One Month!

Hello all of you wonderful people!

 

So today officially marks one month in this beautiful country that I already feel like I can call home. It has been a while since I have written a post so I don't really remember all of the things I have already said. So if I repeat anything I am sorry, its just I'm too lazy to go back and re-read the old post.

 

Okay so where to start....

 

My Spanish is getting better, slowly. The kids in my school still ask me when I am going to start speaking Spanish, because you know apparently I should be fluent after one month of being here. I am slowly coming out of the whole quiet phase, everyday I start to speak a little more. I find I am very comfortable trying to speak Spanish at home but then at school its a whole different story. A friend of mine and a rebound here in Argentina said, "give it time, a language will come with time spent absorbing the culture, be patient." And that's what I have to do, just be patient. I have a Spanish tutor that I go to twice a week for an hour and a half which is really helpful. She has started with verbs and how to change them according to the person that you are referencing. Honestly that has been one of the most useful things I have learnt so far. In a few days I start attending a Spanish college for a program designed for exchange students. It takes place 3 days a week for 2 and a half months and it seems intense and that is what I need.

 

Every Sunday my family gets together with all of its extended family for lunch. ASADO. That is what we eat. Asado is the traditional barbeque of Argentina, and might I add it is freaking delicious. Every Sunday they ask me if I have learnt more Spanish and every week I find that I am able to speak to them more and more, so I am actually learning!! YAY! They also got really excited when they found out that I had gotten a Spanish tutor, it made me smile that they were happy to know that I am making an effort to learn the language.

 

I met the first inbound Pete. He goes to the same school as I do. I haven't talked to him a lot but when I have he is nice and friendly. Since he is fluent already I have seen what learning the language ahead of time can do for you. Honestly that is the one thing I would recommend the most to exchange students that are getting ready to leave. LEARN THE DARN LANUAGE. But in some ways I feel like if you go to your host country without knowing anything you also get a true experience of what being an exchange student is like. You go through that mental struggle with yourself and you grow from it. However there is no strict definition of what an exchange student is our what a true experience is like. Learning the language just makes it so much easier in the long run, and I wish I had put more effort into it.

 

My host siblings are obsessed with my iPhone. Here you are considered rich in order to own an IPhone. When walking downtown you must make sure that your phone, especially if it is an iPhone, is well hidden because there is a chance that it could be stolen.

 

I attended my first Rotary meeting. My counsellor picked me up and drove me to the hotel it was being held at. She is so nice and very helpful. She wants to get to know me and invite me over to her house for supper. She mentioned how her daughter wants to meet me and be friends with me. She is very open and makes me feel comfortable, which is nice because that means if I ever have a problem here I can go and talk to her without any problem. The food at the meeting was honestly the best food I have had here so far. It was mashed potatoes and steak, but it was prepared and presented in the most elegant way. Then for desert we had this apple crumble with fresh berries and helado. Oh how fat I am going to get here. The food is soooooooooo good.

 

Here they have a day for everything. Teachers day, both male and female teachers have separate days. Day for people who work in health, first day of spring, children's day, grandparents day....etc. On most of these days we have a celebration at school that involves each of the years to put together a dance or an act of some sort. For my grade it was 3 couples that had to do a tango, then they were interrupted by others and pushed aside for a completely different dance routine. I was one of the people that had to do the tango. It is hard, I do not know how to move my hips at all. My friend laughed at me when she first saw me attempt to do it. Then when it came time to present it I had to wear high heels on the uneven ground, so I didn't do very good, but I still had fun.

 

I was given an English test the other day, really didn't understand how to complete it at all. Then when it was handed back I had gotten 4 right out of 10. All of my friends had gotten 7 or 8, then there's me, the one that speaks English fluently with a 4 haha.

 

The other day my host mum told me that she was going to pay for my first month of Spanish lessons because I was one of her daughters and that is something she would do for them. I was so happy to hear that she thought of me as one of her daughters. It was so sweet, I LOVE MY HOST FAMILY!! I would honestly consider them as my family already, and I have only been here for 1 month.

 

Carne empanadas are a food from the heavens.

 

This weekend I went to Carlos Paz with my friends from school. At first it was really nice everyone was talking to me and wanted to know what it was like in Canada, but as the night went on I had to put in a bigger effort with people if I wanted to talk with them which was nice because it gave me the chance to open up a little more. The house we stayed at was a little sketchy. Everyone here in Argentina smokes whether or not you are under age or not. I don't smoke and most kids that I know in Canada don't so it was a little strange. I tried Fernet for the first time. Fernet is the typical alcohol of Argentina, and normally it is mixed with coca cola. It is disgusting. Completely and utterly disgusting. So they got me to try wine and Fanta orange pop mix, it was alright. We got ready to go out to the club which was fun. My friends lent me clothes and did my makeup. They lent me high heels to wear for the night, although they were too big so when I was dancing in the pit (the part of the club where they do the most dancing) I broke the shoes and almost snapped my ankle because people would jump up and down and push you around, I almost fell 3 times and that eventually caused my shoes to break. It was fun and I danced with a guy in the pit, it was probably the most fun I've had in a while. But after about an hour of being there my friends wanted to leave, so we went back to the house we were staying at. The guy that owned the house asked us if we had taken his money, and all of us said no because we didn't. He showed us that someone who was staying in the house took coins from his money jar and put them into a back pack. So when the others got home there was a big confrontation about who stole his money. No one confessed so he brought out the back pack, and the guy that owned it seemed to act like he didn't know how the coins had gotten in there. The 2 guys ended up getting into a huge fight (fist fight). My friend told me "okay Beth so we are leaving now for Cordoba, pack your bags and your things." But we didn't leave, in fact we stayed for another day. The next day was a lot better. My friend and I went out for lunch with more of her friends and then we went to go explore the city together. Carlos Paz is beautiful. The lake side is one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen. If I was going to ever live in Argentina in my future, from what I've seen so far I would live in Carlos Paz.

 

Yesterday ( the 22nd of September) I went out with the girl from Austria to tour the city together. We were supposed to meet with the girl from Switzerland who was coming late. So we headed in the general direction of the mall we were supposed to meet her at. We found it and then went back to San Martin plaza because we had a few hours to spare. We sat down next to a statue, and right beside us was a man whole with a barred cover over top of it. Up walks this homeless man with a Pepsi bottle, he lifts up the barred cover to the man whole - we thought to throw the bottle in - but nope he climbs on into the whole and disappears. I was curious to see what was down there, so I casually walked by looking into the whole. Down there I could see another man and a door that led to somewhere else. Later the man came back up from the whole wearing a new jacket that he didn't have on before...... I think he lives down there, it was really weird but extremely funny. My friend said that maybe it is an entrance to Hogwarts, who knows maybe.... haha. 

 

Well that is all for now.... more to come later

So stay tuned for more of the Argentina Adventures.... staring the one and only... BETH ELLIS

Chao amigos

 

HOLA AMIGOS!! IT’S BEEN A WHILE HASN'T IT?

 

All right so here we are again, back to blogging. I haven’t written anything since I got to this beautiful country of Argentina. I have been here for 14 ish days and I am already in love with the people, the food, and the culture. Since this is my very first entry since I left Canada I must start at the beginning. The airports…. What a joy.
When I arrived at the airport in my hometown it finally hit me that in 3 days I would no longer wake up to the familiarity of my room, or my house, or even Canada in general. In 3 days I was to be sleeping in a stranger’s bed in a different house, in a foreign country that I knew almost nothing about. As the nerves crept in, my lack of knowledge in the Spanish language hit me full throttle. I realized then that soon enough I would be surrounded by this language that I only knew a few phrases of. Even though at orientation they drill “LEARN THE LANGUAGE” into your mind I never took it seriously. I thought that when I arrived I would just flow into the language so easily and in a few months I would be fluent. No, turns out that’s not how it works.
My father flew all the way from Grande Prairie to Toronto with me so that I would be able to get my visa on the exact same day I would fly out for Chile. If it wasn’t for him I don’t know what I would’ve done maneuvering the Toronto airport… I suppose it would’ve ended up like Santiago. When it came time to say goodbye to him his eyes got all teary… I think this is the first time I had seen him cry before… And he told me how proud he was of me, which was also a first. He told me to have the best year of my life, and to do everything that I hoped I would. And all throughout that I did not shed one tear. I still haven’t. Maybe it’s because I don’t miss them, or my friends, or any bits of my home town. Maybe at one point I will miss them but not for a while. I already love it here, and for only being here for 2 weeks I feel like I can call Argentina home already.

Anyways back to the flights... Santiago airport was honestly the worst thing about my journey so far. I did everything wrong, I panicked but managed to keep my cool, and paid over $300 USD when I didn't have to. To put it shortly I was not prepared for what happened there. But once it was all sorted out and I was sitting at gate number 15 waiting for the plane to take me to my new home I could not stop smiling. In that moment I have never been so proud of myself for being so brave to do something so utterly different. And in that moment when I walked onto the last plane my emotions were so escalated. I wanted to throw up and burst into tears all at the same time, but all I did was smile proudly, the biggest smile that I could conjure. I remember whispering to myself "I'm finally an exchange student" and then jumping up and down like a little girl in a toy store.

Choosing to become an exchange student was the most effortless and easiest decision I have ever made. But the reality is exchange isn't what you first expect. It is hard and frustrating, and completely opposite of what I thought it would be like. I thought I would just glide into Spanish and within a month or so I would be fluent and I would speak exactly like how everyone else does. But in reality I have never been so quiet in my life. I understand quite a bit if people speak slowly or write things down but otherwise it is a struggle. At school I talk but throughout the day maybe 20 or 30 words. I hate it in a way, I feel like I'm not trying to talk enough and it’s my fault and that other exchange students are farther along than I am. But then again every exchange is different, and most of the people I have talked to said they were all quiet at first and it didn't go away for a while. So I guess it isn't just me after all. Sometimes I just need to tell my brain to shut up and stop holding me back and speak Spanish, no matter how stupid I may sound; at least I am making an effort.
Besides the language barrier everything else I superb! My host family is awesome they like to include me in almost everything. The mum and the kids speak English, but the dad and the cleaning lady, Flor, don't know any whatsoever. The mum gets me to read one children's book a night and then write down what the story was about in Spanish.
Flor is so nice and cooks so well. I help her clean and cook, and tidy up after myself so that she has less work to do. I am used to cleaning up after myself in Canada so I don't see why I would need someone to do it for me here. Honestly from how well Flor cooks, and how delicious everything tastes here I am probably going to come back weighing more than I did when I left.
I like school and I have friends... well sort of. It is kind of hard to build any friendship with people when there is such a huge language gap. However the education system in Argentina seems to be valued in certain places and then in others not. My school is located in an apartment complex type of thing. There is no central heating, and the patio (basketball court area) doesn't have a roof) so it is freezing. The classrooms have 35 kids and no smart boards, iPads, laptops, or any technology. They have one white board and that is all they have, on any of the walls. It is completely opposite from the kind of education I had in Canada. I'm not trying to degrade this school or make it seem lesser in any way, I would just like to point out the differences.
The thing that was the biggest shock for me was the gap between the rich and the poor. In Canada we have poverty but not to the same degree. Yes I have seen homeless people, and shelters that help battered women. Here however there are crumbling houses and slums. The other day I had the biggest shock. On one of the streets there was a neighbourhood of crumbling houses and a little girl sat outside in tattered clothing holding a picture book. She looked sad, but at the same time happy. And until this time I had never seen poverty like this, I had never seen it firsthand. In Canada you hear about stories about the slums and the poverty stricken people, but you never see it. You see just a slim portion of poverty.
Because of this I think my view on the world and what I want to do with my life has changed, and I have only been here for 13 days. I know that in some way I want to change a person’s life and reduce the barrier between the rich and the poor, and that I want to work in humanitarian aid.
Back to the good stuff. I live in a gated community with gorgeous houses that look like the modern ones in Canada. I have a swimming pool that I can swim in everyday if I like. I have seen my first palm tree, and its right in my backyard! The food here is delicious. I have never tasted bread or desserts like these before. My favorite things to eat so far are empanadas, (the kids in school mock the way I say empanadas) my host father's spaghetti, criollos, bon o bon, dulce de leche, and lemon ice cream. The ice cream sounds a little funny huh? But guess what it is the most delicious thing I have had yet, minus this one pastry that was to die for. I swear that I will be coming back fatter than before if I keep eating the way I do now haha! I went to my first party the other weekend; it was a 15th birthday party that my youngest host sister was invited to. So I met all of her friends which are wild and crazy just like her. We stayed at the party till 5am. I danced most of the time, even if my friends went to go sit down and take a break. I had a blast! I was asked to dance by this boy and we sort of did a tango or salsa, or whatever you call it. I say sort of mainly because I struggled to follow along but I made him laugh at how terrible I was. The DJ noticed me dancing so much and he asked where I was from and if I had fun dancing and what kind of music we listen in Canada. Apparently the party wasn't very good so I am really excited to see what the next one is like.

 I made my first batch of pancakes the other day and my host sister already wants me to make more because she loves them. 

Next week I will start my first Spanish lessons with a tutor, thank god because I need as much help as I can get. My best friend from India arrives in 15 days, and in October we are planning to go see Aerosmith and Muse in concert in Buenos Aires, hopefully we will be able to go!! In September the weekend of the 27-29th is orientation, and then after I will hopefully get to go to Catamarca with Marcos (the inbound from Argentina that went to my city in Canada last year). And then a month later is supposedly our first trip, and then after that is graduation. Then guess what!? IT’S SUMMER! :) My family and I will hopefully go on a vacation somewhere, and they said that I must go to Buenos Aires at least once before I leave, so yay! Things are already starting to look up. I may not know the language quite yet but it'll come with time and effort.
In summary I already love it here. I cannot wait till the day when I am fluent and I can communicate with people in only Spanish. Even if things get hard here I still remind myself that I AM IN FRICKEN ARGENTINA, I ONLY HAVE ONE YEAR HERE AND I HAVE TO MAKE IT AWESOME.... AFTERALL ONE YEAR HERE IS STILL BETTER THAN A YEAR IN CANADA.

 

Chao for now amigos..

 This is Beth signing off.. hahaha.

The Traveller

Some people have no desire to venture out of their city. Some people have no desire to venture out of their daily routines. And some people are stuck missing out on all of the amazing things life has in store for them on the other side of their front door. But occasionally you come a cross a person who only strives to see the entire world before they die. They dream of travelling to every nook and cranny that this world has to offer, and then searching for more once they have discovered them all.

 

These people are the travellers, the adventurers, the cultured human beings. They seek not to live in one corner of the world but to have bits of their soul to inhabit the places they have been, and the people that their lives have touched. Travellers are willing to encounter uncomfortable situations because they understand that life begins at the end of their comfort zone. They do not wait for life to come knocking on their door, telling them to get up and seize the day. They go out and search for life in good friends, new places, and excellent food.

 

Travellers are the old men sitting in desolate corners of the world sharing their tales of adventure and despair that seem so far fetched to be true. But they are, and when you come across this kind of traveller stop and listen because somewhere in his stories there are things that could change your world.

 

Travellers enter a country as complete strangers. But as the days go by, and life long connections are made the traveller will leave now as a friend, an ally, a native. That will undoubtedly come back one day, only to be a different person once again, wielding those stories of adventure.

 

And as the travellers turn old and grey they might settle down, or they might keep going. But to quote J.K. Rowling, "and then he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this life" knowing that they have made the most out of this one, and that death is simply another adventure.

 

Whoever once said that life begins at retirement is wrong. Life begins when you want it too. Life begins when you step past the front door, past your comfort zone, and past the part of the world that you called home. Life happens when you are a traveller.

Being Brave

I know a lot of people out there are probably not wasting their time reading my blog but I would hope that those who are, I am inspiring you to do something. Now this something doesn't mean to leave home for a year like myself, but it is to do something courageous in your everyday life.

I watched a film today called Eat Pray Love. In this movie Liz goes on a year long journey through Italy, India, and Bali, in order to find herself and create a balance in her life. Along the way she tastes good food, makes life-long friends, and falls in love. This movie represented everything that I wanted in my exchange.

I am leaving behind everything I know here in Canada and venturing forth into unknown teritories  without a clue of what I am getting myself into. I am leaving behind people that I may never see again, and best friends who I won't be as close to, and my family who has always been there for me no matter how crazy the circumstances. Most of all I am leaving behind who I once was, the person who I will never be again.

People ask me, "why exchange?"  My response is "Why not?" Through this experience I will see the world. Yes it may only be one corner of the world, but it is one corner of the world that is mine, that will be my home. I want to see what the world has in store for me, and by the time I die I want to have been to every nook and cranny that this wide world has to offer. I want to see everything, experience everything, find my passion and chase it. Travelling is my passion and by God I'm going to do everything in my power to follow that passion.

"If you're brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to bitter, old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally) and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself, then the truth will not be withheld from you."

~ Eat Pray Love ~

Good God I hope I am brave enough.

~ Beth