The first few days

First, I have tried to draw a lay out design of our house. We live on la calle Blas Pascal and are near a large street, similar to a Rockville Pike, called Rafael Nuñez. We have a large property compared to other houses, probably 1 acre or 1/2 acre (not good at measuring!). Forgive the top, I forgot I extended it :) Haha. But a little about the house: Ali and I live with two women, Dora, our mom, and Tita, her cousin. We share a room and so do they. We also share the house with 4 Boxers (as in the dogs), as you can see from their outdoor garage-cage area. There are also I think 10 parrots. Quite the peanut gallery :)

I feel very lucky to be living here. It is their winter, so the pool is empty, but it is a great property. Dora has been HANDwashing all of our clothes every day or every other day and making our beds, cleaning the bathroom, cooking our food, etc. She is simply amazing. The food is delicious! Except, as we are now into day 6, we have noticed it consists solely of a bread product and carne--not complaining, but I appreciate diversity now. Dora is great about providing vegetables, but salads are hard to come by. She has made us this great vegetable stirfry-steamed dish with meet, a vegetable soup (excellent after a cold rainy day) and other things as well. Everything is great. One big difference I have noticed is that they don´t eat much breakfast. Dora and Tita only eat lunch, perhaps bread and coffee at night. For breakfast we have bread and milk. The bread and milk are much sweeter here, and taste a bit better too :)

One thing I forgot to mention was that on Sunday night, we decided to meet up with Jessica and her friends from Clemson, who were also studying here for abroad. We went to Chris´s house and drank vino and listened to electronica. Then we headed back to Chip´s house until about 230 and Ali and I decided we couldn´t be quite Argentine yet and stay out until 8 or 9 AM, and went home. We were supposed to go to a roof party (turned out to be great and on top of a gas station!). Dora made fun of us the next day for coming back so early--we had even slept until 12!

As for the school (Universidad de Blas Pascal)...Ali and I walked the first bits (cab on Sunday for our tour, walked home, to school, and home) and it took 45minutes! Ayyyyy! We then asked Dora to show us a bus stop becuase it was raining the next day and we opted for a bus. So we´ve been using that. The school i srelatively small and I think it had 5000 students? Only some live here. I have class at 9:15 and 4:00. With a 5 hour break in between so no time to return home for a nap since we eat lunch at 130. It´s been pretty good so far, and big portions! Lunch is the biggest meal of the day. We´ve had a type of spaghetti, a burger without a bun, arroz con pollo, and today it is supposed to be gnocci! I´m excited for more carbs haha :)

For other cultural experiences, we´ve had 3 tours, one city-downtown Còrdoba (aka El Centro), one bus tour of the "the ugly side" of Còrdoba, and one walking tour of the National University of Còrdoba (fourth oldest college in the world!). I wish I could appreciate them more, but our schedules have been so packed I can´t help but be tired! Yesterday we had a tango lesson. I have a new respect for the Dancing with the Stars celebrities.

Today, instead of my 4 PM Culture and Language class, we are having a presentation on Folklore and instruments. It should be entertaining. Then we are taking a bus tomorrow to Che Guevara´s house. We are trying to decide if going out tonight is worth it since we have to be at school by 9. When in Rome...so I think so :)

We went out last night to Contender, which looks like a really hip place (sells things similar to a 40 oz beer for 10 pesos). It had white square cushions and red walls. Since our whole group went at 11, it was basically emptired so we took over the pool tables. Jhonny, our Argentine guide who works for Blas Pascal (UBP), showed up and it was a good time. We met some more Argentines as well as some of our friends from Clemson and Canada! At around 1 or 130, Jhonny took us home and we got some sleep before our early classes.

That´s all for now, one class down, one culture program to go! Off to lunch!

Ciao!