First Day of Class

4-02-09 (Feb 4th) 17:15
The Balcony (great place to write, if you couldn´t tell)

Well, yesterday was my first day of classes, which went very well. There are 15 students in the class and our teacher’s name is Pia. We spent most of the day learning the vos form. Argentineans use that instead of the tu form, so it’s like learning a whole new tense. For example, instead of ¿Qué quieres tú? You would say ¿Qué querés vos? We also do a lot of speaking, which is great. I do get tired a lot quicker speaking to other students than with hispanohablantes, although I guess because it goes a lot slower and requires a lot more focus to figure out our Spanglish inventions (we can get quite creative).

After classes, a few other students and I walked to el barrio chino, or China town, to grab some lunch (you know, in order to do a cultural comparison of American Chinese food with Argentine Chinese cuisine). I had a huge portion of fiedos saltados con pollo, (chicken chow-mein) that was really good. After heading to the ISA office to use the internet for a bit, I headed home for dinner and Adriana and I watched a movie together.

Today in class we went over the different past tenses for most of the day and talked about the craziest thing that ever happened to us. I talked about the time my family and I got separated on the train going to Naples from Rome. Now I’m just hanging out with ISA people and enjoying internet access.

Other Observations:

Living in a large city is not as intense as I thought it would be. There’s plenty of transportation and I’ve at least figured my way around the barrio, and it’s not really overwhelming with people; then again, it is summer vacation and I’ve heard a lot of people skip out to resorts on the coast. In any case, it’s quite pleasant and convenient, especially with all the little grocery stores and fruit & veggie stores (frutaderías)

Noise: On the one hand, walls can be a bit thin and I can hear a lot of the goings-ons of people in other apartments from my window (especially this one kid who seems to be either crying or laughing loudly at all times). Then again, there is a surprising absence of other “big city noises” – I can count on one hand how many police sirens and ambulances I have heard since I arrived.

Piropiros: These are the little comments that men make towards women as they walk by on the street. Generally harmless, and usually quite endearing, women are expected to just ignore them (otherwise, you could be considered easy?). It’s not like a bunch of construction worker hollering at passerby – it’s just simply a part of the culture to compliment beautiful women. And though it’s not something that I’ve witnessed every five seconds, it’s common enough that I’ve had a few “you are a beautiful woman” remarks thrown my way.

TIP OF THE DAY

Note that not all advice given to you will be correct. For instance, you might discover after a talk with your host mother that you are, in fact, supposed to flush the toilet paper down the pipes and not put it the trash. And you should just hold down the lever longer to make it flush. In another instance, you might be told during oriention to make sure you don`t slam doors shut because you would be considered a rude American. Just make sure you don`t put in so much effort to close the jammed door slowly that you end up breaking off the door handle.

Hasta luego (Later,) Coli