Matt, Chris, & Store Guy at the Sunday feria
Chris & I doing a tango pose in front of my favorite Che mural
Cool graffitti in San Telmo 
Me encanta! 
One of the roomies, Fede, playing the bandoneon at a concert
Best steaks we've ever had!
El Ateneo, an old theatre that's now a big bookstoreI've been in BsAs for over 2 months now! Wow. That sounds like quite a long time, but then again, it doesn't at all. I've done so many things and have already established so many great friendships. And it's still only the beginning...
Teaching is going really well. I average about 18 hours a week right now, but it feels like a lot more. About half of my classes are at the actual company offices, so I do a lot of shuffling in between. I can walk to pretty much all of them, too; I take the Subte to one of the companies in an area called "Once" (pronounced 'ohn-say'), where I have a particulary interesting student: Adrian Cambours. Oh, Adrian, Adrian, Adrian. First of all, he's got a seriously bushy beard and moustache, causing him to look more like Osama Bin Laden than an Argentine. Secondly, he chain smokes throughout the ENTIRE class. In his chair. In a small room. With no windows. With me sitting a foot across from him. Our lessons go a little something like this... Me: "What do (cough cough) you like to do (cough cough) on the weekends (cough)?" Adrian: "(puff puff) I like to go to the movies, (puff), I like to go out with friends, (puff puff), and I like to eat at restaurants.... (Puff)." Needless to say, I always bust out of the room promptly at 1:30, sucking for fresh air and apologizing repeatedly to my lungs.
Other than Adrian the Chimney, all my other students are pretty tame and harmless. I had back-to-back lessons with 2 different men harshly critiquing the US’s rebellion of using the metric system (I have to say, I don't disagree with them). We use Fahrenheit, everyone else uses Celsius. We use miles, everyone else uses kilometers. We use pounds, everyone else uses kilograms. And the list goes on. As my student Rodolfo put it, “It’s simple. 0 degrees Celsius is freezing. 100 degrees boils water. Simple. Why do Americans use such a confusing system?” Hmmm… good question, Rodolfo, good question.
How ‘bout that US Open?! I think I watched more of it down here than I ever did back in the US. They really love tennis here, which is great. Not only was it fun to see an Argentine win the tournament (despite beating my #1 man Roj), but I got to see an old UK teammate (Jesse Witten) advance to the third round and play an awesome match against Novak Djokovic. It was pretty surreal watching him on "ESPN+" down here in Argentina, playing against the #4 player in the world. There were also a dozen or so other former teammates in NYC cheering him on, so I'd go nuts every time they zoomed in on his "Kentucky Tennis"-t-shirt-clad posse. He lost the match in 4 sets, but definitely made Djokovic work for it. Way to represent, Jesse :)
I had the most delicious steak of my life a few weeks ago. Hands down. We'd heard about this parrilla called La Cabrera, so we decided to try it one Friday night. After waiting for an hour, we sat down, ordered a few bottles of Malbec and excitedly scoured the menu. Wiping the drool from my mouth, I decided to go with a tenderloin that had ham, cheese, and sundried tomato wrapped on the inside. I almost died when the waiter put the plate in front of me; The thing was the size of a small baby (I, of course, polished off almost all of it... shocker). But beyond the size of it, it was the most scrumptiously delicious hunk of meat I've ever swallowed. I will definitely be going back soon. We also went to an amazing Indian restaurant last weekend, called Bangalore. We were all pretty excited to finally eat spicy food again (Argentines are NOT big on spices/spicy food- most places don't even have pepper on the table!). However, I saw "pumpkin curry" on the menu and was immediately sold, even though I knew it wouldn't be the least bit spicy. Great choice. I love Indian food.
Two Saturdays ago, we went to a popular American bar called "El Alamo", because we wanted to catch a few of the big football games that we knew they'd be showing. The intention was to only watch the Michigan-Notre Dame game, but we ended up staying for the USC-Ohio State game as well. The bar was packed with Americans! Strangely, there were a lot of Michigan fans. It was pretty hilarious watching the games, because the bar somehow gets them through ABC. Being an American channel, this also means that all the commercials are American, too (duh). So every time a commercial for, say, TACO BELL came on, there would be unanimous "ooooohhhhhh" 's throughout the bar. Yep, T-Bell is non-existent here. What a tease! But, thankfully, I've only had a handful of serious Crunchwrap Supreme cravings. Not bad!
My German roommate, Chris, has been teaching me some German. Difficult is an understatement! Here are a few of the things I've learned so far:
Wie geht es dir? - How are you?
Mir geht es gut - I'm good
Wie heisst du? - What's your name?
Ich heisse Caroline - My name's Caroline
Guten morgen - Good morning (*My personal fave, 'cause it's super easy. Sounds just like it's spelled*)
Hast du lust rennen zu gehen? - Do you want to run?
I won't even try to phonetically spell out the pronunciations of these words. Way too hard. However, learning a completely new language like this makes me appreciate and understand how my students feel when they have trouble pronouncing English words. For example, Chris was trying to explain to me yesterday the difference in sounds between the German letters ö and ü. He kept saying them over and over, one after the other, with a face implying "How do you not hear the difference? It's soooo clear"; All the while I'm sitting there, cracking up and shaking my head, because the difference in sounds just seems so incredibly subtle to me that I could not, for the life of me, pronounce the 2 letters properly. Inevitably, I got frustrated and demanded that we end our German lesson for the day. AND SO, today, one of my students expressed his concern for the similar pronunciations of "live" and "leave", which, to a native English speaker, is simple and clear. I immediately thought back to my frustrating German lesson yesterday and decided to spend as much time as needed on this. I showed him the difference in mouth positions, and dramatically said "liiiiiiiiiiive" and "leeeeeeeeave" at least 30 times each. In the end, he got it. Success! I then went over some of the many slang terms for the word "prostitute"... his idea, not mine!
I was thinking today, and realized something: In the 2 months that I've been here, I have felt 100% welcomed. Not once have I felt inferior or been yelled at, ridiculed, mocked, or made fun of. I know I stand out as being foreign, and I'm definitely not fluent in Spanish yet. I often have to say "como?" (translation: "what?") 2 or 3 times before I fully understand people. Not only are people patient with me, but they're usually super curious about me, where I'm from, what I'm doing here, how long I'm staying, etc. It's such a great feeling. People are also very quick to give me advice and suggest places to go and visit. They're happy and proud that I chose their country, of all places, to live, and always extend their help in any way they can. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh to my home country, but I can't help but think that this is not usually the case in the US. "Go back to where you came from" is something I've heard too many times, which is really unfortunate. If someone here told me to go back where I came from, I'd probably do just that, and leave with a very bitter attitude towards Argentina. I think Americans should be incredibly proud of the fact that we have the kind of country that attracts such diversity.
I felt very humbled and proud the other day. Chris was talking about the culture of American universities, as he lived in Athens, GA for a year working for Habitat for Humanity. Athens is the home of the University of Georgia, and is arguably one of the best college towns in the country. He was completely blown away with the campus, culture, and college sports spirit. He said, "It's like a small city. Everyone becomes a part of the university, and feels proud to say they go there. We don't have that." (UGA does have an amazing campus, by the way. I think it's the best of all the SEC schools.) As he was enthusiastically describing his love for our college culture, I realized that I'd never even considered the fact that no other country in the world has it. When I asked him if his university in Berlin has any sports teams, he laughed and replied, "You can play volleyball on Friday afternoons." (Whoa... killer, man) I was honestly shocked to realize just how privileged we Americans are to have such incomparable college experiences (amongst other things). Perhaps I've been very ignorant and naive to think about this only now, but hey, better late than never, right?
So Monday was the official first day of spring! This also meant a holiday for most people. I went for a run on my usual route in Puerto Madero, as the weather was beautiful, and there were more people out than I'd ever seen. It was like dodging bullets while I was running. Now, I realize it was the "first day of spring", but it's not like the weather was any different than it's been; In fact, it was no different. Have people been hibernating, just because it was "winter"? Or maybe it's just like that on every holiday? Hmmmm... Either way, it's officially SPRING, baby!
I'm going to start volunteering next week. There's a small community center in La Boca (BA's poorest barrio) that runs programs for both children and adults, and it's one of the few places that doesn't charge a fee for volunteers (sorry, but there's something about 'paying to volunteer' that really baffles me). It seems like I'll be doing things like teaching English, playing sports, and assisting with fundraisers. I'm excited to help!
With all of the amazingness that I'm experiencing down here, I'm very sad that I'll be missing out on a special event next weekend: The wedding of 2 of my best friends, Max & Kristina. I've known these two for over 10 years, and they've been dating for 8 of them. I have honestly never met two people more in love and more perfect for one another. I love them both to death and can't wait to see the photos from their big day. Max has already promised to send the video as soon as it's available, too :) Incredibly bummed to be missing out, but so excited for them. Love you mucho, Maxie-poo and Kris!
The weekend after Max & Kris get hitched (October 10), 6 of us are going to a small town in central Argentina for Oktoberfest! Officially, it's called "La Fiesta Nacional de La Cerveza" (translation: The National Party of Beer). It's in a town called Villa General Belgrano, which is about an hour south of Córdoba, another big Argentinian city. We'll be taking an overnight, 10-hour bus ride on Friday night, and then staying until Monday night. Can't wait!
Once again (I know I always say this, but it's true), I love and miss you all so much. I don't want to speak too soon, but I think one of my old teammates and good friends, Danielle (AKA D-Peezy), is coming to visit over Thanksgiving! I'm beyond excited. I hope everyone's enjoying the start of fall, my favorite season back home. Muchos besos y abrazos!
CTW
Teaching is going really well. I average about 18 hours a week right now, but it feels like a lot more. About half of my classes are at the actual company offices, so I do a lot of shuffling in between. I can walk to pretty much all of them, too; I take the Subte to one of the companies in an area called "Once" (pronounced 'ohn-say'), where I have a particulary interesting student: Adrian Cambours. Oh, Adrian, Adrian, Adrian. First of all, he's got a seriously bushy beard and moustache, causing him to look more like Osama Bin Laden than an Argentine. Secondly, he chain smokes throughout the ENTIRE class. In his chair. In a small room. With no windows. With me sitting a foot across from him. Our lessons go a little something like this... Me: "What do (cough cough) you like to do (cough cough) on the weekends (cough)?" Adrian: "(puff puff) I like to go to the movies, (puff), I like to go out with friends, (puff puff), and I like to eat at restaurants.... (Puff)." Needless to say, I always bust out of the room promptly at 1:30, sucking for fresh air and apologizing repeatedly to my lungs.
Other than Adrian the Chimney, all my other students are pretty tame and harmless. I had back-to-back lessons with 2 different men harshly critiquing the US’s rebellion of using the metric system (I have to say, I don't disagree with them). We use Fahrenheit, everyone else uses Celsius. We use miles, everyone else uses kilometers. We use pounds, everyone else uses kilograms. And the list goes on. As my student Rodolfo put it, “It’s simple. 0 degrees Celsius is freezing. 100 degrees boils water. Simple. Why do Americans use such a confusing system?” Hmmm… good question, Rodolfo, good question.
How ‘bout that US Open?! I think I watched more of it down here than I ever did back in the US. They really love tennis here, which is great. Not only was it fun to see an Argentine win the tournament (despite beating my #1 man Roj), but I got to see an old UK teammate (Jesse Witten) advance to the third round and play an awesome match against Novak Djokovic. It was pretty surreal watching him on "ESPN+" down here in Argentina, playing against the #4 player in the world. There were also a dozen or so other former teammates in NYC cheering him on, so I'd go nuts every time they zoomed in on his "Kentucky Tennis"-t-shirt-clad posse. He lost the match in 4 sets, but definitely made Djokovic work for it. Way to represent, Jesse :)
I had the most delicious steak of my life a few weeks ago. Hands down. We'd heard about this parrilla called La Cabrera, so we decided to try it one Friday night. After waiting for an hour, we sat down, ordered a few bottles of Malbec and excitedly scoured the menu. Wiping the drool from my mouth, I decided to go with a tenderloin that had ham, cheese, and sundried tomato wrapped on the inside. I almost died when the waiter put the plate in front of me; The thing was the size of a small baby (I, of course, polished off almost all of it... shocker). But beyond the size of it, it was the most scrumptiously delicious hunk of meat I've ever swallowed. I will definitely be going back soon. We also went to an amazing Indian restaurant last weekend, called Bangalore. We were all pretty excited to finally eat spicy food again (Argentines are NOT big on spices/spicy food- most places don't even have pepper on the table!). However, I saw "pumpkin curry" on the menu and was immediately sold, even though I knew it wouldn't be the least bit spicy. Great choice. I love Indian food.
Two Saturdays ago, we went to a popular American bar called "El Alamo", because we wanted to catch a few of the big football games that we knew they'd be showing. The intention was to only watch the Michigan-Notre Dame game, but we ended up staying for the USC-Ohio State game as well. The bar was packed with Americans! Strangely, there were a lot of Michigan fans. It was pretty hilarious watching the games, because the bar somehow gets them through ABC. Being an American channel, this also means that all the commercials are American, too (duh). So every time a commercial for, say, TACO BELL came on, there would be unanimous "ooooohhhhhh" 's throughout the bar. Yep, T-Bell is non-existent here. What a tease! But, thankfully, I've only had a handful of serious Crunchwrap Supreme cravings. Not bad!
My German roommate, Chris, has been teaching me some German. Difficult is an understatement! Here are a few of the things I've learned so far:
Wie geht es dir? - How are you?
Mir geht es gut - I'm good
Wie heisst du? - What's your name?
Ich heisse Caroline - My name's Caroline
Guten morgen - Good morning (*My personal fave, 'cause it's super easy. Sounds just like it's spelled*)
Hast du lust rennen zu gehen? - Do you want to run?
I won't even try to phonetically spell out the pronunciations of these words. Way too hard. However, learning a completely new language like this makes me appreciate and understand how my students feel when they have trouble pronouncing English words. For example, Chris was trying to explain to me yesterday the difference in sounds between the German letters ö and ü. He kept saying them over and over, one after the other, with a face implying "How do you not hear the difference? It's soooo clear"; All the while I'm sitting there, cracking up and shaking my head, because the difference in sounds just seems so incredibly subtle to me that I could not, for the life of me, pronounce the 2 letters properly. Inevitably, I got frustrated and demanded that we end our German lesson for the day. AND SO, today, one of my students expressed his concern for the similar pronunciations of "live" and "leave", which, to a native English speaker, is simple and clear. I immediately thought back to my frustrating German lesson yesterday and decided to spend as much time as needed on this. I showed him the difference in mouth positions, and dramatically said "liiiiiiiiiiive" and "leeeeeeeeave" at least 30 times each. In the end, he got it. Success! I then went over some of the many slang terms for the word "prostitute"... his idea, not mine!
I was thinking today, and realized something: In the 2 months that I've been here, I have felt 100% welcomed. Not once have I felt inferior or been yelled at, ridiculed, mocked, or made fun of. I know I stand out as being foreign, and I'm definitely not fluent in Spanish yet. I often have to say "como?" (translation: "what?") 2 or 3 times before I fully understand people. Not only are people patient with me, but they're usually super curious about me, where I'm from, what I'm doing here, how long I'm staying, etc. It's such a great feeling. People are also very quick to give me advice and suggest places to go and visit. They're happy and proud that I chose their country, of all places, to live, and always extend their help in any way they can. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh to my home country, but I can't help but think that this is not usually the case in the US. "Go back to where you came from" is something I've heard too many times, which is really unfortunate. If someone here told me to go back where I came from, I'd probably do just that, and leave with a very bitter attitude towards Argentina. I think Americans should be incredibly proud of the fact that we have the kind of country that attracts such diversity.
I felt very humbled and proud the other day. Chris was talking about the culture of American universities, as he lived in Athens, GA for a year working for Habitat for Humanity. Athens is the home of the University of Georgia, and is arguably one of the best college towns in the country. He was completely blown away with the campus, culture, and college sports spirit. He said, "It's like a small city. Everyone becomes a part of the university, and feels proud to say they go there. We don't have that." (UGA does have an amazing campus, by the way. I think it's the best of all the SEC schools.) As he was enthusiastically describing his love for our college culture, I realized that I'd never even considered the fact that no other country in the world has it. When I asked him if his university in Berlin has any sports teams, he laughed and replied, "You can play volleyball on Friday afternoons." (Whoa... killer, man) I was honestly shocked to realize just how privileged we Americans are to have such incomparable college experiences (amongst other things). Perhaps I've been very ignorant and naive to think about this only now, but hey, better late than never, right?
So Monday was the official first day of spring! This also meant a holiday for most people. I went for a run on my usual route in Puerto Madero, as the weather was beautiful, and there were more people out than I'd ever seen. It was like dodging bullets while I was running. Now, I realize it was the "first day of spring", but it's not like the weather was any different than it's been; In fact, it was no different. Have people been hibernating, just because it was "winter"? Or maybe it's just like that on every holiday? Hmmmm... Either way, it's officially SPRING, baby!
I'm going to start volunteering next week. There's a small community center in La Boca (BA's poorest barrio) that runs programs for both children and adults, and it's one of the few places that doesn't charge a fee for volunteers (sorry, but there's something about 'paying to volunteer' that really baffles me). It seems like I'll be doing things like teaching English, playing sports, and assisting with fundraisers. I'm excited to help!
With all of the amazingness that I'm experiencing down here, I'm very sad that I'll be missing out on a special event next weekend: The wedding of 2 of my best friends, Max & Kristina. I've known these two for over 10 years, and they've been dating for 8 of them. I have honestly never met two people more in love and more perfect for one another. I love them both to death and can't wait to see the photos from their big day. Max has already promised to send the video as soon as it's available, too :) Incredibly bummed to be missing out, but so excited for them. Love you mucho, Maxie-poo and Kris!
The weekend after Max & Kris get hitched (October 10), 6 of us are going to a small town in central Argentina for Oktoberfest! Officially, it's called "La Fiesta Nacional de La Cerveza" (translation: The National Party of Beer). It's in a town called Villa General Belgrano, which is about an hour south of Córdoba, another big Argentinian city. We'll be taking an overnight, 10-hour bus ride on Friday night, and then staying until Monday night. Can't wait!
Once again (I know I always say this, but it's true), I love and miss you all so much. I don't want to speak too soon, but I think one of my old teammates and good friends, Danielle (AKA D-Peezy), is coming to visit over Thanksgiving! I'm beyond excited. I hope everyone's enjoying the start of fall, my favorite season back home. Muchos besos y abrazos!
CTW
