Fiestas, Siestas, and Horarios

Fiesta: a party
Siesta: a nap, usually taken after lunch to avoid the heat
Horario: a schedule

I have officially been here over a week, it´s been 10 days since I left Canada. I feel like it´s been a lot longer. Not because I don´t like it, but because so many things have happened in such a short period of time and my Spanish seems to be getting better every day.

This week was busy with me starting Spanish classes. I have different teachers for every day of the week. All of the classes are very different but I think they all have strong points. On Monday we reviewed the basics and he spoke veerry slowly, haha, I actually thought he should speed it up a bit which is a surprise since usually I am asking people to slow down. But it was good because we covered vos/tú which is a source of a bit of confusion for me. I learned that tú is word for "you" in school but here in Argentina everyone uses vos. We learned how to conjucate that which is very helpful. The second class was about nationalities which is also helpful if I ever want to talk about any of my friends from the college. The third class was a lot of speaking and the teacher spoke quite quickly but it was good practise. We practised formal and informal ways of speaking. Thursday´s class was my favorite because we got to watch a TV show in Spanish (Married with Children or Casados con Hijos) and then discuss it after. I didn´t get everything but I was surprised at how much I understood. On that note, last night I watched High School Musical 2 with my host siblings. All in Spanish except for the songs, but it was good practise for listening skills.

On Thursday night there was a party at the university called "Peña". We decided to go (Karl Oskar, Alex, Isabell and I). Everything starts much later here. The party began at 11pm but it didn´t really pick up until about 3am. It was completely packed. The place was perfect because it was like being inside becasue there was a cover on top but there was a nice breeze since it was actually outdoors. I don´t know how to describe it, it was kind of like in the center of the university which is outside. Really perfect place to dance. I tried a few different types of alcholic beverages, it was all amazingly cheap. About $1.50 for a huge bottle of beer, not the little tiny ones in Canada, haha, big ones! I really liked this drink but I can´t remember what it is called haha. The music was also really good. They played a lot of old songs, a lot in Spanish, but it was really good stuff to dance too and I even had some of the Spanish songs on my iPod. We left about 4:30am, and I had a problem, surprise, surprise it was with my shoes (haha, Gili and Fay are going to laugh if they read this). It wasn´t my shoes that normally fall off, it was new ones which end up giving me blisters! haha, I hadn´t noticed at the party but as we began walking home I realized I was in a lot of pain. Not cool. I still have big blisters on my ankles and toes. Why do shoes hate me so much??

I should probably explain why there was a party on a Thursday night, as this is not exactly normal. You see, on Friday it was the 21st of September which is Spring Day here and also Student Day. Meaning there was no school on Friday. We were invited to go out on Friday to the park where there is a huge concert and all the students gather to hang out (it is is a beatiful place down by the river and the weather was gorgeous, blue sky, sunny, a little hot, but not unbearable, just perfect). They estimate that about 40,000 students go down to that park during Spring Day and I believe it (there was people everywhere). We hung out with some students we had met on that first Friday (they were first year students in university studying English). They are all about the same age as us and it was a lot of fun hanging out with them. Music was everywhere in the air and so many people were dancing at the concert, I really felt like I had entered a whole new world. People can really move here, damn, there dancing is amazing.

Anyway Friday night we went out to a bowling club which was packed with people and after they wanted to go to a club, but we decided next weekend because we were tired (and personally my blisters were really hurting me). We want home around 1am and I slept for a long time. Yesterday at 2pm I went to Barriletes again. Activities go on all day, from 2 till around 8pm. I stayed the whole day. I should probably explain the reason that the reason I couldn´t go during the rest of the week is because many of the activites and workshops clash with my Spanish classes. As my Spanish classes are only for the first two months Bruna says I should prioritize these right now because I am not much help without the language anyway. I started going to EcoUrbano (the environmental organization that the other three are volunteering with) as it is in the morning. But yesterday I got an official schedule from Barriletes saying that I can come in the mornings to help with the magazine. So I know have classes in the afternoon/evenings and Barriletes in the mornings. Saturdays is also for Barriletes and Sunday´s are my day off. Today I am going to a birthday party for a friend of the family. All in all it´s been a pretty great week, and I´m really looking forward to learning more about Barriletes. Yesterday was a lot of fun. I got to know a lot of the kids better as they weren´t shy around me. They asked a lot of questions and we took out the map and I explained as best I could about Canada in my Spanish. Surprisingly they understood me and I understood most of the questions quite well. It has helped that I had to cover all these questions at UWC in English, so it was more a matter of translating what I wanted to say rather than thinking up an answer. Bicho (head guy) was there really happy, he said I had passed the exam after I´d been speaking for about an hour haha. I never knew I was taking an exam but he said it was good because he now knows I can communicate more or less with everyone so he doesn´t need to worry about me. :) That was good news. He also thanked me for talking about geography on the map, because many of the children don´t go to school so the only education they get is at Barriletes. He said it is good for them to understand there is a bigger world outside of Paraná.

Okay I think I´ve basically covered Fiestas and Horarios. As for Siestas, I think I need to start taking them haha, I finally understand how hot it will be. The first day of Spring was quite hot and I was wearing shorts. haha. I can´t imagine the summer. I will die! :)

Well that´s all for now. I´ll write more when I can.

Sorry for the long post again.