Perdón!

Hello all,

Yes, I'm aware that I never write on my blog. And yes, I'm am aware that it has driven some of you to open other social networking sites in order too stalk me more thoroughly (father, that would be you.) I really do apologize, I just am so busy here and I feel guilty whenever I use the computer. Anyway, enough apologizing now for updating.

So I suppose that a months worth of details is a little much to write, I mean, it would be a novel. Basically to sum up about four weeks: at the beginning, there was a lot of homesickness and culture shock. Everyone told me that I was going to love the first two weeks because it would seem like a vacation and after it would start to go down hill. Okay, well, they were wrong. I really, really struggled my first two weeks (couldn't speak, confused constantly, didn't have friends, confused constantly, only one bathroom, confused constantly, cold , sick, tired, and confused constantly) then after that every week since has been better. I have finally reached the point where I am comfortable with my everyday life and I also understand the family's daily pattern (I think. There are many times I think I understand something, and then I am more than entirely wrong). For the benefit of you all I will tell you my rough schedule:

Monday- Friday: Everyday (supposedly) I go to school from 7 am until noon. The truth is that i have yet to go to five days of school in a row therefore the whole Monday- Friday thing is a little wishy-washy.

Also everyday, I eat lunch with my two host siblings, Gonzalo, 17, and Delfi, 15. My host father, Manicho, unsure of age, comes home at 12:30 to cook for us. (One day he couldn't come home and my host mom was so apologetic that I would have to figure out my own food situation. I've pretty much been preparing my own lunch since I was 12 so no sweat off my back.) We watch an hour of Friends everyday with lunch and its the one hour everyday that I get to understand jokes.

Monday, Wednesday: These are my busy days. I go to school, come home, eat lunch, get ready for PE, go to PE at 2:30, go directly to a traditional/aboriginal pottery class until 6, come home long enough to change and promptly head off to volleyball practice until 8, come home, shower, eat, laugh with family ect. Then, sleeeeep.

Tuesday, Thursday: These are what I call my traditional Argentine days. I come home from school and have a siesta, usually until around 4. Then I find someone who wants to drink mate with me, then I have a little bit of awkward "what should I do?" time before I go to volleyball practice with a different team starting at 8:30 (I don't anything even ends that late in the US on a weeknight, let alone start at 8:30) then I get home around 11, eat dinner, and then sleeeeep.

Weekends: These I still haven't really figured out. Obviously every weekend is different, and for some reason I feel the most homesick on the weekends. I think its because I am totally hectostressed that if I'm not constantly busy that I'm probably failing my exchange. Not true (right?). I think this will get easier the more I forget about trying to be a perfect exchange student.

Deciding to live in Argentina is kind of like deciding to skydive everyday, only slightly more death defying

MESSAGE: I started this blog post, got distracted and never finished it. So I posted it as is.

Dear reader, I apologize for the large gap between now and my last report. Blog writing takes time, and time is not something I have. When I do, I sleep(defying death tires you out).

So, back to the skydiving similie. For an American, I find that the daily life differences down south tend to be slightly life threatening. Somehow both stop signs and stoplights were dropped from the Argentine culture. Which I honestly don´t see as a negative, because traffic flows much smoother, at a slightly slower pace than American traffic. The only problem for me is that there is some inherent knowledge of who has the right of way (I think they are born with it) which makes my morning bike ride to school slightly treacherous. And yes, I do actually ride my bike to school, and the lack of traffic regulations combined with my perceived threat of hypothermia, every successful arrival at school is a mini celebration. I think what I have to develop is the confidence of plunging into an intersection with an "I know you won´t hit me" attitude like the Argentine bicyclists. As of right now my attitude is more like "I´m hesitating with my eyes closed because I really don´t want to die." Its not working for me. And honestly I rarely feel safer in a car because nobody uses seatbelts.

Now to the danger of the food here. I´m going to die from eating so much dulce de leche. There are these cookies called alfajores that are going to be the end of me.

The Game of Life is Now the Game of Charades

If there is one thing I can say about exchanging is that it is full of surprising life changes. For instance, I now eat, sleep, and breathe charades. Which is definitely a fun game every once in a while, right? But you know those moments when you have no idea what your team mate is doing? not a good feeling. Or worse, when you feel triumphant because you are positive that you know the answer, you scream it out with pride, and then you´re wrong. Yeah, thats kinda my game of charades these days. The good news is that each day gets a little better. Everyday I can understand a little bit more(it helps that everyone in my town has finally figured out you have to talk to me at slower than a snails pace), and I can speak a little bit more accurately. All of these newly acquired abilities seem to disappear around midnight (which you would assume is okay because you are sleeping at this time. In Argentina, that is just not that case. You need speaking skills until 6 am) so for now I need to practice my late night charading.

School was also an interesting life change. I was so ridiculously nervous for my first day that I slept a grand total of maybe two hours the night before. Then, I got there a little bit early (huge faux pas) and one of my class mates started talking to me and I couldn´t understand a word. Nothing. The rest of the day proceeded in a similar fashion with me being interrogated for five hours (literally) about the vast majority of American culture all the while I understood one out of every ten questions which was frustrating for both parties, I assume. When my classmates needed to take breaks from the interrogation, all of there energy went into planning a welcome party for the next night. (If you are reading this and wondering why no one is actually participating in school, it might make you feel better to know I was wondering the same thing all day.) By the end of my first day, even though I hadn´t really understood anything, or spoken much, I had plans for two parties, a couple mate dates and another volleyball practice. That´s the good thing about Argentina, everyone wants to have fun all the time.

The next day of school, we really got down to business. I had physics, two hours of math, history and biology. The good news was that I could pretty much understand everything the teachers said, its just the teenagers conversations that feel like I´m trying to decode a bomb. After school Thursday, I chatted with my dad(the american one, i don´t usually schedule time to speak with my Argentine father), then took a power nap, drank Mate, walked el centro, went to volleyball practice, went to an asado de bienvendidas(extremely delicious Argentine barbeque/welcome party) and then went out dancing. I only lasted until three-thirty, which is laughably early here, and then I started all over again yesterday(I even learned some tango!). Today I have plans to go to some of my classmates soccer game and maybe drink mate later.

The new tally consists of:
The dismal failure of my first day of school.
The fact that I now know my way around town.
The successful asado/two nights out.
The inability to dance tango.
The increased skill level at the charades of life.

Therefore....
Argentina 6.5, Emily 7.5

Culture Shock!

Well, I see its time to update the tally...

I think that at this point, I´m slowly making a comeback. I think I deserve two solid points for the actual voyage to Argentina. One point for kicking the baggage regulations´ butt. Both of my bags were far under 50 pounds (49.5 and 45.5) which meant that I didn´t have to waste money and also I got to keep my clothes. Take that airline, and now I have another point.

Now, the for the flight itself, I earned one points, and Argentina earned .5. I cried a little bit at my gate in Denver and then passed out cold on the plane for the entire flight between Denver and Dallas. Kudos to me for being a savily sleepy traveler. At this point, Argentina earned its half point. I got off the plane last, had to figure out an airport train system, I had to go to the bathroom, call my dad, find my gate and through the sleepy haze of a nap in less than 25 minutes. Great. Well, the train went fairly well until I recieved a text that made me start crying and wonder why the hell I had decided to move to Argentina, I found my gate which luckily was right near a bathroom...without toilet paper, lovely. Then I meander on over to my gate and guess what language every person and their mother is speaking?? If you guessed spanish, you are wrong. I can speak spanish, and understand spanish. What I can´t understand is Castellano. I panicked again, thinking what in the heck am I doing this for? Then my dad called and what had been a couple not so obvious tears became full blown bawling. I was sooo embarrassed, but apparently tears are the key to the English language and before I knew all of the lovely Argentineans were now very kindly asking me if everything was okay. And everything was. So Argentina earns a half point for the crying but I earn a full point for everything else(once again, it could be personal bias).

So now I am disembarking from the plane with my new found skiing friend from Denver University where we get to customs. Customs easily could have been the bane of my existence, with all of my visa and permiso de ingreso problems, and let me tell you customs tried to defeat me, but I prevailed. The official took my passport, made some strange faces and then disappeared with it for almost thirty minutes (I have no idea where). At this point, I was worried because my plane landed thirty minutes late, customs took thirty minutes and I couldn´t imagine how anxious my new family must be. However after a couple more skillful leaps through hoops, I was out of the airport and in the safety of my family´s car. Que bueno!

Now the last couple days have been a blur. Susana, Manicho and I returned Santi to school in Buenos Aires (I think he was with us as an Enlgish emissary, much appreciated) and then we took off the la quinta of Susana´s godfather. It was beautiful and we had lunch and then drove to Trenque Lauquen (I slept like a baby during the majority of the trip). And then that night I slept again from 12 to 10, threw up and had a headache, then slept more until 2. Then I went to ice cream with Gonzalo (host bro) and friends and then to Maxi´s house. Everywhere I go we drink mate. In the car, with friends, for breakfast, at night...always. At least I like it, right. Plus, its still pretty chilly here so its nice to have something warm in my belly.

Today Susana took me to school where I met my classmates and got my schedule(packed full of math, physics, chemistry and biology). It was crazy. We showed up during a break and all of the students were outside and so everyone, and I mean everyone was staring at me. Way bizarre. I think I am going to start school on Wednesday, and then I´m sure another tally update will be necessary. Ciao!

Tally- Argentina 4.5, Emily 4.5 (I got a bonus point for surviving the last three days)

Argentina: 4, Emily: 1.5

So I've decided to start a running tally between Argentina and myself. I can only imagine that we are going to continue to find ourselves in conflict for a while. So I decided that it has already earned 4 points for all of the potential departure dates that it has destroyed. RIP August 15, August 22, September 6, and yesterday. I was tempted to give myself a kajillion points simply for procuring a departure date. However, it seemed like that was letting my personal bias step in just a little too much (also, I haven't actually left yet so Argentina could still nab another date). But, I do believe that because I have finally answered (almost for sure, I mean I have a Fedex tracking number and you can't deny that's legit) the overarching question of when, I deserve a bonus half point. For now I am leaving on Friday, September 3 and arriving September 4. Continue watching the tally to see if this has changed.

So for all of you that are following this adventure, the Battle of the Visa has come to a conclusion and now the real adventure has begun. The adventure of packing. Now, I began packing on August 8 (for my first departure date of August 15). Every item of clothing that I wear was packed that day and if you do the math that means I have had no clothes for 23 days. So don't worry everyone, its not groundhogs day, all of my alternate outfits have just been in prison. I never unpacked because I was always convinced I would be leaving in a couple days. Even though the leaving thing never happened, I now embrace the extreme inconvenience of the last one and a half fortnight because, ladies and gentlemen, I am practically packed. Unfortunately, since my original packing extravaganza I have bought at least four more articles of clothing, countless gifts, a package of miso soup and mac and cheese. Problem Numero Uno: will it all fit?

The second problem has to do with the aforementioned host gifts. Now I already have calendars, CSU t-shirts, bracelets, stickers, post-cards of colorado, playing cards, peanut butter and wildflowers. You would think that would be sufficient, and really I should think thats sufficient. But for some reason my latest mental aberration is thinking that everyone in Argentina is going to expect un regalito from me. Which is ridiculous, at some point I have to realize I won't even meet the whole population, let alone gift every Argentine.

Number three has to do with my freaky food habits. So far in my suitcase I have an entire bottle of soy sauce, spicy teriyaki sauce, siracha, crunchy peanut butter, creamy peanut butter, three packages of miso and two boxes of mac and cheese. I have yet to figure out how to guarantee a successful transport of tofu, but really, maybe I should just leave my asian food fetish behind.

So will I conquer the packing adventure? Only time and the tally will tell who wins: Los tres problemas (win for me) or the 50 pound, two suitcase limit (win for Argentina).

And the Visa Battle Persists...

As you may or may not know the largest remaining question in the commencement of my Argentine adventure is: When? When am I going to leave?

Initially, my departure date was August 15th, but after a quick trip to Houston that dream was promptly altered. I was slightly devastated, and accidentally scared the crap out of another boy by telling him to cross his fingers because rejection is possible. (Sorry to him, where ever he may be...probably actually in Argentina. Well, and now it becomes clear that the reason he gets to be there and I don't, is because of bad karma for scaring him in the first place. Dang it.) So anyhow, after some tears and general panic, I realized that extra time at home might actually be a good thing. Therefore, I lounged around in a magazine worthy house, ate sushi and was merry.

I once again returned to Colorado and proceeded as though I was leaving the 15th, just in case it actually worked out. (It didn't, so don't get your hopes up.) I had many wonderful people in both countries working hard to make sure, I would be in Argentina as soon as possible. The hero of the situation turned out to be Jorge, who told me I could have a new Permiso de Ingreso in a week, and my Visa would probably arrive a few days later. "Well, how fantastic!" I thought to myself. A couple extra days at home, and just to be safe I planned a departure date of August 22nd. Plenty of time to get my visa, right? So I continued my good byes and packing. I told my host family (who might I say have been incredibly accommodating and wonderful through this whole ordeal) that I would be arriving the 23rd and I also told my future classmates. I was pumped, and excited, and ready to rock and roll.

Unfortunately, I will have to continue to fight tooth and nail to receive my visa. Once again, there is a problem with my permiso de ingreso. So for now, it is less of an Argentina Adventure and more of a How to get a Visa and Accurate Permiso de Ingreso Adventure. I am very grateful and lucky to have many amazing people working hard to solve this problem, and hopefully soon I will be able to answer the final question: When?