4 weeks and couldn't love it more here..

No excuse for lack of posting other than how incredible this experience has been so far.. I’ve been staying away from the computer much more than I do at home in New York. Right now, I am sitting here in my apartment, on an incredibly comfortable beanbag chair (I think that every student hosted here has gone home and bought one of these, Luca, who is going home in two weeks to Switzerland, just said it's the first thing he is doing) and making some tea. I should be drinking mate, which is as common here as coffee in the states, (prepared by putting hot water in a small cup of dried leaves of yerba mate and then drunk from a straw) but I’m still adjusting to the taste. Most of the international students here mix it with sugar.

Anyway, the first week here in Cordoba was certainly rough for me. I was uncomfortable in this new city, where I didn’t know the language fluently, and most did not know a word of mine. I didn’t know anyone and it was really hard knowing that all of my friends were home together and going to college where undoubtably they would make many friends on the first day since nobody knows anyone. I felt like I had made a huge mistake by coming to a place where I did not know one person and had no real means of meeting people. I doubted my decision to take a gap year abroad and was thrown off by how uncomfortable I was feeling. Classes didn’t start for a week and a half after my arrival and being in this new country, with a huge language barrier, no friends to spend time with and no idea where I was walking half the time, was.. overwhelming.

So much of my anxiousness fled once I met the family I am living with. I had no idea what to expect, although I knew that my host “parents” were incredibly nice from their emails. When I came to the apartment to meet for coffee before moving in, I was blown away. I still have no idea how I got so lucky. I am living in this beautiful five bedroom apartment in the center of the city, only two blocks away from Plaza San Martin, which is this incredible plaza with an old church and lots of little stands to walk around during the day. It is half an hour walking distance from my university, or a ten minute bus ride, while most students in my program live on the outer edges of the city and need to take a 40 minute ride each day. I live with my host parents, Jere and Fran, who are 25 and 24 and the sweetest people I’ve met here in Argentina. Jere is an artist and the type of person who seems to enjoy each moment. When he laughs, which is often, anyone around him cannot help but laugh as well. It's contagious, which makes him so much fun to be around. And Fran, who is finishing her studies of Argentine poetry at the university, has the best personality. She is so sweet, it is impossible to feel uncomfortable around her (which helped my first week here when I was majorly adjusting). She is so genuine, I’m so lucky to live with her. They host international students in the four extra bedrooms and at the moment there are four of us. Stefan, from Germany, is 24 and working at the university in a lab. Luca, from Switzerland, is 19 and here with Projects Abroad teaching English and Italian to high school students here in Cordoba. Benjamin, from France, is 21 and studying spanish in the same program as I am at the National University of Cordoba. The university is the biggest in the city and has over 111,000 undergraduates attending so the city is always buzzing with students, especially in the area it is located near called Nueva Cordoba.

Plaza San Martin y el centro de Cordoba por el dia

Plaza San Martin por la noche

My first week here I went to the university to take a placement exam. I was slightly nervous because I hadn’t reviewed proper grammar in several months but luckily it consisted of mostly writing essays, which were assigned to us very frequently back in high school, so I placed into an upper intermediate level called Spanish 3. It has been difficult.. I am taking three classes, the Spanish grammar class, a class studying Argentine literature and another on Argentine culture. Each is taught entirely in Spanish, including the text books. The work is challenging because its difficult working entirely in Spanish and there is a lot of time used looking up words, but I only have classes Monday-Thursday, so I have plenty of time on the three day weekend to explore the city and experience some culture outside of the classroom. My literature class is the most difficult, it takes hours to read one short story, especially since we are currently reading stories from the eighteenth century which is written in even less familiar Spanish.. What also makes the transition easier is how much I’ve been enjoying the learning environment here. It is SO ENCOURAGING. All of my teachers integrate video, activities and reading into their classes which keeps the two hour class engaging. My culture teacher began her first class by telling us to ask her to slow down at any point while speaking if she got too excited about the subject matter and began to speak too quickly. She has been nothing but enthusiastic about the material which makes it so much more appealing to study. It is my absolute favorite class. With only four of us, it's been so enriching learning about the traditions and history of Argentina while I’m staying in the country. All of my classes are very small, my Spanish grammar class has five students including myself and my literature has twelve. Fran and Jere are also very patient with my broken Spanish at home.. there is no end to how helpful they are with helping me speak better and I hope that by the time I finish my first semester here in December, I will have improved drastically from the time I arrived a month ago. I am not sure that my grammar has drastically improved yet but I know that my confidence with the language has. Although I might not have learned that much more yet, I am so comfortable trying to speak with people that I feel like I have. And as cliche as it sounds, I know that that has made me more comfortable with myself too.

I met my first friend here on my second night in Cordoba. I was staying at a hotel for three nights before I moved into the apartment and Laila, who is Argentine and a receptionist at the hotel, invited me to an “asado”, a grill, at her house when she found out that I was moving here. It was cold that night so we made empanadas instead and man, I had such a great time.. I came over at eleven pm, which is a normal time to start dinner here in Argentina, and her friends taught me how to make ham, cheese, and chicken empanadas and drinks with Fernet, a popular liquor here. (When I said to Laila some weeks later that we should invite some friends we had just met over for an asado and some fernet, she said, “Now you sound like you’re from Argentina girl..” hahah). Another thing that surprised me that night was when Diego, incredibly nice guy who was the one who taught me everything I know about empanadas- I’m trying to sound good here, prepare to be blown away by my cooking readers in NY..;)- poured everyone red wine with ice in it. I was taken aback and didn’t even want to try it but when I did I surprisingly really liked the wine cold.. turns out that's normal here. So once again, I have to ask myself how I ended up being so lucky to meet Laila. She’s the reason I became comfortable here so fast. She told me I could stay at her apartment whenever and even go in between my classes if I had nothing to do and needed a place to hang out. She is also studying in a university here and has opened up her arms to me and introduced me to so many of her friends, was the first to take me out dancing here to two amazing boliches and has even given me her bed at seven in the morning. She took me to Condorito, an INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL national park they preserve to allow the endangered “Condor” bird to live, where we hiked down to the river and back again for the entire day past sunset.

Me in front of our resting point for lunch at Condorito National Park

Laila and I once we reached the river at Condorito!

Some of the views quite literally took my breath away.. Laila is so much fun to be with and she lives with another student named Anesh who is so radiant. Her sweetness just permeates an entire room and lights everyone up. Not making it up.. I’ve seen it happen.

It is two in the morning here so I must sleep.. class at 11am tomorrow but I have to wake up early to finish some work. I’ll be sure to write more tomorrow, I feel like I haven’t even started yet..