Cordoba

This past week I didn't have classes so the first few days I just enjoyed the city and the people in it. I met my international buddy, Maripau from USAL, its kinda like a club where they pair a Argentine with a foreigner. We went to a well known restaurant in BA called 'Los Inmortales'. I also went to breakfast with my friend Victor, I met him through my host dad. So far all of the locals I have been getting to know have been soo nice. I have also been hanging out with a family of one brother and 2 sisters (Roberto, Natalia and Carolina) they hang out all together and they are some of the nicest people I have met. The siblings and Victor are all learning and pretty decent at English so we trade off speaking languages or use a mix to help each other learn. It makes for some fun conversations and games of bilingual pictionary.

From Wednesday night to late Sunday night I took a trip to Cordoba, a really old city in Argentina and also the 2nd largest. It is surrounded by the sierras (hills) and little towns within the hills that all have unique characteristics. There were 4 of us girls all together; it was nice to have the smaller size of a traveling group.

The entire trip was very interesting... it started out at the bus station in BA. We missed our bus because it was not marked like we thought it would, we watched our correct bus leave positive it wasn't it. Most buses and any scheduled arrangements are quite late, so we didn't think anything of it for a while. I also witnessed my first public battery in real life. I was probably 10 feet from it after we gave the group of fighting people some space when we sensed the tension. A man attacked this woman and just started punching and kicking her on the ground and kicked her head several times until she was unconscious...no one did anything to stop it and the guy just got away. Finally about 10 minutes later some security came over to see what happened and look like there were doing something to help, then woman started having seizures. I was in complete shock and felt sick. Right about this time we figure out we missed our bus and went to talk with the ticket office to explain...luckily they switched our tickets without charging anything, we were all pretty shaken up from both things.

Once in Cordoba, the hostel was nice, very rasta and Bob Marley playing all night long. At the hostel we met this American guy that was so arrogant and made me sad he was representing Americans on this part of the world. We also met some really sweet people from England and Australia. I learned some fun terms like 'proper weirdo' (a creeper) and 'togs' (bathing suit). We took a tour of the sierras one day...beautiful countryside and cute little German influenced villages (Cumbrecita and Villa General Belgrano). We explored the city the next day seeing some of the museums and old churches. Cordoba felt so small compared to BA. The other half days were just spent wandering the city. I wished I could have visited a few other villages, but it takes a while to travel there and to find a way to travel there through the hills. I took bites of meat throughout the weekend. I am still not to the point where I would order anything, but certain types of meat sure go down easier than others; its all about the texture and taste. We attended an asado at the hostel and also went to a well known Argentine restaurant that tried to double the bill because we were foreigners. I wished I blended in a bit more and wasn't constantly approached 'where are you from?'. But then I am guilty just the same, on the bus ride home we accidentally sat one row of seats back from our assigned seats and screwed up the whole bus because they stopped to pick up more people every 30 min. A man sitting behind me just kept telling everyone to sit where they could because the foreigners messed it up. To top it all off, a transvestite boards the bus reeking of perfume and sits right in front of me and snores the whole way home.

Classes are supposed to start today...we will see how the school is at organizing. I might have some time to travel more if the classes are as unorganized as the rest of the school has been. The housing situation is still being worked on...its hard because everyone is on vacation this time of year; in the US and Argentina.

Love.