Un resúmen de la vida

Hello everyone!

I’m sorry; this has been a long time coming. The thing is I switched classes over a month ago into ones where I actually needed to do work. So I haven’t had the time to write a long and drawn out explanation of everything I’ve been doing.

Then it occurred to me that people would probably prefer to read a few short blog posts more closely interspersed anyway, rather than several long ones with weeks separating them. I’ll try to keep that up.

So here’s a quick update. Over a month ago I went on a vacation to Bariloche. It’s a touristy spot situated at the base of the Andes about 600 miles south of here. Honestly, I think it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever visited in my life. It’s a great little town, full of Swiss style chalets and sloping roads reminiscent of San Francisco, which end on the shores of the beautiful lake Nahuel Huapi. The whole area is mountainous and full of lakes and beautiful rivers, rock formations, and glaciers. I guess the whole region used to be one giant glacier, but since it’s been receding for thousands of years, what are left are lakes and snowcapped mountains. We went on a guided hike, saw a cascade and huge waterfall, tried the local beer and chocolate (Bariloche is famous for both), and had some of the greatest food that I’ve had since being here.

Since I’ve been back from that, I started volunteer work at a local afterschool program, where I and a girl from my program help primary and secondary school kids with their English. It’s very rewarding. These kids have never had the opportunity to meet a native speaker, so it’s fun for them and fun for us. They’re really nice kids, very well behaved and they love their tutor Natalia (who we’ve become pretty good friends with).

The most exciting things I’ve done recently include going to a free concert of a local one man band and doing a wine tour. I would describe the artist as an Argentine John Ondrasik (Five for Fighting). I liked his music so I bought one of his CDs. Then a couple of weeks ago I went with some friends on a “Bikes and Wines” tour. You take a bus or taxi out to the local wine country, rent bikes through a company called, surprisingly, Bikes and Wines. Then you cycle a roughly seven mile preplanned route to some wineries, or Bodegas as they’re known here. There you can take a tour, go to one of the restaurants or the olive oil factory, as well as a chocolate factory, and have some samples from each. We did all of the above. The bikes aren’t of the highest quality, so by the time you’re about halfway done your backside is cursing your existence, but it is well worth it.

Also, I’ve been meeting new Argentines pretty regularly lately, thanks to a new friend of mine, Jeni, from the US. She’s originally from Dayton, Ohio, and is a college graduate. She’s here on a Fullbright scholarship working as an assistant professor of English at one of the local colleges. She has come up with a great way for us and the Argentines to interact. All of her students are English Language majors, and want the chance to practice with native speakers, and of course we Americans are always looking for new Argentine people to befriend, so Jeni made the connection! Once or twice a week a bunch of people from my program and a California program get together with the Argentine college students, and we speak 50% of the time in English, and the other 50% of the time in Spanish. It’s a win-win situation. Plus we’ve made really good friends with a lot of them and hang out with one another outside of the scheduled meetings. It’s been great!

That’s all of the excitement for now! Otherwise I’ve just been hanging around with friends, enjoying the unseasonably warm weather (until this week when the cold arrived), and reading more Argentine literature than I would care to! Not that I don’t enjoy Argentine lit, it’s just that what we’ve been reading isn’t from the most stimulating stock. So I’ve scattered in some readings in English, such as some Orson Scott Card and now Angels and Demons.

Next post to follow, “Things that are different in Argentina.”