{The Rainbow Tour: 1947 tour of Europe taken by Eva Perón. Yes, I know I’m not in Europe but Evita is my favorite musical, I’m in Argentina, it fits, ok? Ok.}

¡Hola de Argentina!

Megan and I before our 10 hour flight to Buenos Aires

I’ve been meaning to write for a while, but I wanted to get used to every day life here and establish some kind of routine before I started telling everyone about it. I’ve also been slacking in documenting my trip, but that ends now!

So, almost three weeks ago I arrived safely in Córdoba, Argentina. It’s been a bit of a process trying to figure out how everything works here and getting used to living in a large city again (the last time was when I lived in Havana, Cuba but that was only for a month), but I’m adjusting.

I live in the center of the area Nueva Córdoba, right on the Plaza España. I could not have asked for a better location. The biggest pro? It’s right in the center of everything. The biggest con? It’s right in the center of everything. And in a city where the only time traffic stops is from 5-6am, ear plugs have become my new best friend (Also they pick up the trash at 3 in the morning here. Like seriously, who does that).

After a few days of being clueless (we still have a lot to learn but we look a little less permanently lost now), we finally figured out money exchange, laundry service, and that no matter the country, Starbucks will always misspell your name (Don’t judge us for going, you would too and you know it). The language barrier is still there, but we have a sufficient enough knowledge of Spanish to get around, and we are improving every day. My favorite class we are in is the Advanced Spanish class. The professor, Teresa, is hilarious and helpful. She not only teaches us the fundamental principles of the language (and the 40 million grammar tenses), she also teaches us Argentine slang and a few curse words (thanks for paying, Mom and Dad!!!!!!!!)!

For example, today we talked about the stereotypes against the United States people have here. She told us that Americans always have super serious faces, which the Argentines have named “cara de culo”. For those of you not familiar with Argentine slang, it literally means “assface“. I kid you not. But, according to her, I have the least “assface” face out of any American she has met so far. I don’t know if she meant that I always look happy or that I always look blissfully unaware of what’s going on around me. Either way, I’m trying to keep my cara as culo-free as possible.

Our first weekend here, we took a trip with some other exchange students to a small Germanic village up in the mountains called La Cumbrecita. It was touristy, but quaint and beautiful. We found our own little (semi-private) pebble beach along the river, and the next day we hiked to a gorgeous waterfall (I got sunburned but I got some great pictures). It was also my first ever time staying in a hostel. The rooms didn’t lock, so little paranoid me carried ALL of my stuff around with me the whole entire time. And the owners were extremely nice and super chill (but they did smoke a lot. Not cigarettes though).

I’m Queen of the rock

The girls and a horse

The rest of the time here has been spent learning how to cook (I’ve decided to leave out the first meal Megan and I attempted to make for ourselves), finding a good super market, and handling our first week of proper classes (yes, they are all in Spanish). I am looking forward to the next 4.5 months ahead of me as I travel around South America and attempt to pass two classes which, to be honest, I probably wouldn’t understand in English either. I’m also looking forward to developing my taste for wine since my Mother is absolutely humiliated that I think a good wine is Barefoot Moscato (I’m a poor college kid, I don’t have much to work with).

Can’t wait to post another update very soon!