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