Finally Settling In

This past week went really well. I am a lot more comfortable with the kids now. I was really worried about the language barrier, but in reality it doesn’t really matter. I can somewhat understand what they say, and if I can’t it’s fine. On one of the days, I was helping a five-year-old girl, Wendy, with her writing. I would write words in Spanish and then she would copy them. When we were done with writing, she colored for a bit and then ran off to go do something else. A little bit later she came and found me while I was with some other girls and she was crying hysterically. I tried asking her what was wrong, but because she was crying so hard (combined with speaking Spanish) I couldn’t understand her at all. After a few minutes she calmed down and then she said she missed her mom. I was relieved nothing serious had happened, but it still broke my heart to see her crying. She cried for about 15 minutes, but then some of the other girls came over and made her feel better. So far, this past Friday has been my favorite day working with the kids. We did some homework sheets, but I mostly played tagged (a.k.a I was always ‘it’) with a little girl and boy. They would go and hide behind a pole and I would say “Where are the kids? Where are the kids? I don’t know!” And they would laugh so hard and try and push each other out behind the pole so I could see them. Some of the other kids would come up to me and point while saying “they are right there!” and I would say “Where? I don’t see them!” and then they would take me to them, and I would finally “find” the little ones. It was cute and a lot of fun. It’s just so amazing how happy these kids seem when they have so little. It just shows me that in life all you really need to be happy are people in your life that care about you and whom you can enjoy life with.

Friday:

Friday night I went out to dinner with my friend Sarah to this restaurant we walk by to and from work. It was pretty good! I ordered some gnocchi with pesto sauce. With the bread we got there, there was some sort of thicker cream dipping sauce with tomatoes in it, it was so delicious! I asked the waiter what it was and he just said it’s a cream sauce with tomatoes, ha, so I’m sorry I don’t have a better description. I had meant to bring my camera to take pictures of what we ordered, but I had forgotten. Also, Sarah and I had learned an important lesson that night. Sarah asked for a glass of wine and the waiter asked her if she wanted a small or big wine, and she said big. A big glass was only 2 pesos more (about 50 cents more). However, apparently when you order a grande wine that means the whole bottle (at least at this restaurant). We were so surprised! Back home the difference between a glass of wine and a whole bottle is $20 or a lot more. I still can’t believe that a whole bottle was 50 cents more than a single glass. I helped her finish the bottle of wine, and it was actually pretty good!

Much later that night I went out with the group of the Ausies who are here. It was so much fun! The going out habits are very different here in Argentina compared to back home. People usually don’t go to the bars till about 2 in the morning. The bars usually don’t get crowded until around 4 in the morning, and people go home around 7-8 in the morning. Very very different than home ha. We left the apartment a little after 1 and only went to one bar. The bar was actually a lot of fun. It had a live band at first, and they played songs in English. After that, for the next few hours, they played remixes of American songs and I knew all of them! So naturally I had a wonderful time. As soon as they started playing songs in Spanish I left ha. One of the Australian boys had just found out that he got kicked out of his home stay (he never really told me why he got kicked out, but he was living with my host mom’s sister and my host mom had told me last week that she did not like having him live there), and he was super bummed. To cheer him up, I showed off my awesome dance moves (so a TON of arm motions combined with jumping up and down). If you have seen me dance before, you know how hard it is to resist my sweet moves, so he cheered up eventually ha. Over all, the first night going out to the bars was a lot of fun, except the Argentine boys are really persistent and do not understand no, go away, I have a boyfriend, etc., but I found out some good tips from some of the other girls on how to get them to leave you alone.

Saturday:

I went on a bike tour of the city with about 20 other people in the same program as me. It was a lot of fun! All our bikes had names, my bike's name was Thrilla. Some of the other names were Capo, KillerD, Talent, they were all fun names.

We got to see a lot of the city, which was great. I really enjoyed it because it made Buenos Aires seem smaller than I originally thought. I walk everywhere, so everything seems so far away, but when riding a bike everything was really close. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take a whole lot of pictures because we were riding our bikes for the majority of the time, but I took a few. We passed a few parks that look really nice and have small lakes/ponds in them. One of the parks has this beautiful bridge in it, so I’ll be going back to that park and taking pictures for sure.

When we got to the last park, we took a break and drank mate with orange soda. I normally don’t like the mate with the hot water, but it was sooo tasty with the orange soda. The sugar in the soda was the perfect balance to the bitterness of the mate. My first mate sip here in Argentina!

After mate, some of us played with a hackie sac and then with a soccer ball. Surprisingly, I wasn’t that bad. I’m no Maddy or Kate (two of my good friends from high school who played soccer in college), but there is some hidden soccer skill in me somewhere. Ha one of the boys told me I should come and play soccer with them, ha I just laughed (if only he knew how horrible I really am). Biking on Saturday made me really miss my bike rides back home, so I’ll have to go biking soon again sometime.

After bike riding, I went to an ice cream shop with my friends Richie and Sarah. It was my first time eating the ice cream here. It was so GOOD! I got the flavor called Chocolate Suiz, which is chocolate with dulce de leche. The chocolate here is different that the chocolate back home. I don’t know how to explain the difference, but I really love it!

I took tango lessons for the first time on Saturday night, and absolutely loved it! It was so much fun. I thought I would be terrible, because usually me and dancing is just not a good combination, but I think I did pretty good for my first class. I have no idea how I looked while dancing, but I was able to remember the steps (well most of the time), and that is half the battle. I thought it would be awkward dancing with strangers, but it really wasn’t. The teachers only spoke in Spanish, so the majority of the time I had no idea what they were saying, but they always showed us what to do and that was enough for me. The teachers are dance partners and are also dating. They are literally the most beautiful couple I have ever seen in my life. I really loved it! I want to take them every weekend. I’ll keep ya’ll posted on how the dancing goes. I am definitely looking into other dance classes when I get home. It’s so fun, and something different and fun to do.

Until Next Time,
Liz