Day 3

Just to let everyone know, I am sorry that this blog did not come out sooner, there is so much to tell and not a whole lot of time to simply sit and write. This blog has thus been pieced together with three different computers over two days and hopefully paints an accurate picture of my world here in Pilar.

I have travelled so far in the last few days, physically, emotionally, and metntally. Culture shock has definitely been the phrase for my initial time here in Pilar. But, for those of you who don´t know the details, I will give a brief recap.

I left Seatac airport at 800 in the morning on Monday and flew to Atlanta. This was an exceptionally fun flight as Delta had installed personal screens in the back of every headrest. You could rent movies, access free music, or play games which consumed most of my time. There was one game which was a trivia game where anyone on the plane could compete against eachother. This was right up my alley and I spent mostof my time involved with that and competing with the guy behind me.

Then after a 5 hour layover in Atlanta which primarily consisted of watching Family Guy on my iPod, I embarked on a 10 hour flight from Atlanta to Buenos Aires. I sat next to a young woman from Sweden who was on her way to Argentina for a study abroad program. Luckily, I managed to catch some sleep on the plane and I woke up Tuesday morning at 600 Buenos Aires time. We were treated to the lovely smell of bagels in a microwaved bag and packaged cream cheese.

Upon arriving, I made it through customs a-ok and found my host family waiting for me with a sign with my name on it and all. The first thing they said to me was to communicate how surprised they were at my height. Apparently this will be a theme for my stay here. Luckily or unluckily, I´m still not sure which, my whole family, mom, dad, and two brothers, can speak English with a high degree of fluency. My host mother, two brothers, and my host mother´s father then proceeded to drive me back to Pilar which is about a thirty-minute drive north of the city. The grandfather was actually raised in England, so he mantained an English conversation in the car and he pointed out different eccentricities of the city.

To get home, we drove all the way through town, and proceeded down a dirt road for about half a mile and arrived upon a quaint cottage-like home. I was then given the tour, complete with satellite TV and Playstation 2. I have a spacious room, a comfy bed, a fan!, and my own bathroom, all the amenities one could desire. Life was settling in and we had beef and rice for dinner. Just what I was hoping!

The next morning I woke up early (715) to go to school with my host father and brothers. It was a half-hour drive through town, and down a lot of dirt roads. When we arrived at school, my host brother introduced me to the class and a lot of very fast Spanish flew my way. After getting settled, I was able to explain to them that I could understand them if they spoke very slowly. I am actually quite surprised with my language skills at the end of my second day here. I have found that I can communicate my ideas fairly well to someone with enough patience and if someone wants to talk to me, I can usually catch the gist of what they are saying in a slow tone. However, conversational Spanish here, with the speed and unfamiliar Castellano accent, is lost on me almost entirely. Luckily, most of the students speak English and if necessary I can communicate in my native tongue. In these episodes, I have been told that I speak Spain Spanish with an American accent. Apparently there is some work to do.

The school set-up is different entirely than anything I´ve ever witnessed or heard of. The students stay together in one class for the whole day and teachers come and visit the class. The structure in the class is almost non-existant, with kids shouting as they please and there is a general lack of rules in the class. However, there are 22 kids in the class and all very close and also very welcoming of me and ready to talk, albeit slowly.

My days here have been very full of excitement and new things. Here on the night of my third day, I finally feel as if I am settling in to my new environment. I think this is largely due to my use of language as tonight I have finally started to track the general gist of some (not all) conversations not directed towards me. This has given me a lot of hope, and my family was whole-heartedly embraced suffering my broken Spanish. I plan on watching the vice-presidential debate tonight with my host father Guillermo thanks to our satellite TV. Guillo as we call him was a Representative in the Argentine House of Representatives and takes an active interest in world politics.

I am feeling good about my decision to be here, and my family is very supportive. Tomorrow I will go to school and then play some tennis with my brother Christian and some kids from school. Hopefully I can tackle the clay courts! I hope this finds everybody well and I will try to be more prompt with future posts. Chao mis amigos y mi familia!