i´ll be gone

HI EVERYONE..........tomorrow im leaving with my family to mar del plata.......in tents. so i wont be around for awhile....oh and i´ll be doind a major picture update soon, so you can see pictures from guillermos birthday and prom, and pics from marianos birthday, and pics from christmas, and mar del plata. :) Rocio has been in cordoba all weekend, so on sunday i didnt go to centro, which is the norm. sunday afternoons when you wake up after along night of dancing you go to centro with your friends and walk around and sit in the plaza and drink coke and such. but i had no one to go with. so i slept over at my dads house with my little brother........fun fun. we spent the whole day at the pool with the girl from Thailand....shes leaving in two weeks already! im really gonna miss her. i went to centro after and hung out for a bit, my brother is giving me ANOTHER dreadlock right now as we speak.......ay dios. very demanding he is. oh well. have a happy new year everyone. until january..........

feliz navidad

Hola!!! I hope everyone had a wonderful christmas!!! Here in Argentina, I definitely had a new experience at Christmas. My brothers spent the 24th with their dad. I went with my mom to her friend´s house for dinner. Rocio came too, her mom doesnt celebrate christmas. After we ate, at about 1 AM, Rocio and I went back to my house where Guillermo had all of his friends over. We got bored so we walked to my friends house and then we went dancing! On christmas!! So i was like totally weirded out by not being with my family. Oh and on top of it i went with my mom to do ALL of her christmas shopping ON christmas eve!!! The entire city bought all of their gifts on christmas eve.....everything here is at the last minute. Then I went to the farmers market with her and we made a fruit salad. I did have a lot of fun experiencing a new culture, but it was also very different. Yesterday was Maxi´s birthday, so I went to his house to wish him a happy birthday and such. Today he is having a party. On Tuesday our family leaves for the ocean, where we will spend 10 days doing NOTHING. cant wait. gustavo is really excited to show me everything, he wants me to wake up early so we can see the crabs on the beach. today we spent the whole day together at my dads house. we swam in the pool, went to eat ice cream, and we just got back from a trip on the four-wheeler. nice bonding time. anyway, i better go shower. merry christmas and happy new year!

feliz navidad

havent written in a week, i know. my apologies to all you loyal fans. ive been hanging out with rocio a lot.......this saturday for the first time since ive been here i went out with GIRLS ONLY!!! i loved it!! i had so much fun. she even came over to my house and got ready with me before. i always get ready alone and in a hurry because my brothers yell at me if im in the bathroom too long. anyways, im working regularly every morning with my mom in her escribania........dont know the english translation. sorry. i do secretary stuff. i even answer the phone and handle clients!!!!!!!!!! its so fun! i seriously completely totally forgot that wednesday was christmas already. i havent bought anyone any gifts, which it really isnt that common to give gifts here. according to my mom, everyone gets together in someones house to eat like pigs. then after one AM, you start house hopping for toasts....then the young people go out and dance like crazy!! sooo pretty excited for that. however, im going to my moms friends house because my brothers are going with their dad. so im kinda sad im not passing it with my bros....although they do get on my VERY last nerve. then we are going to the ocean for 2 weeks for new years.......in tents. :O
hahahahaha i cant WAIT to tell you guys all about that.....so if you are wondering at all about my love life im totally crushed out on maxi still, and i have about 5 other guys crushing just as much on me..............it makes life very complicated. an argentinean boys heart is easily broken. anyway im so happy i have rocio!! she is super nice and im sorry its just nice to have a GIRL to talk to once in awhile. im also hanging out with the son of my moms friend whos 15. drinking mates...doing nothing,,,,summer life you know??? happy holidays everyone. :)

deep thoughts...

Major cultural differences between the Argentineans and North Americans: Today I was walking to centro to do some major shopping in my alone time. So i´m walking, and I started to think about all of the things I´m missing school, me being such a freak about school and learning and stuff. And I started to totally freak out of course because here school is so much easier and the entire lifestyle is so laid back and less work-driven. So I´m like, oh my god, I´m getting dumber because I didn´t learn anything in school and I don´t do anything during the day and I don´t have any responsabilities at all! But then I started to realize that I am learning so much about life and other people and myself! So then I decided that those things are worth a lot more than what I can read in a textbook and forget after I take the test. For example. In the U.S. I judged people heavily, not gonna lie. When I came here, I didn´t have any friends and couldn´t interperet the difference in character between one person and the next because of the language barrier, and just had to go with my instincts. my brothers tell me that people who listen to cumbia music or do this or do that are bad people and i shouldnt hang out with them. But for me, they seemed like really nice people who I got along with great! Then I realized that I too judged people for things like the music they listened to and not for how they were on the inside!! So I´m really glad I made that realization! THen I also realized that its okay to take some time out of your day for yourself and you dont always have to be stressed out and doing something productive just to feel like youve accomplished something. Sometimes its just nice to sit outside with people you love and talk and laugh and enjoy life. Because this is the only life we have!! And although it seems like you have an eternity to live you dont! You can´t spend your time worrying what other people think about you and what you do with your life, because its yours and no one elses! This has been the biggest thing that the Argentineans have taught me. I just thought I would share it with you all.

osea hello!

hi again! still dying of boredom here in south america........no not really im actually enjoying the freetime i have. i get to bond with my brothers a lot more, actually more Mariano than anyone else because Gustavo and Guillermo are never home. And with my mom! Which I love. People here are getting ready for the holidays, just like everyone else i suppose. However not in the same way as rushing to buy christmas presents and last minute wrapping and planning and baking and "kilombo", craziness. For my mom and I would think the rest of the working people, rush to finish and close up the businesses for the vacation in January. Here, after the holidays, the ENTIRE POPULATION migrates to some other province for a few weeks or a month for a vacation. My family is going to Mar de Plata, a city in close the the capital Buenos Aires and right on the beach. My mom is super excited. In other news, life without my grandma, dont know if i mentioned that she moved out, is really weird. My mom doesnt know what to do for food anymore hahaha.....just joking but really. just without one old lady the whole house is more quiet and calm. its very very different. its funny, although i expected there to be fights and arguments like any other family, i never expected HUGE changes, like my grandma moving out! im FINALLY finding some girlfriends to hang out with which i totally needed...and not ones that talk behind my back and such. the girl who waxes and does my moms nails is superrrrrr nice and today im going to go out with here somewhere. :) chau

Day of the Virgin........was monday.

hello people.....monday was a day off for everyone because it was day of the virgin, on this day everyone puts up their christmas trees and christmas lights. its very weird not having snow or cold or anything that significates winter around christmas time. anyway, today is mariano´s birthday! he´s 15. hes been sleeping all day, i just made him hot dogs with mayonnaise which is his favorite thing to eat.....his friends are coming over tonight to celebrate. As for me, I kind of have started to walk down the path of broken hearted people.......I am officially ending my crush on Maxi. Not that any of you care about my boy problems, at least I have my mom to talk to about these kinds of things, she is the EXPERT on conquering and having all the men follow her around like sick puppies. But she has eyes for only one man, which would be her on and off baldy boyfriend. hahaha. I am getting really, really close to her. I think its because she has three sons and I am the daughter she never had, which I really like. However, it makes MAriano a little bit jealous sometimes. Oh well. Tomorrow I start working for her! Im nervous but also excited to get out of the house. Yesterday Nat came over because my mom and two brothers went back to Buenos Aires for the Ska-P concert, which got rained out last time, so she made me a special rice dish from Thailand. It had sausage, tuna, carrots, onions, tomatoes, egg, some sort of sauce and sugar. It was delicious. Then, at about 11:30, we went to go rent a movie. She stayed at my house all night and we didn´t sleep because today at 7 she left to go travel with the other Thai exchange students to Southern Argentina, where it is freezing and there are glaciers. Ive heard its beautiful. but cold. no me gusta. Okay back to me :), so there is this man from Africa who sells jewelry and stuff on Belgrano Street, which is like this one street in centro that all the teeny boppers walk up and down day and night when they have nothing to do. so one day i asked him where he was from, and we got to talking, and he knows nat, (of course he knows nat everyone knows her i swear), and he said something really interesting. he said that me, nat, and him are all brothers because we are all foreigners. i kind of made me feel special, and i realized how alone this person felt and how sad he must be living here without anyone who understands him. which then made me realize why I get along with nat so well, because we understand each other and what its like to live somewhere where you dont fit in perfectly. Then i started to think that being an exchange student really messes with your head. like, you have to be in tip top mental shape to be able to understand and interperet all of the things your mind throws at you. its like, one day i think in a certain way, and the next another. then you realize how hard it is to be alone without your real family to help guide you through all of these new experiences your living and then your realize how alone you are and how no one really understands what you are going through and, dont really care. So i am like great. my brain is literally scrambled eggs right now. its like someone shook my head so hard i cant think straight!! on top it sometimes the words come out in english and sometimes in spanish. nat´s host brother is in Austria right now, really he´s in Italy but he goes to school in Austria, so he´s learning german and italian so i feel REALLY bad for him. i cant even handle english.spanish in my head! okay well i am babbling too much i should go take a shower now. :) hopefully you guys understand the confusion that is going on through my head......but dont worry, im laughing about it. im more confused than before i came here and i came here to unwind my head......ohhhhhhhhh dear.

Hi again....i just got back from the pool with my mom, she went to work again. for once in my life i am alone in this house....grandma left to visit a friend!!! shockingly because she is always home. i am expecting maxi to come any time now so we can talk about some things....tuesday was kind of a WWE smackdown between the ex girlfriend, maxi, and me. but id rather not get into it. anyways, wednesday was guillermos prom. everyone was crying and crying, and even i got teary-eyed. it made me miss my real family a lot. sometimes it gets very hard not having your real family here. otherwise vacation has been good and not so good. im super bored, so next week im going to start working with my mom. so that should at least kill some of the boredom. at least i wont be in the house all day. today im going to eat with the son of my moms friend.........tomorrow i get up early to go to rosario for an AFS lunch,,,,,,, then gustavo´s graduation and THEN im going out with the girls!!! monday is a no work day so im also going out on sunday.........:) thats all for now chauu

customs and stuff

holidays: here holidays are pretty much the same as in the US. We don´t celebrate halloween or thanksgiving. every once in while, like once a month or every other week, sunday is dedicated to on thing or another, Cultural day and things like that. One important day is the day of San Martin, who freed argentina from spanish rule. another important day is July 9th, argentina´s independence. Christmas here is celebrated in a very interesting way...for one its in summer, which means no characteristic snow. aLSO, instead of spending the entire day with your family, EVERYONE, meaning the people that dont usually go out, goes out. From what ive heard its what everyone waits for and EVERYTHING is open, no stores close. and all the people drink a lot and go out to clubs, like theres so many people you cant get inside the club and the majority of the people have to stay outside. so thats really different. otherwise, theres not really any major holidays.
marriage: marriage is something i havent heard a lot of people talk about. the divorce rate is insane, about everyone i know is either separated or divorced. i think it has to do a lot with the men here. having a girlfriend really doesnt mean commitment for them, for the girls either. so that is one huge difference i´ve noticed. because its so easy to get alcohol and how late people stay out, anything can happen and people dont really value commitment or anything like that. chovinism definitely exists, and its really sad because the women also are a part of this, not just men. women dont find it unfair that they have to do ALL of the house work and attend to men and girls HATE eachother with a passion over ex boyfriends and things like that. which brings me to my next topic, anorexia. girls are very cautious about what they eat and are always comparing eachother.
after high school kids usually stay with their parents. its actually very common for parents to mantain their kids until they get married.



Well, getting back to my life, i cut my hair! and my brother got dreadlocks. today i finished school for good! i wanted to join a tango class but it doesnt start for a while, so i might get a job at a hotdog stand that my uncle owns. if not, i might help out with my moms best friends clothing store. if i dont do SOMETHING im going to bored allll summer. saturday the concert that my brothers were going to go to got cancelled because of rain, so they changed the date to next tuesday. wednesday is guillermos prom, which i am very excited for. saturday we have an AFS lunch with the exchange students and their families. i have to bring a dessert from my country, which i am having difficulties with because finding something authentic to the US is pretty hard to come around. well, thats all for now. cchau