After waking up this morning in the "Caja de Hielo" (our name for our room, literally meaning Ice Box), we had breakfast with our "sis," Valeria, and headed out the door for UBP. Today has been fairly easy since we watched movies in both of our classes today. First, it was "Motorcycle Diaries," a movie about the revolutionary Che Guevera, and second, "Camilla," a love story with a few moments of Argentinian history mixed in. Later today we will have a culture lesson with the instruments of Argentina.
Yesterday after class we returned to La Casa de Lacoste and took a long and needed siesta. (Even though we`ve been tired, it is difficult to look forward to sleeping in our beds (they seem to get a little worse each day). Mama Alejandra woke us up just in time to leave for our activity with the other students.
We can now proudly say that we are Tango Dancers Extraordinaire! We had our first lesson last night and absolutely loved it! The only problem was our lack of male partners. But hey, at least the guys had a lot of practice! It felt like an episode straight out of Dancing with the Stars and when we were done, we were looking like ballroom beauties gliding across the floor!!
After dancing, we went to La Casa de Lacoste and talked with our "little bro" Juaquin. He´s taking his first English classes and we helped him with his pronunciation. Since Mama Alejandra´s brother´s birthday was actually yesterday, she and our "papa" went out for dinner. We fixed ourselves some soup and had some Grido Helado (who knew the best icecream in town delivers to your house!!) and got ready to meet up with the other students. We went to Contender, a bar near the school, and played pool with other estudiantes from Richmond and had our first taste of Fermente con Coca Cola, the typical drink here in Cordoba. Let´s just say we would not recommend it. The bitter taste I would not wish on anyone. After winning a game of pool (championes!) we went to nueva Cordoba to the boliche, Moog (not too sure where they got the name, neither are the Agrentinians). Even though it was a Thursday night, the place didn´t start to get crowded until we were leaving (about 3am). The club was really cool, and since nobody seems to go out before 2am, the Americans stole the dance floor. Two of the guys in our group, Miguel y Nacho, decided at one point to start breakdancing in the middle of the club. Neither of them know how to breakdance so it more looked like rolling around on the floor, I think one of them might have pulled out the worm. They also decided to make a train and walk around the dance floor holding each others hips, a little ridiculoso. This went on until one of the people who worked at the club kindly told them, "Don´t dance like that."
Tomorrow we are going to the Sierras to the house of Che Guevera. We leave at 9 and come back at 18:30. Sunday will be our one and only free day. That´s all for now though, we´re going to get some work done before our other class.
Looking forward to our siesta this afternoon,
¡besos!
viernes, 29 de mayo de 2009
jueves, 28 de mayo de 2009
Three days of class under our belts. Spanish in the media is not only a fun class, the teacher is taking extra time trying to make sure our Spanish is perfect. She explains every error we make and even goes through the slang words we will hear from the other kids at the school. We learned that Americans say sorry way too much. The word for sorry in Spanish is literally, "lo siento" but in espanol, people only use the word for deaths and other truly sad events. So pretty much, every time I´ve bumped into anyone on the street or made a mistake I have expressed as much sympathy as I would if someone´s "abuela" (grandmother) passed away. We must sound pretty ridiculous sometimes. The correct thing to say is "perdon" whenever you make an error or brush up against your buddy on the "colectivo" (bus). Very basic things but still very important to know.
Yesterday after class we had a walking tour of the city. (Three tours in three days, all with the same guide... yikes) Lex, Ali, Jane, Sara and I caught the "colectivo" to head into the city, slipping out of spanish for a little bit into Spanglish. We must have been talking pretty loud because all of the sudden I felt a tap on my shoulder and a nice Argentinian boy said "shopping." (He was telling me that we were at the stop to get to the mall). It just so happened to be the same stop for the tour and we thanked him with a "¡muchos gracias!" The tour was a historical one. (¡Yay!) We went to the universidad nacional and to a beautiful "iglesia" (church) in the downtown area. The church was detailed and beautiful but nobody could understand a word of what our tour guide was saying. (He was talking so fast even our professor couldn´t understand it all). I did catch a few words though, "dictionario, muy grande, dios." Even though the church was beautiful and interesting, I was still excited when I caught the word "ultima," which means "last."
After the tour, Lexie and I fuimos de compras (went shopping). We walked around the mall and talked with some of the people in the stores, always practicing our spanish. All the stores were stocked with sweaters and coats and boots for winter time. We´re finally feeling the cold weather and I`m definitely missing summer weather! After the mall we thought we would would grab a bite to eat, silly us thinking any restaurants would be open for dinner at 8 o`clock at night. Resisting the urge to eat in the American pub with hamburgers and fries, we caught a cab back to La Casa de Lacoste and got to work on our "tarea" (homework) for the night. Mama Lacoste, who asked us to start calling her Mama Alejandra, set out some pasta for us to make while she was at her brothers house for his birthday. An hour later, Mama Alejandra came back to the house laughing because she had made a mistake and her brothers birthday wasn´t until today. Lexie and had decided to make ourselves scrambled eggs for dinner, a delicacy they wouldn´t dream of eating in the morning, and told her that dinner was on us. We made Mama Alejandra scrambled eggs with queso y tomates, which she loved :). After dinner, we finished up our homework and headed to bed, I think the classes are wearing us out.
Now we are heading back to La Casa de Lacoste for a siesta before our Tango lesson tonight! So excited!!! Miss you all so much, wish you were hear to see how absolutely amazing the culture of Argentina is. !Haste luego!
¡Besos!
Yesterday after class we had a walking tour of the city. (Three tours in three days, all with the same guide... yikes) Lex, Ali, Jane, Sara and I caught the "colectivo" to head into the city, slipping out of spanish for a little bit into Spanglish. We must have been talking pretty loud because all of the sudden I felt a tap on my shoulder and a nice Argentinian boy said "shopping." (He was telling me that we were at the stop to get to the mall). It just so happened to be the same stop for the tour and we thanked him with a "¡muchos gracias!" The tour was a historical one. (¡Yay!) We went to the universidad nacional and to a beautiful "iglesia" (church) in the downtown area. The church was detailed and beautiful but nobody could understand a word of what our tour guide was saying. (He was talking so fast even our professor couldn´t understand it all). I did catch a few words though, "dictionario, muy grande, dios." Even though the church was beautiful and interesting, I was still excited when I caught the word "ultima," which means "last."
After the tour, Lexie and I fuimos de compras (went shopping). We walked around the mall and talked with some of the people in the stores, always practicing our spanish. All the stores were stocked with sweaters and coats and boots for winter time. We´re finally feeling the cold weather and I`m definitely missing summer weather! After the mall we thought we would would grab a bite to eat, silly us thinking any restaurants would be open for dinner at 8 o`clock at night. Resisting the urge to eat in the American pub with hamburgers and fries, we caught a cab back to La Casa de Lacoste and got to work on our "tarea" (homework) for the night. Mama Lacoste, who asked us to start calling her Mama Alejandra, set out some pasta for us to make while she was at her brothers house for his birthday. An hour later, Mama Alejandra came back to the house laughing because she had made a mistake and her brothers birthday wasn´t until today. Lexie and had decided to make ourselves scrambled eggs for dinner, a delicacy they wouldn´t dream of eating in the morning, and told her that dinner was on us. We made Mama Alejandra scrambled eggs with queso y tomates, which she loved :). After dinner, we finished up our homework and headed to bed, I think the classes are wearing us out.
Now we are heading back to La Casa de Lacoste for a siesta before our Tango lesson tonight! So excited!!! Miss you all so much, wish you were hear to see how absolutely amazing the culture of Argentina is. !Haste luego!
¡Besos!
martes, 26 de mayo de 2009
Hola Todos!
Hola from Cordoba!!
Lex and I are now sitting in the computer lab at the University of Blas Pascal (www.UBP.edu.ar check it out, it´s pretty cool). We just finished our first classes en español. Our first class, Spanish in the media, seems like it will be pretty fun and fairly easy. The teacher explained that the most important thing is for us to each personally improve. Our second class however, the history of Argentina, seems to be impossible, not really sure how to live through two hours of that class at a time. With the help of our tutors and "amigas" here though, I´m sure we will do fine (or at least well enough to pass our pass/fail courses!). We have had absolutely the best experiences so far and cannot believe that we´ve only been here for two days, now on our third. We´ve been writing things down in a journal that we will be putting up soon. For now, I thought we could start with a little vocabulario. Here is a list of some of the words we will be using while writing this blog:
La Casa de Lacoste - our home for the next four weeks. We live with the Lacoste family here in Cordoba on la calle (street) Octavio Pinto. The family consists of the mother, father, four girls, and one boy. The girls are Hanni 30, Bella 28, Valeria 25, and Denise 21 and Juaquin is 13. The oldest two girls do not live in the house but we have met them all and they are all very nice. The dad and Juaquin just got back from a fishing trip last night.
Mama Lacoste - Senora Alejandra Lacoste. Our homestead mother. We absolutely love her! She is so nice and has totally taken us under her wing while we are here. She makes the most amazing food for us and makes us show her everything we are taking with us out of the house so we don´t bring too many pesos and are sure to always have a copy of our address and her telephnoe number. She helps us whenever we have questions about the language and dinner always turns into us asking her how to say this or that. She laughs when I (brittany) sit and nod my head when she is talking because she knows I obviusly have no idea what she is saying. A HUGE breakthrough was yesterday though when she looked at me and said, te comprende mas. (you are understanding more). She has been so good to us and is very understanding when we go out because her own daughters don´t usually come home until 7 in the morning! (the argentinians are LOCO!) When she tried to explain stuff to us and we don´t understand, Mama Lacoste makes ridiculous faces as we begin a game of cherades. My favorite was when she acted out the face of an angry cat. :)
¿Que onda? - what´s up with....
¡Fondo Blanco! - the equivalent to the english expression¨chug.¨ Although we would never use this word ourselves, we ocassionally hear it in the bars of Cordoba.
Well that´s all for now. Hope everyone at home is doing well. We miss you all so much. Stay tuned for more to come!
¡Besos! (kisses)
Lex and I are now sitting in the computer lab at the University of Blas Pascal (www.UBP.edu.ar check it out, it´s pretty cool). We just finished our first classes en español. Our first class, Spanish in the media, seems like it will be pretty fun and fairly easy. The teacher explained that the most important thing is for us to each personally improve. Our second class however, the history of Argentina, seems to be impossible, not really sure how to live through two hours of that class at a time. With the help of our tutors and "amigas" here though, I´m sure we will do fine (or at least well enough to pass our pass/fail courses!). We have had absolutely the best experiences so far and cannot believe that we´ve only been here for two days, now on our third. We´ve been writing things down in a journal that we will be putting up soon. For now, I thought we could start with a little vocabulario. Here is a list of some of the words we will be using while writing this blog:
La Casa de Lacoste - our home for the next four weeks. We live with the Lacoste family here in Cordoba on la calle (street) Octavio Pinto. The family consists of the mother, father, four girls, and one boy. The girls are Hanni 30, Bella 28, Valeria 25, and Denise 21 and Juaquin is 13. The oldest two girls do not live in the house but we have met them all and they are all very nice. The dad and Juaquin just got back from a fishing trip last night.
Mama Lacoste - Senora Alejandra Lacoste. Our homestead mother. We absolutely love her! She is so nice and has totally taken us under her wing while we are here. She makes the most amazing food for us and makes us show her everything we are taking with us out of the house so we don´t bring too many pesos and are sure to always have a copy of our address and her telephnoe number. She helps us whenever we have questions about the language and dinner always turns into us asking her how to say this or that. She laughs when I (brittany) sit and nod my head when she is talking because she knows I obviusly have no idea what she is saying. A HUGE breakthrough was yesterday though when she looked at me and said, te comprende mas. (you are understanding more). She has been so good to us and is very understanding when we go out because her own daughters don´t usually come home until 7 in the morning! (the argentinians are LOCO!) When she tried to explain stuff to us and we don´t understand, Mama Lacoste makes ridiculous faces as we begin a game of cherades. My favorite was when she acted out the face of an angry cat. :)
¿Que onda? - what´s up with....
¡Fondo Blanco! - the equivalent to the english expression¨chug.¨ Although we would never use this word ourselves, we ocassionally hear it in the bars of Cordoba.
Well that´s all for now. Hope everyone at home is doing well. We miss you all so much. Stay tuned for more to come!
¡Besos! (kisses)
Suscribirse a:
Comentarios (Atom)
