Another thing this country has taught me....

It's ok to slow down and take things in. Life isn't meant to be rushed. Enjoy family and friends. Work hard but be sure to leave time for friends and family because you don't know how often you will see them.

I will be home in 9 days....time flies even when you don't mean it too.

So the volunteer thing  at the refugee center did not work out. I am going to be going to the Children's Hospital every Sunday until I leave but beyond that there is nothing more that I can do. Yes I am dissapointed but I am ok becuase there will be other oppurtunides.

But that's not the point. I have come to terms with the fact that nothing is perfect. It took a while to accept it, and I had to be put in a situation where only a few things turned out perfect, but I have accepted it.  It's perfectly imperfect.

I have met a number of lovely people, from the states, from here in Argentina and from abroad. I have spoken to people in spanish and have grown a fondness for the ferias ( fairs) that are held around here. I have visited a number of places around the city,  I have seen the variety that the city has to offer. I have fallen in love with empanadas and alfahores, which I am going to miss when I get back to the states. I have tried mate and would like to take a cup back as a souvenir. I have discovered that Argentinians are some of the most hospitable and friendly people I have met. A friendly kiss on the cheek between men is not seen as odd. Despite living through hard economic times and only recently stepped out of a dark time in their history they find humor in almost every situation and make an effort to get together with friends and family.

I realize that i have been so focused on my classes that personally I have not matured by much.

I don't know if this experience has or is going to change me. I hope it has...I know my urge to travel and meet other people and cultures has only grown stronger. I hope to continue to mature and learn. I have always been told to relax and take time to figure things out but in order to realize that personaly I had to be thrown into a situation that challenged personaly if not academically.

I don't know if this experience has made me any more mature, but I hope it means something. And now that I have experienced living abroad for a few months and am looking forward to another month that I hope to take advantage of.

Today I am paying for a trip to Salta and will be going up there with two great friends I have met here.

More to talk about later.

Hasta pronto!

-Stacey :)

I want to type this down before I forget. Someone told me something a while ago that I thought was an interesting perspective. One of the girls in my class  told me that while she has nothing against the USA, she would never want to live there permenantly ( she's from Lebanon, lived in the states for a couple of years, knows english, spanish and arabic.)

When I asked her why, she said that everyone's in  too much of a hurry in the states. Too much in a hurry, too schedualed and not enough face-time with family and friends. She told me that the case is the opposite in Argentina. Not very schedualed nor rushed and but certainly sets a much more family/friend family atmosphere.

She continued on to say that while life in the states can be very comfortable  and secure, she'd find it much more fulfiling to live in a situation where she didn't always  have hot water if it meant to be consistantly around friends and family.

Thoughts?

Weekend with the girls. It was my friend Alicia's birthday so we went to a bar friday night, Saturday went to a Mexican restaurant ( no suprise had to go through a feria (fair) to get there. I am not complaining....) and later went to the amusement park in Tigre, Parque de la Costa. After the needlessly complicated  process of purchasing tickets, went on two awesome roller coasters, watched the sun set and after the park closed ( at 6!?) watched a pretty sweet light show.

Sunday was included lots and lots of rain. We went to arteBA which was an art exposicion for 20 pesos ( 5 dollars). It was neat checking out, although that's the last time I am spending 20 pesos on an art exhibit unless it's something I have been planning on going for a while :p.

Plans for Salta still up in the air. Update on that soon.

I have my plane ticket purchased for July 5th, times flies, no?

I may be teaching english at an orphanage and a refugee center. :) Again updats to come soon.

May 25th is coming up!! Not exaclty independance day ( that's reserved for July 9th) , but might as well be at this rate :p

One of the most fun aspects of being abroad is meeting people. Yes, I know that's obviouse. But being able to meet them and speak to them in spanish and adding a bit more to your world is quite an experience, even if, chances are, you are never going to meet them again.

When I went to Iguazu I spoke to a Peruvian woman who described her home country to me in beautiful detail. She also went as far to say that Machu Pichu is nothing compared to seeing other lovely sites such as the city of Cuzco. I wish I could remember everything she told me but I remember feeling a longing to  travel north.

I spoke to one taxi driver the other day who told me he wanted to learn english so when tourists came he could have conversations with them.

I spoke to man from Peru who was selling scarves. He told me in broken english  that he was part of a Peruvian heavy metal band and was spending time in BsAs raising money for his band.

Yesturday I spoke to en elderly woman on the bus who told me that while she's never been to the US, she's heard plenty of stories from her friend who has been there a number of times. She pointed out major streetes to me as we drove by. (I didn't clarify that I was already pretty family with the area, I was enjoying the fact that I could understand perfectly what she was saying). Because I was used to the fact that nearly every other Argentinean I met could speak english as a second language, it didn't quite take me by suprise when the woman said, in english, "I don't speak english very well."

My friend Lia ( who is from the states but has family in Argentina) and her family invited me to spend the weekend with them. While I had trouble understandinf everything said ( Lia's cousin spoke insanely fast and I had trouble following. He teased me at one point about it, wish I good rebuke in spanish :p ), I still felt welcomed to the family.

I most likely won't meet most of these people again when I leave, but I thank them and others I have not mentioned for adding to my experience here in Argentina :)

I will re-iterated on the above quote later :)

JULIETA VENAGAS IS COMING TO BsAs!!! :D And so is McFly ( funny enough, McFly is more popular here than is Julieta. McFly has never been to the US whole Juliete has, I thought that was an interesting note).

Quick update,

In the last two weeks I went to

Mar del Plata ( probably int he worst weather ever to go to a beach, but it was fun :)  ) It was with my friends Alicia, Lia ( it was her 21st on Sat) and Lia's aunt ( really a friend of the family). Lia's aunt is awesome. Probably one of the more interesting experiences on the trip was when we were stopped at the highway by the police because Lia's aunt did not have her head lights on....in broad day light. In fact the police were only picking random cars and completly ignored the ones that were clearly speeding by passed th speed limit. At the beach itself we had a lovely view of the ocean, it was a shame it wasn't sunny :p.It was so windy at night that I was afraid Lia's aunt, who is quite tall, would go flying. For Lia's birthday we went to this lovley Parilla ( grill) for dinner. Just as cafeterias are everywhere, so are Parillas :)

The next week we went to Lia's birthday and I met a good portion of her family ( her family is Argentinian, though she and most of  her immediant family live here in Argentina). We were given the warm Argentinian welcome ( muchos besos!), it was very nice. So many pastres....I don't know how Argentinians remain as thin as they are!

Last night went to a bar with a friend and met some others from her program, all very nice. The bar tender spoke perfect American english which struck me....alot of people here speak english which took me by suprise. Half the time I speak, someone would recognize my accent and switch to english

I am now going to Lia's place for a bit today ( she lives about half an hour north with her grandma). To be continued tonight or tommorow, promise! :)

Hasta luego!

Ok, so I have discovered that Posterous is not the best for posting photos....at least not as many as a want to :p ( Check my facebook page if you want to see all of my photos).

So after Semana Santa I have finally found my comfort zone. The past two months have been a bit of a challange, so I apologize for the lack of posts. I suppose coming here as forced me to learn more about myself and how I view things more than anything. I will continue on this train of thought later. On to some fun stuff first :)

We went to La Plata ( a small town about an hour south of the city), Feria Libro ( Buenos Aires Book Fair) and Tigre ( another town about an hour north) for Semana Santa, aka, Easter Break. 

Suprises along the way? Many. Feria Libro was HUGE and there was no way we could see all of it at once. There were booths representing different areas of Argentina and other countries, including organization such as the "Mothers of the Plaza Del Mayo" and the UN. Go into another building and you see booths with nothing but books on anything and everything really, I really need to go again.

La Plata was definetly an interesting. It is the capital of the provinance of Buenos Aires and it is a planned city, meaning that it was organized in such a way to be well...organized. The streete are not given names but numbers and it is fairly easy to get around....if you have a map, which we didn't have at hand which made it all the more dificult to find our way around ( the streetes were cut diagonaly so that made it a bit of a challange, but we managed). I might have mentioned before the amount of stray dogs on the streete. There are alot. There was one dog that followed us around for quite a while ( he was really sweet), even waiting patiently outside for us while we ate lunch. One of us left some of her leftover food for the poor dog. We went to the Natural History musem and to be honest, while I love looking at skeletons (taxidermy not so much....that section was a little creepy), I LOVED looking at the cultural section filled with Incan artifacts and other treasures from the North and South.  It was also definetly fun figuring out the spanish names of certain animals we didn't know or weren't taught. For example, can anyone who's taken spanish guess what "Zorro Volando" means?

Afterwards we saw La Catedral, the biggest Gothic Cathedral in South America...I believe, I need to recheck my facts. Unfortunatly, it was cloudy that day so we couldn't really see the stained glass windos very well, but it was still amazing.

A few suprising things:

- The Jesus above the entrance had skulls covering his robes ( I know it's a gothic church, but...really? O.o)

- There was a bishop giving the service when we went inside ( it was Good Friday of course, but it was still pretty neat).

Tigre was lovely as ever. And we went during the fair which was all the more awesome. I bought a pair of earring that I had my eyes on and a few souvenirs ( of course I needed to buy a keychain, what better proof is there that I have been to Argentina :p)

I shall speak of churipans next time :)

Mas a venir!!

More to come!!

En español---

Así que yo admito que estoy luchando un poco con mi español. Ha sido un mes desde he estado acá y mientra pienso que yo estoy mejorando  diariamente, todavía no pienso que no estoy dondo necesito estar. Pedí por un tutor y estoy tratando ver si yo puedo tomar solamente 3 classes ( por supuesto, la persona engargada del add/drop es en Australia por este semana, ojala que él pueda contestar mi e-mail pronto...). Vamos a ver. Me prometo que estaré más positiva durante los próximo meses.

In english-----

So I admit that I m struggling a bit with my spanish. It has been over a month since I have been here and while i feel like I am improving daily, I still don't think I am where I need to be. I have asked for a tutor and I am trying to see if i can drop one of my classes ( of course the one in charge of add/drop is away for the week in australia, I hope he answers my e-mail soon....). So we'll see how it goes. I promise myself I will be more positive over the next few months. Wish me luck :)