I didn’t write a blog yesterday… I talked to my folks on skype instead; you know who you are. Yesterday was pretty good though. It was actually our first day of class. It’s kind of interesting… we’re sort of easing into our soon–to-be very busy schedule. I must say I am grateful for this extra week of orientation/ transition. Originally, we were not going to come to Buenos Aires until the 25th, so; we had 4 extra days.
Our first class went pretty well. Judith, our profesora, is very St.Mary’s… her style of teaching- how she explains things. It’s not much of a transition to go from classes at St. Mary’s with our Professors to her class. It is a little weird though to have a one: two ratio with our professor. I felt like we were a little all over the place during our lecture but maybe that’s because I thought the reading was a bit confusing. I had something else in mind when I started my reading so I spent the whole introduction thinking, “what!?”… sixty pages later I had a better idea of what I’d been reading, but I felt like a lot of it was review and the rest of it was too detailed to really commit to memory… I guess I still have a hard time reading in Spanish. UGH… Class ran a little late, which wasn’t a big deal b/c we hadn’t any other obligations until 7:00.
After class, we walked around El Obleisco for a bit and Julia ate an empanada. I still have some of the snacks I took for the airplane ride; its nice too because I don’t have to be spending money all the time on food and I can use that money for un cafécito (literally a small coffee, i.e. an espresso) or something else important like purple boots- you know? We came back to Palermo and decided to meet up at 6:30 to go to the lecture at 7. I spent the afternoon window-shopping. I seriously contemplated a green raincoat but decided I didn’t need it. I bought a black long sleeved shirt to wear under a few of my dresses that way I can use them now, rather than just when it warms up. It’s funny to think that I won’t have experienced autumn weather for two years… strange huh? (Last fall=Central American Tropics & this fall= Argentine Winter)
Well, we met up and went to the Centro Cultural Enrique S. Discépolo for a round table discussion about the campaigns and ideas of San Martin, Bolivar, Artigas, Ugarte, Rodó, Haya de la Torre, Allende, Perón Castro y el Che. The discussion was part of the Lecture Series: América Latina Unida. I had a good time- except for that the Spanish level was a bit over my head. I understood fragments and took some moderately incomprehensible notes. Haha… I tried, right?
We left at 9 during the break… we couldn’t stay for the whole thing or we’d have turned to ravenous beasts from hunger… Here’s one for culture shock: it is quite a change to go from eating dinner at 5:30/6 pm to 9:30/10 pm… I have to admit I hate going to bed on a full stomach- I have a hard time falling asleep with all that new energy… And, I’m going to come home obese. My host mom feeds me too much… I guess that’s better than not enough… Yesterday was great though, I came home ate dinner with Susana and we talked for a while. I told her I was a little worried about meeting Argentine people my age and how I thought Claudia must have mis-understood what I wanted to do. I wanted to join a team- not just go kayaking for a weekend; so, Susana and I looked up all the rowing clubs and found 2 in Buenos Aires close to where we are. Now, there wasn’t any information saying if they were rowing now or what… so I wrote an e-mail, she edited it for me and now I’m waiting for their responses! We also called one of her sons, Federico, who practices Volleyball at a fitness club, and asked him to see if they have crew there too, because where he goes was also on the list. So that’s progress…. Hooray!!!
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