat lol
LANGUAGE CAMP
the language camp's been fine... first day especially was pretty boring, cuz i do kno a bunch of the basics... today i knew most of what we did as well, but it was good review cuz at the back of my mind i'd forgotten a lot and so it was good to practice it, remember it all... cuz usually while speaking u concentrate mostly on words/vocab, not grammar lol
the best part of it is talking with the other kids tho... they take us to lunch at this little cafe that has amazingly cheap and amazing food, so its just fun to talk with them a lot... we have fun ^-^ today me, annie (from new mexico) and jenny (from alaska.. actually she went to argentina last summer on the summer program but is back again lol) anyways, we taught joachim (the belgian guy) all the american slang... its funny, west coast slang is SOO different from east coast slang. lol kno how we call the fat over girls hips "love handles?" in belgium they call them "fuck reins" !!!! lmaooooo. >: )> "neukteugels..." haha yea. thats my fyi of the day. at the orientation we learned the origin of fuck: Fornication Under Consent of the King. lol >: )> yea the convo's get pretty "interesting..." haha its SO fun tho. aregentina and b-a are amazing. thats pretty much it. lol ^-^
so yea. thats how it's been so far... i kno its really long but hey. u guys wanted details!!! lol :D but sry if other posts arent as detailed... its sooo time consuming. like it's now midnight and i hav to get up in 7 hrs sooo yea. lol :P anyways, hope everything at home's fine and dandy, and leave a comment!!!! xoxo : )>
THE FLIGHT OVER: MIAMI TO BUENOS AIRES
it was fine... but i didn't sleep a wink. couldnt even close my eyes for more than a minute :P o well it was fine. the us kids (who i flew over w/ and spent the first 24 hrs of orientation with) are SOOOOO nice :D we all got so close so quickly... exchange kids tend to do that i've found.... we just seem to open up to each other immediatly and almost always click ^-^ then again, when there're 70 kids made to spend 5 hrs at an airport before all travelling to a foreign country for 6 months - a year with nothing else to do... you talk about a lot ^_* one of the guys somehow made my ipod work... after i spent 2 hrs the night before trying to figure out what kind of "update" it kept saying i needed, refusing to work... blahhhh. lol XP o well at least it works ^-^ thats what matters. however. special me. i forgot that DUH when i unplugged it from the comp, it would stop charging. it was only in the comp for maybe half an hr.... so one song after the flight left, and it was dead. a;slidraw. lol o well. at least there was ok music on the plane, and a very funny movie (RV, with robin williams) and the dinner was actually edible!!! disgustingly edible but edible nonetheless. the breakfast however.... EW. completely inedible. le sigh. customs/immigration was surprisingly easy and quick considering the amount of ppl we had... lol : )> we had to wait a while in the b-a airport as well, but then we all got on 2 busses to go to the orientation camp place... my bus, lotsa fun we watched (the first part at any rate) of happy gilmore (in spanish of course, but with engish subtitles :P lol)
FIRST ORIENTATION CAMP: somewhere, BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE
got there, after about an hr bus ride... OMG IT WAS SOOOOO COLD!! the only heating was some gas heating in about 3 rooms... we were all walking around in hats, gloves, a thousand layers... :P lol o well. the food was ok... coffee was gross... but aw the little servers were adorable ^-^ i mean they weren't very young, about 14 and 17, but aw. had the cutest expressions : )> lol of course, the orienting part was excessivly boring. and stupid. and cold. but whateverrrrr. lol the girl who works for afs in b-a, valeria, she gave us this whole talk on like keeping ur reputation, not becoming the slutty american... scared us all shitless cuz she made it sound like if we sat next to a guy and talked to him, he'd go off and tell all his friends he hooked up with us... pablo (the volunteer who let us watch happy gilmore... SUPER PABLO!! lol >: )>) and ale, another volunteer, all assured us it wasn't that bad but still, she scared us pretty good, and i mean... pablo and ale are guys so its a little hard for them to do much assuring... :S lol no im sure its fine. ANYWAYS. except for 3 girls from switzerland and an australian and a kiwi, we were all american... most of the euros (europeans) were arriving the next day (friday). so yea... took a bunch of pics, will post them once they're on my comp and i figure out how to do so (aka actually try) lol yea. thursday night we had a mini dance party, tho i spent most of the time trying to find kids who hadnt gotten their sheets/towels cuz the stupid volunteers wouldn't give bea (one of the swiss girls, who spoke VERY little spanish and not very good english... tho much better english than my spanish lol) anyways, wouldnt let her get her towels/sheets till we found the other 5 kids who needed them :P lol o well we eventually did. so yea. slept in these tiny rooms with a bed about 2'8" wide but luckily with heavy blankets, so it was ok... hung out in one girl, ash's room w/ a couple other girls till pretty late looking at pics and talking and such ^-^ then, friday morning, we were told that 25 of us, the ones of us staying in b-a (aka me and the other lang. campers) or those who had to fly out of b-a to get to their host fams were going to a diff. orientation camp... so we had to pack up really quickly and say goodbye to everyone :P also we ddnt get to meet the majority of the euros (only about 15 were going to the other camp w/ us) but i had time to hear the ADORABLE british accent of one of the swedish guys... like the perfect accent. lol ^-^ at any rate, tho none of the ppl i was closest to were coming to the second place, whatev. just meant i got closer to them as well : )
SECOND LANGUAGE CAMP: somewhere else, BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE
this one was OMG SO MUCH NICER!! still freezing cold, but only about half as cold :P lol and a beautiful old monestary/university building thing (not really sure what it was) anyways sooo pretty and yea ^-^ very different lol also, the food was much better (tho no adorable little servers) lol but the rooms were nice and warm... double ones, i shared a room with a girl named kyla, from alaska. also, jilly came as well so that was nice i hadnt spoken with her much before at the other place, and we sat next to each other on the ride over so yea. lol : )> once the euro's got there, we had a orienting session thing. guess what it was. THE EXACT SAME TALK WE'D GOTTEN THE DAY BEFORE!!!!! ;aslkdjrea. i was soooooo boredddddddddddd. lol :P o well. the euro's are very nice, i got to kno a bunch of them pretty well, so it's lots of fun ^-^ anyways, at least the cool volunteers (pablo, stephen - an american who went on exchange to argentina... crazy guy. but very funny lol - and mili - a very sweet argentinian girl) all came so that was nice ^-^ anyways, after dinner we all sat around till about midnight, drinking matte and one of the italians was really good at guitar, and kyla it turns out is AMAZING at the violin, so they played a bunch of stuff... lotsa fun. then we played this version of musical chairs: everyone is seated in chairs in a circle, and each person gets a playing card. then, the one in the middle (who's not playing, just reading cards) chooses a card from the rest of the deck (2 decks if not many cards left) and reads the suite. if ur card has that suite, u move one to the right (yes, sitting on the person next to u, unless they happened to have the same suite) the game continues, always moving one to the right if ur suite is called.. however, if someone is sitting on u, u can't move, even if ur suite is called, so u'll get 6 ppl on the same chair >: )> lol the game's over and won by the first person to get back to their original seat. i won the second game :D lol yea.. next day, more boring orienting... we were split into groups, organized by where ppl are going, so everyone in my group was staying in b-a, and with the exception of 3 ppl, an american girl, a girl from germany, and a girl from holland, were all doing the language camp. so that was cool i got to kno them before we started, and its a very cool group. also, pablo and mili are our group head ppl, so that makes it more fun ^_^ saturday, we took a bus ride to the city of b-a (the place was actually about 30 minutes away) and went on a mini tour of b-a... had 4 stops, the first ones about 20 minutes each, but nice to see it a bit, then the last we had sandwiches and walked around one part, so it was fun ^-^ that evening we had a "talent show" but not really... in our groups, we had to come up with a skit thing about what we learned... my group had an argentinian class, and joachim (the only guy in the group, from belgium) was the prof. and he introduced 2 new exchange students... neither of whom spoke any spanish. so the first one goes "how do u say 'may i go to the bathroom?'" and of course, us students tell her the spanish equivalent of "i'll kick you're ass," and then when the teacher flips out, and says GO TO TEH PRINCIPALS OFFICE, we were like "he says take ur time!" so yea. it was all improv-ed cuz we couldnt come up with anything. then the second one, we tell her to raise her hand as in giving the middle finger... lol yea. the others sucked just as much tho, so it was ok lol :D so yea... we ddnt go to bed till like 2am. and got up at 4:30. to get on busses and go to the airport :P cuz some of the kids' flights left really early and blah. lol
AIRPORT: BUENOS AIRES
yea... i was there from about 5am till 1pm... hung out with various ppl, changing as they kept leaving to go to their different host families... not much happened lol we were too tired. lots of funny pics tho of all of us completely knocked out on the airport floor... lol >: )> i FINALLY had some very good coffee ^_^ lol the orientation coffee and of course the airplane coffee was nasty, tasted like cardboard, but the stuff from the cafe was very good... now that i'm eating the "real" food... im gonna get soo fat. tis bad. well no actually starting tomorrow im gonna go running and stuff but ugh the portions are HUGE. like... its practically impossible to ever finish completely what u're given. lol XP
TEMPORARY HOST FAMILY!!!
so yea!! juan (my temp host father) picked me up around 1pm and took me to this country club where he and his wife and their two kids - juanchi, who turned 3 on 8/7, and a baby girl, who's name i forget - spend most of their weekends... it's got tennis, golf, cricket (!) (lol weirdest sport EVER) and in the summer, polo and swimming... very pretty place ^-^
afterwards, we went to mariana (temp host mom)'s dad's house, where he lives with his 2nd wife, and had dinner, which was very good, tho not stuff i really liked. but whatev, i ate it at any rate lol but i was sooo exhausted, as soon as we got home i just went to sleep.
the next day, after lang. camp, it was juanchi's bday, so juan and i went over to his school and met up wtih mariana, then we went to the class.. teh kids all went to this little sitting room type thing iwth a fireplace, and then me and the host parents set up decorations... balloons, etc, and set up a little party, all in the classroom. when the kids got back, they had chips and cookies and such. then the teachers gave them all pompoms and turned music on and they all danced... soo cute!! lol the kids are tiny, 2-4 years old... lol aww! haha yea then they pulled a string from a pinata a al teh movie Cars (which joanchi's obsessed with) and candy and confetti fell everywhere.... by the end, the classroom floor was COVERED in confetti. then we had cake, INCREDIBLY rich cake, lots of dolce de leche in the middle (reallyreallyreally sweet caramel spread thing... very good but only in small amounts... my host fam at least eats a ton of it tho lol) anyways, we had AMAZING steak for dinner.. the beef in argentina truly is the best anywhere ^_^ lol also they eat a lot of pumpkin-like squash that i thought at first was sweet potatoes, cuz it looks/tastes just like our sweet potatoes, apparently their sweet potatoes are completely different tho lol
today, didn't do much.... mariana took me to an amazing ice cream place tho ^-^ so that was cool. i swear theyre trying to make us fat lol
LANGUAGE CAMP
the language camp's been fine... first day especially was pretty boring, cuz i do kno a bunch of the basics... today i knew most of what we did as well, but it was good review cuz at the back of my mind i'd forgotten a lot and so it was good to practice it, remember it all... cuz usually while speaking u concentrate mostly on words/vocab, not grammar lol
the best part of it is talking with the other kids tho... they take us to lunch at this little cafe that has amazingly cheap and amazing food, so its just fun to talk with them a lot... we have fun ^-^ today me, annie (from new mexico) and jenny (from alaska.. actually she went to argentina last summer on the summer program but is back again lol) anyways, we taught joachim (the belgian guy) all the american slang... its funny, west coast slang is SOO different from east coast slang. lol kno how we call the fat over girls hips "love handles?" in belgium they call them "fuck reins" !!!! lmaooooo. >: )> "neukteugels..." haha yea. thats my fyi of the day. at the orientation we learned the origin of fuck: Fornication Under Consent of the King. lol >: )> yea the convo's get pretty "interesting..." haha its SO fun tho. aregentina and b-a are amazing. thats pretty much it. lol ^-^
so yea. thats how it's been so far... i kno its really long but hey. u guys wanted details!!! lol :D but sry if other posts arent as detailed... its sooo time consuming. like it's now midnight and i hav to get up in 7 hrs sooo yea. lol :P anyways, hope everything at home's fine and dandy, and leave a comment!!!! xoxo : )>
posted by xoxo ada : )> | 8:25 PM
6 Comments:
Wow....sounds like u had a sweet time with all those kids in orientation. It sounds like so much fun! I can feel your excitement! You have to have milanesa....it is so good in Argentina. Have a sanwiche de milanesa which is really good! Ice cream is really good in Argentina. Keep having the time of your life, Ada!
Sofia
¡Hola, Ada!
Hey, so yeah. I'm SOOO JEALOUS of you!!!!!! But seriously, it sounds like your time so far has been ridiculously amazing! I heard you mention your host dad's second wife. My Spanish teacher went to Mexico and Venezuela. I heard a lot of stories about second wives...but it still sounds strange!! Oh well, my exchange student comes in a WEEK!!!!
¡VIVA ARGENTINA!
Mateo
OH yeah! Tell everyone in Ushuaia I'm soo jealous of them too!
THIS IS SO COOL!!!
Hey Ada!! It sounds like you are having an amazing time in Argenitna so far!! It really is an amazing country. The squash you were talking about I believe is called Zapallo... or somthing along those lines. It is very good :). I do not believe it exsists in the states though. mmmm hearing you talk about all of the food... they have very good food there, the beef! ice cream, dulce de leche!!! :) yummmyyy!! :) sounds like you are having the time of your life, live every moment to the most, trust me, take all the chances to do everything!! Best of Luck!
Kim (aka xxeelrebmik from aim)
(Rebound 05-06)
¿Ya hablas español?
hey Ada!!! It's so cool to hear about all the stuff you're learning/doing! Do like matte??? (i thought it was pretty nasty, but I dont like coffee either...not that they're similar) The sweet potato/squash stuff is calabaza. We had it a lot on our trip, it's so good isn't it? Buenos Aires has the BEST ice cream! What part of ba are you in? field hockey is already weird w/o Marika, but school will be even weirder w/o you too!
keep writing!
xoxoAbby
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