The First Week
Man, studying abroad is hard.
Excluding the first night, I slept a lot. It gets very exhausting to translate every word in my head. I put all my clothes in the dresser, turned on the space heater (cause it gets real cold in a house with no central heating) and put away my suitcases.
I mostly spent the first few days getting to know my host family. My host sister Magui took me to her school and introduced me to her group of friends. I eventually ended up going with her to a birthday party for one of them. I also got to try various types of mate (which is a traditional Argentinian drink, like strong tea, that is shared among friends).
Then came my first day of school.
I arrived on my first day wearing the school uniform with the exchange student from Switzerland (Maria). I was introduced to my class of about 15-20 kids and given a bag of Argentinian candy and a jar of dulce de leche as a gift. The rest of the week pretty much consisted of me struggling to understand my teachers as they rotated in and out of our classroom, casually instructing us about such topics as math, physics, ethics, and literature. I also spent a small amount of time in the workshop, where other students (not me) worked with drills and saws on airplane parts. In addition, I spent all this time getting to know my classmates as well. Argentinian students certainly are very friendly.
Which leads me to the weekend. After school on Friday, one of my classmates invited the class over to his house for the evening (school for me, by the way, starts at 1:30 and ends at 7:30). After taking the bus, we all walked about a mile to his house, where his mother served us a dinner of bread and chorizo. We then passed the time talking, drinking mate, eating food, and playing FIFA and BO2. At around 12:30, I started feeling tired, so I called my mom to come pick me up (and before you start thinking that I'm an asshole for waking my mom up to pick me up from a friend's house, please know that it's pretty normal for teenagers to go out at night on the weekends and stay out until 3-4 in the morning, and then ask their mom to take them home).
In all, it was a lot to take in for the first week. But somehow, every day that I wake up in this bed is starting to feel more and more normal. Maybe that's a good thing?
Till next time.
Excluding the first night, I slept a lot. It gets very exhausting to translate every word in my head. I put all my clothes in the dresser, turned on the space heater (cause it gets real cold in a house with no central heating) and put away my suitcases.
I mostly spent the first few days getting to know my host family. My host sister Magui took me to her school and introduced me to her group of friends. I eventually ended up going with her to a birthday party for one of them. I also got to try various types of mate (which is a traditional Argentinian drink, like strong tea, that is shared among friends).
Then came my first day of school.
I arrived on my first day wearing the school uniform with the exchange student from Switzerland (Maria). I was introduced to my class of about 15-20 kids and given a bag of Argentinian candy and a jar of dulce de leche as a gift. The rest of the week pretty much consisted of me struggling to understand my teachers as they rotated in and out of our classroom, casually instructing us about such topics as math, physics, ethics, and literature. I also spent a small amount of time in the workshop, where other students (not me) worked with drills and saws on airplane parts. In addition, I spent all this time getting to know my classmates as well. Argentinian students certainly are very friendly.
Which leads me to the weekend. After school on Friday, one of my classmates invited the class over to his house for the evening (school for me, by the way, starts at 1:30 and ends at 7:30). After taking the bus, we all walked about a mile to his house, where his mother served us a dinner of bread and chorizo. We then passed the time talking, drinking mate, eating food, and playing FIFA and BO2. At around 12:30, I started feeling tired, so I called my mom to come pick me up (and before you start thinking that I'm an asshole for waking my mom up to pick me up from a friend's house, please know that it's pretty normal for teenagers to go out at night on the weekends and stay out until 3-4 in the morning, and then ask their mom to take them home).
In all, it was a lot to take in for the first week. But somehow, every day that I wake up in this bed is starting to feel more and more normal. Maybe that's a good thing?
Till next time.
Comments
Post a Comment