Warm weather and Bus Rides

Oh where oh where do I begin! Oh I suppose I could start with the weather! As much as I love the leaves changing for fall its hard to miss the cold when things are warming up here. Last week was filled with some beautiful 80 degree weather! All of you freezing in Ohio will probably roll your eyes when I say this but, at some points it was even too hot! Yes I did it, I did complain a little bit about the warm November weather! Although normally the weather is just perfect, last week when it reached the high points of about 86 degrees I was wishing just for a little cooler weather. Now I'll keep my warm weather over your cold but I quickly learned this week that I'm in for a much hotter time than I thought. No one here has air conditioning or heat for that matter as it is too expensive to have. They do however have old houses with extremely high ceilings something that is not so common back home. My Spanish teacher told me that having these high ceilings made living without air conditioning a little more bearable because all the hot air would move up. The only disadvantage is that I sleep upstairs and on top of that I have to keep my room closed almost all the time because I do not want to cat to come pee in my room. He has already peed on the couch, my host sisters bed and bean bag chair. My parents since have been keeping the cat in the garage but every now and then my sisters let him loose in the house. So you can understand why I have visions of the cat just walking into my room jumping on my desk and taking a leek on my computer! You also can understand why I keep my door shut, but this just makes my room a good 7 degrees hotter than the rest of the house some days. However although I complain a little with the Argentinean breeze over all the weather is not bad, but it's only getting warmer!
Which brings me to my next topic, Summer! Summer is just around the bend, in fact I only have two weeks of school left! My classmates just finished their big 30 or 40 page paper called their monografìa that they have been working on for the past month. They all were so relieved to have it done with but I think I was more relieved because I had not seen much of my friends after school while they were busying working on it. In addition to their big project my friends have also been taking their exams. Some of these exams are only for this term the others for the entire year. However if you are failing a class or didn't pass the earlier exams you have to take an exam over the entire year in December. With the end of school comes graduation for my classmates. Graduation here is done very different. The last year has a big party sort of similar to our prom. The kids pay for it themselves by bringing in a certain amount of money each week to get their goal. I'm not exactly sure how much money they have collected but I know its somewhere in the ballpark of over 100,000 pesos. This party also is kind of like their graduation, although they have a more formal "graduation" celebration at school when they receive their document. This fiesta is a very big deal for everyone, particularly the girls. They have been leaving for cities like Buenos Aires, La Plata and Mar de la Plata for the past few months looking for the perfect dress. They also have a big entrance where they walk out with a classmate in front of all their friends and family. They have to dance the waltz I believe in front of everyone too. Then afterwards they have dinner together. Following dinner begins the actual dance where people from other schools and grades are able to go if they pay and such. For this part of the dance I believe they walk out again, some with the same classmate some with a different. For this entrance they walk out to their favorite songs they picked out. Forgive me if I may of mixed up some of the details as they explained this to me in Spanish.
  The big fiesta is suppose to take place on December 3. Which was mildly problematic being that I leave for my trip to the South of the country with Rotary on December 4. I had no clue at what time the bus would leave let alone that fact that I have to travel to another city to go. However it looks like I most likely will be able to go to my classmates fiesta, however I will not participate in the grand entrance part as that has been planned a long time ago.
  Which brings me to trips. Last weekend I went on a trip to Urugay with Rotary. Unfortunately, this was not a trip of pleasure but business. As many of you know I am here on a Visitors Visa, along with all of the other exchange students in my district. Due to the nature of this visa it is required to renew the visa after every 3 months. The first renewal can be done in some big cities but the easiest way to renew it is to leave the country. Due to this, Rotary decided to organize a trip to Urugay giving us exchange students less than a week notice. We left in the middle of the night on Saturday or Sunday morning being picked up in various cities on a bus. We then drove all night and around 1 or so were in a city called Gualeguaychu, which is on the border of Argentina and Urugay. This also is a city where one of their big carnivals is held. We then waited an hour and a half or so where the director went in and renewed our visas while we waited outside. Once finished we went to a beach off the river for an hour or so only to turn around wait another half hour at the border and go home on the bus. I arrived back to my city at 3:30 or 4 in the morning on a Monday.
Although this trip was not the maybe the most exciting being on a bus the entire time, it was really fun! I know your asking yourself how sitting on a bus for 24 hours is fun but for many of us this was one of the first times we got to be with exchange students outside of our city, if that is you are lucky enough to have another exchange student in your city. Also for many people that meant the chance for being able to talk in their native tongue. I've found that it doesn't matter whether your trapped in a bus on the way to another country or locked in a YMCA all night in Ohio, that exchange students always managed to have a fun time together. In fact this mini trip only made me that much MORE excited for my trip to the South in two weeks!
I will try to post again before my trip! But here are some pictures!

This is my friend Sofi, she is in my grade
but the other class. This picture was taken
 one day in gym class when it was raining
 so we were just sitting inside
and I had just braided Sofi's hair.

 These are my friends Juli, Marì, me, Manu, and Ivi one night
when we went out for icecream after a dinner
with some of my classmates.

Manu

Ivi, Juli, me and Marì at the dinner

Marì, me and my friend Flor before going out to the Boliche

These girls will be my classmates next year.
They are friends of Meecha. 

Flor, Ivi and I at La Barra

Carla, Marì and I

A flower from my host mother's friends garden.

and again

beautiful weather!

these flowers are on trees and
everywhere here I think they look so cool!

This dog is the father of my family's dog,
but he is so calm although this
 picture doesn't look that way!

My host mom and Ara
on my host mother's birthday.

This was the cake my host mother made for
my host sisters first communion.
I did not go because I was in Uruguay.

my bus seat <3

one of my best exchange friends, Claire.
She is from Colorado.

Uruguay!

Claire and I again

this is all of the exchangers minus two
 that went on the trip to Uruguay!

on the bridge to 

Uruguay

some of us exchangers at a random plaza

mexico, denmark, usa and finland

Octubre Highlights

Forgive me as once again I have fallen behind. Instead of trying to retell everything I will try to just hit you with the highlights and some pictures of each.

DISTRICT ORIENTATION

  My Rotary's District Orientation was in Olavarría, a town about two or so hours from my city. I had to wake up at 5:15 to get ready for the Orientation. At this time most kids my age wouldn't have even made it back home from the Boliches here.

 I went to the Orientation with a boy named Martin and his father because my family was unable due to my host mothers carpel tunnel surgery earlier that week. Martin went on exchange to Canada last year and was attending the orientation for Rotex (ex-exchange students). A funny thing about Martin is that he went to the same town as one of the exchange students I flew here with. Infact he actually dated that girl while on his exchange for a little bit. It's amazing how being here I've found myself in numerous situations where the world seems so incredible small and so immeasurably massive at the same time. 

  The Orientation itself was rather boring. We spent the entire day being lectured in spanish. For me, most of the things they were telling us were things that had already been explained prior to coming to Argentina. In addition to already knowing the information being given it was almost impossible to understand what they were saying due to the way the orientation was set up. They were frankly too many people in one room and all of us exchangers were ether so excited to meet one another we weren't listening but rather talking amongest ourselves and or most of us did not know enough spanish to understand what they were saying otr hear so gave up and had your own conversation instead. The orientation was very long and dull it didn't finish until about 7 o'clock that evening. 

  This District meeting gave me much more appreciation for my own back home. My district personnel were always friendly, helpful and made time for us to have fun and enjoy our time there. This meeting was filled with information and was not very good at letting us meet all the other ex-changers. There was about 50 of us and I didn't get an opportunity to say hello to all of them let alone sit down and actually get to know them. 

  Regardless of the fact that this wasn't my favorite Rotary gathering it wasn't all pointless. I was able to see Andrew, the other exchange student from Wooster here. Inadition to Andrew I also got to see another familiar face Maxi. Maxi was an exchange student in my District from Argentina last year. I spent a lot of time with him and a couple other exchange students from my District. He even stayed and visited Andrew and I once in Wooster outside of Rotary. I also meet other exchange students from various countries and learned information about the disctrict trips, and requirements of us (such as a community service project). 

  One particularly special thing we did at the orientation was take a spanish test. We will take another test later in the year and if we do not reach a certain score or not improve enough the district can send us home! 

  Overall the orientation was fairly boring but I still managed to have fun.

This is a photo of all the exchange students in my district (4920)  from the U.S.A

This is a photo of Andrew, Maxi and I.

This is most of the exchange students in my district but not all!

ACTOS

 The week my friends returned back from their trip to Bariloche was filled with School Celebrations.

 One day we had Mass in church for the new Priests first time doing so in the school. A priest from Spain came to our school for this special occasion. It was funny because I could actually notice the differences in pronunciation from his Spain Spanish to the type of Spanish spoken here. After the Mass we had an Acto which is essentially our version of an assembly for the celebration of different races and then we were dismissed from school early. 

  The next day we had an acto for only select classes along with community members for the celebration of my school's 80th birthday. The entire acto was taped my a television camera crew. Following the birthday celebration we had another acto for the whole school and once again were dismissed early. 

  The following day after that we didn't even have school. We only were required to go the church in the center of town for a school mass. Mass here is much prettier than back home however I still don't really like it. To sum it up I didn't exactly understand the Catholic services back home and being in a different language doesn't help me understand them anymore!

  All of these activities had to be done in are official school uniforms, which for me meant I had to go get a skirt! I've noticed here that we have many days off school for special celebrations than back home.

LEYLA'S BIRTHDAY

  The same day that we were required to go to the Mass instead of school also doubled as the birthday of one of my best friends here, Leyla. For her 18th birthday she was having people over for dinner and then afterwards going to the Boliche. 

  I went to the dinner and it was a lot of fun. I think out of everywhere I've eaten I always have the best food when I'm at Leyla's house. The food kept coming nonstop: empanadas, chorizos, mini hot dogs, papas frites, mini pizzas, tartaes ect... Her sister was even making us Strawberry and Pineapple drinks. All the food and drinks were so delicious, not to mention the numerous types of cake!

  Despite the fact the dinner part was over as the night went on more and more people started to come over until a little before 4 when everyone headed to the Boliche. The Boliche is the term for the club or bar here. I had been to one in the beach town (Claromeco) for the spring Primavera but had yet to actually go to the one in my town, which is pretty amazing due to the fact that they go there almost every weekend. We weren't there long at the Boliche but it was fairly fun. It was not very big but was filled with people, smoke and music. I ended up staying out a little bit longer this time than the other nights and came home around maybe 5:30.

MOTHERS DAY 

They celebrate mothers day here on the third Sunday of October (which is in their spring). We went to a big family dinner where we had an Asado to celebrate for lunch. For dinner we ended up just going to the American like fast food restaurant in my city. Overall it was a very calm day like any other Sunday here.

DOCTORS, DOCTORS, DOCTORS

  Once again I got to experience the medical sideof Argentina! I hadn't been feeling a hundred percent ever since Primavera. I felt like I had a cold. Then, the cold started to turn into a cough, and the cough started to feel like a sinus infection. 

  After awhile we finally realized that it wasn't going to get better so my host mom took me to the clinic. There a doctors poked and prodded and decided to get me amoxicilian for 8 days. I listened to the doctors orders and took all the medicine and started feeling better.However, only a couple days after I had finished the amoxicilian I started feeling worse. 

  One day I went to school even though I felt awful only to be sent home a few hours later. I went home and went straight to bed and didn't wake up till almost 3 completely missing lunch! A little after I woke up my host mom decided to take me to doctor of her kids rather than the clinic. He too poked and prodded just like the previous doctor but instead of giving me medicine told me to wait but that he wanted to take some blood and get an xray "just to have" and that I had "nothing to worry about." Although I thought that was an odd request I listened to the doctor and didn't go to school the next day, instead I went to the hospital to get the xray or my chest, the blood sample and a urine sample. Later that day with the results in hand my host mom and I headed back to the same doctor. After taking a glance and the results he gave me some sort of medicine to drink for 3 days and a form of antibiotic for longer. 

  However, when I woke up not feeling better the next day my mom decided to take me to a doctor that knows English. She took me to the doctor who was in fact the first exchange student from my city. He had meet me on my first week here and had been very nice. He also looked at the results of the previous doctor and looked at me and decided that he wanted xrays of my head and to come back the next day. Once again I went to the doctor and got xrays of my head. The following day I returned back to the doctor who spoke English with the Xrays of my head he looked at them a quickly decided that I had Sinusitus. He proscribed me a nasal spray and a new type of antibiotic with amoxilican and acidio something (its all in spanish) for 15 days. Once I finish with the antibiotics I'm suppose to return back and get more xrays to check and see if the sinusitis is gone. Thus far I feel a lot better!Good thing I know that expensive insurance works! 

CAMPO

Just last Sunday I went out with a few of my friends and ones mom to one of their houses in the country or Campo. It was very nice we ate sandwiches for lunch and laid out at the pool all day. I really liked it because it reminded me of back home. I mean we don't have the pool or the chickens but for once it was calm. It was calm and there were trees and grass and a yard. My city is small according to their standards here but none the less  it is a city and while I love aspects of it I miss some others. It was a beautiful day and so nice to get a little taste of home. Plus they had 2 dogs and 2 cats. I miss my pets back home and I love getting the chance to see other animals here! 

There are more on my Facebook album 

HALLOWEENLESS

 They don't really celebrate Halloween here like back home. A few people have costume parties and a kid or to "attempts" to trick or treat but pretty much the day goes by just like any other. For my Halloween I just went to school, Interact and attempted to make pancakes for two of my friends here.

Olivia (the other exchange student) and I cooking pancakes

I made both of these hahaha

pancake with dulce de leche