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Me gusta Rosario muchisimo mas! (Rosario´s better)
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So yesterday (the 2nd) I travelled to the city of Rosario with Olivia from Alaska and Jillian from Oregon. We took the Tienda Leon bus about 4 hours north to Rosario. I slept most of the way, and we arrived at the Ariston Hotel in downtown Rosario. A very nice hotel, and I stayed with Jillian from Oregon and Erica from Oregon. There are only 2 others from Michigan in this program-- 46 students altogether; 3 from Michigan, one from Colorado, one from California, and one from Boston. All the rest (oh, besides Olivia from Alaska) are from Oregon.
We stayed at the hotel and got ready for our meet and greet reception in the bar in the hotel. All 46 of us gathered in this tiny room with lots of crustless sandwiches (which were all right), some carbonated water (totally gross), some agua sin gas (regular bottled water), some empanadas (deep fried pastries filled with meat and cheese or cheese and onions... or I suppose anything, for that matter-- and are very popular in Argentina... and for fabulously good reasons), and bottles and bottles of wine (Argentines are famous for their vino, and also for good reason). So yeah, all these kids don´t know one another-- let´s stick them in a tiny room together... but what could help? Some good food? Sure. Wine? ABSOLUTELY
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So I met a lot a lot a lot of new people. And most of them are really nice. Also at the meet and greet were our faculty members-- our teachers for our classes. Theyre all really nice and seem really concerned with accomodating us and making us feel comfortable and safe and at home. Very comforting.
Rosario is MUY BONITA. Very beautiful. Mas bonita que Buenos Aires. More beautiful than Buenos Aires. I can´t wait to see all of it-- we have a walking tour on Friday, I think. The architecture is very similar to Buenos Aires but the city itself is more clean, less busy, and not so smelly or noisy. Just very nice. And dogs running around EVERYWHERE but they all seem well-fed. And they chase the cars on the streets. And I´m pretty sure I´m going to see one die before I leave here. For sure. It´s just not safe! Last night a bunch of us went to Stroker´s, a bowling alley-billiards bar about 20 blocks from where we were staying. We all ordered a drink (and only one, as we´d already had as much free wine as we could handle) with 3 other people (whose names actuall¨y escape me at the moment). As terrible a bowler I am, my ¨team¨ won. By about 3 points. I bowled like a 45 the whole game. Yikes. It was fun, though, to get to talk to people. It´s funny how, in a room of 50 people, you can seek out the people most like you. I already found perfect matches for me. There´s like 4 girls in the whole program with significant others back home, and we all found each other instantly. Did my nametag say ¨brokenhearted Melanie?¨ I wasn´t aware of that at the time. Anyway, we all told of our boys back home. It was nice to finally have someone to understand the missing of a family, friends, AND A boy.
This morning, we had our placement exams for Spanish-- you could either place into level 1, 2, 3, or 4. I was sure I´d test into 3, but turns out I tested into 4. Don´t really know how that´s going to go, but I think I´m gonna be fine... as I´m finally with my family and I´ve been speaking only Spanish for the past 5 hours. Talk about a headache.
But first, before our families picked us up, we had a short orientation... a run-through of how the program works and what to expect from classes. They´ll be small classes, with only students from our program, and with a limited number of professors (Liz, you know how it works). We took a small walking tour of the city, saw the schools where we´ll be going (very cool, and I´ll post pics later), and the gym we can use, and the internet cafe we can use, and the restaurant where we´ll be eating all our meals. From a menu of like 7 items. I don´t care. It´s free.
AFter the tour, we went back to the hotel and picked up our bags and met our host mothers. My mother, Nelida, is VERY nice and full of energy! I have a sister here, her name is Julia, and she´s 21. She´s AWESOME. She loves talking and doesn´t stop. She´s very cool. Nelida prepared mate for all of us (a tea prepared in a special cup and it´s drank through a silver straw...served hot and always shared. Tastes like tea. I think it´s caffeinated, but more healthy than cafe). Nelida´s husband is Francisco, but he doesn´t get out of work till like 10:30 so I haven´t met him yet. THey have a really nice apartment and I have my own room, tiny but very nice, and they have WiFi here, but for some reason my computer doesn´t work with it. Oh well. So I´m on Julia´s laptop typing this and Nelida is fixing dinner, I think. THey don´t eat dinner till about 9:00 or 10:00 PM here... weird. Their apartment is very near to the river, and I can just walk down there and run down the path along the river. Very cool. We´re on the 7th floor (which is actually the 8th floor) in a comfy apartment. OH! They have a dog, a black poodle named Mora (anyone remember the juice from Guatemala... pronounced ¨Moda¨) and she is a little ball of fur who tore her ligaments in her two back legs about a year ago and ONLY WALKS ON HER FRONT LEGS... Imagine that? I´ll try to get a video and post it. Not to poke fun of the dog, but it´s really something to see. She´s about as tiny as my head and SO cute. And quiet. And doesn´t shed. I think I will steal her and take her home.
Anyway, I have to unpack my stuff-- I haven´t even done that yet, and I´ve been here for 5 hours already. I´ll post pics when I can! Love and miss you all!
Anyway, so this morning we all got wake up calls at
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| 2. | Me gusta Rosario muchisimo mas! (Rosario´s better) - Rosario, Argentina Sep 03, 2008 (  1 ) |
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