Nos vemos, Argentina!

This is my last blog! On Friday of this week I head back to the United States. My Fulbright grant is in its last days. Although I’m really excited to see my family, my boyfriend, my friends, and my cat, I’m definitely going to miss Argentina. I absolutely love my job here at the Universidad Nacional del Sur. This week for my chats, I’m answering questions about the U.S., my experience here in Argentina, we’re going to learn a dance, and play a game. I constantly get to do fun things at my job and I have a lot of freedom in what I do here. It’s wonderful. I adore my students and get to talk about important issues. I’ll miss it a lot. I’ll also miss the teachers I work with and the positive response I’ve had to introducing new activities to the UNS.

On a more personal level, I’m really going to miss my friends here in Bahía Blanca. I had my goodbye asado on Saturday, which was spectacular. We ate well, played games, and had a great time. I’ve met so many people from all over the world. Being in the casitas and having an international community has made a big difference in my experience here. I’ve met people from Paraguay, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Switzerland, Brazil, Colombia, and more. Some of my best friends (ironically enough) here in Argentina have been from other countries. But I will miss my friends from Argentina just as much. As for this week, I’m enjoying a bit of warm weather (it’s a high of 85 degrees Fahrenheit the majority of this week) before I return back to late fall/early winter. I have a few goodbyes left this week until my flight leaves on Friday, when I’ll spend a few hours in Buenos Aires and then fly out from there as well. Goodbyes are hard, especially when they’re 5000 miles away. My experience here in Argentina has made a big impact on my life and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else. It’s not a goodbye, Argentina, it’s a Nos Vemos!

Rose colored glasses

Hey everyone! I’m in the last strecth of my Fulbright grant and it’s starting to feel real that I’m coming home to the U.S. soon. I have to say, I feel like I was more prepared a few weeks ago to go home than I am right now. I’m starting to view everything about Argentina, about my job and my students, and about the people around me, with rose colored glasses. I’m seeing all of the good things that I don’t want to leave! I really enjoy my job, I like my conversation chats and my movie clubs, and I love my students. I’m going to miss having a job where I facilitate conversations on important subjects (and some fun ones, too!) and play games with my students. Of course not every week is perfect, but the last few weeks have been pretty great and I don’t feel ready to leave them. I know another ETA will come and they will do a great job, but it feels odd just the same! I´ve enjoyed going to restaurants, showing my new housemates around Bahía Blanca, and spending time with friends. This past week, I went to an American restaurant called Dallas and got ribs and spinach dip. There are a lot of restaurants around here that say they have American food, but this one is one of the best in Bahía. Over the weekend, I also went to Blossom, one of my favorite cafes in Bahía and Wir Konnen, one of my favorite bars, and also had an asado. It was an international asado, with a Colombian asador (what we call the person that cooks the asado), Paraguayan housemates, and me from the U.S.! Very international. I’ll miss this when I go back home! I’m somewhat ready to leave, but it’s hard to not view everything in a beautiful light as I get ready to leave.

Last Trip

I am now officially in the last month of my Fulbright experience here in Argentina! With that being said, I have started my “lasts” already. This past weekend, I went on my last weekend trip–I went to Buenos Aires with some of my friends from the Fulbright program. We had all been to Buenos Aires before, but it was a good place to come together and meet one last time before we go home. We’ll all meet there on our last day in Argentina, but I wanted a full weekend. The weekend consisted of doing a few touristy things that we hadn’t gotten around to as well as spending time with each other to reflect and eat good food! My friends Tori, Cole, and I, all mentioned that one thing that we will be happy for when we go back to the U.S. will be the food. While we like the food here in Argentina, it does lack some of the variety we’re used to having access to back home. We ate Mexican food, sushi, Asian fusion, Indian food, and brunch. We also visited the Japanese gardens, the Memorial museum, and did an escape room. But mostly it was nice to just hang out and spend time together and reflect on our time together. I’ve had the great opportunity to be able to travel a lot during my 8 months in Argentina and to be at my last trip is a bit odd for me. I know that this is the first of my “lasts” here in Argentina and I’m trying to enjoy every minute of it!

Hellos and Goodbyes

Hey everyone! One weird thing about being in Bahía Blanca since March and living in the international houses (casitas) is that I’ve seen a lot of people come and go. I had a lot of close friends from the international house last semester, but then they all left in July. I then saw more international students come in August. One person I’ll particularly miss in the casitas is my housemate, Vanessa, from Canada. I’ve lived with her for only 2 months, but she has been a really nice addition to my time in Bahía Blanca. Despite popular thinking, she is from the part of Canada that speaks French, so she and I spoke Spanish in the house as I don’t speak any French. She’s been a good friend to me here and she has already left the casitas and is set to travel a bit in Argentina starting tomorrow, leaving Bahía Blanca on Tuesday. With her leaving Argentina, I got two new housemates on Friday, Sandra and Carla from Paraguay. They are very sweet and are only here for 4 weeks, one week less than the rest of my time here. They are doing intensive Master’s classes and will also do a bit of traveling in Argentina. I’ve gotten to show them around Bahía Blanca a bit and it makes me realize how much I’ve grown since I got here in March. I have my routines here and it feels a bit like home to me at this point. Maybe I don’t always know everything, but I know enough to show people around the city, highlight important areas and recommend good restaurants. I even took them to the food truck festival on Sunday! While I’m excited to have more housemates and meet new people, it feels weird at this point of the Fulbright to still be meeting new people from new countries. I’m glad for it, but it’s odd to be saying hello when I feel like I’ll be saying goodbye so soon. I have a feeling the next few weeks will be a whirlwind of emotions full of hellos and even more goodbyes.

Oktoberfest and Córdoba

I had another travel weekend! It was a long weekend for me as there was a holiday on Monday, so I decided to take advantage of the free time and went on a small trip. I went to Córdoba and Villa Belgrano for Oktoberfest! It was a 13 hour bus ride to Córdoba, so a long trip, but worth it. I took the bus Thursday night and got there Friday morning. On Friday we went to Oktoberfest for Day 1. It’s about a 2 hour bus ride to Villa Belgrano. We got there and the town is all decorated for the festival–lots of people dressed up and music and people in the streets. We bought steins for drinking and went to the festival a few blocks away. We had some beer, enjoyed the music, and had some good food. We had a good group of people from the Fulbright program so it was nice to hang out with everyone. We went back to Córdoba and had Indian food for dinner (Bahía Blanca doesn’t have any Indian food so when I’m in larger cities I try to eat as much different food as I can.) The next day we went back for Day 2 at Oktoberfest. There were a ton of people and it kind of felt like Halloween in a college town in the U.S.–lots of people drinking and lots of costumes. On Sunday, we explored the city of Córdoba a bit more. We got brunch (another food thing I miss while being here in Bahía Blanca) and then went to a Science Museum. After that, we went and hung out at a dog park and enjoyed the weather and got salted popcorn while walking around. Then we went to an artesanal fair in the city. After that, I got on my bus back to Bahía Blanca once again! I really enjoy my weekend trips because it’s important for me to have little breaks in my routine here. I teach and enjoy my life here in Bahía Blanca but it can be nice for me to see other friends from the U.S. as well. My time here in Argentina is pretty limited now (39 days until I’m back home) so these short trips are a good way to continue to explore the country without feeling like I’m missing out on time here in the city where I live.

Puerto Madryn

I had a great weekend! I went down to Puerto Madryn in Patagonia in the Southern section of Argentina. It’s about 8/9 hours south of Bahía Blanca so I went down Thursday evening via bus and got back late last night. The buses in Argentina are very good so I was able to sleep on the bus Thursday night and get to Puerto Madryn good and early so I was able to check into my hostel and then go from there to see friends. On Friday, we went to El Doradillo to see whales! You can see them from the beach during high tide; they’re very close! I’ve never seen whales so it was a cool experience. We then hung out and had lunch and then met up with some friends at the beach to play volleyball, hang out with the dogs on the beach, and eat ice cream while we enjoyed the weather. On Saturday we went to Punta Ninfas on a tour. We saw sea lions, a lighthouse, and lots of penguins! We could have touched them they were so close! (We didn’t touch them because they bite, but still). They were very cute and there were a ton of them. We then had an asado at an estancia near the beach with the penguins. It was a really cool tour and we saw lots of beautiful parts of nature. On Sunday, I went snorkeling with sea lions. We wore dry suits so we wouldn’t get wet as the water is very cold. We went out on a boat and got to see them right up close! I touched one’s stomach and some got so close they bumped into me. They startled me a couple times cause they were so close. It was really great. I love having the opportunity to travel around Argentina and getting to see new places!

Birthdays and Déjà vu

This past week has been one of my best so far in Bahía Blanca, if not the best. This past week I celebrated my birthday here in Argentina. It’s the first time I’ve celebrated my birthday outside the country and the first time that I’ve had my birthday in spring! The day was pretty great–I got breakfast for myself, went to my class where my students sang “Happy Birthday” to me, had a conversation chat about birthdays in the U.S. where we watched an episode of the show ‘Friends’, then later had cake and sushi with friends. Later that week I celebrated my birthday with friends at a bar, where we had pizza and french fries and beer. They also gave me my own mate–the typical communal drink here in Argentina–so I can make it for myself here and when I go back home! It was very sweet and kind of them.

This week was also great because the international group had its biggest event this weekend–the typical dishes event. This happened last semester as well, but in my opinion, this semester’s was much better. About 100 people, both international and Argentine, came to the casa de la cultura and made food typical from their country. I, for example, made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and brownies and brought Coca-Cola. There were people from Mexico, Bolivia, Canada, Spain, Italy, Germany, Serbia, Colombia, Sweden, and France there so lots of good food! Along with the food we had some traditional Argentinian dances of Folklore and other dances from the international community including a song from Brazil, a dance from Bolivia, the Cha-Cha Slide from the U.S., and more! We played games after as well. It was great being able to see so much of the rich culture from Argentina and sharing some things about the U.S. as well. It felt like déjà vu at first because I had done this event last semester, but this semester was much better and I feel much more comfortable with these students than I did last semester. I think it’s because of a few reasons: 1) There are more international students this semester and more diversity of countries which made the event more fun, 2) I’m more comfortable with Bahía Blanca and my role here now than I was before, and 3) I’m more comfortable with my Spanish which makes communication much easier. It’s hard to see how much I’ve grown in the last few months but this event made it obvious that I had. While not every day is sunshine and rainbows in Argentina, I really enjoyed this week!

New sites in familiar places

This last month has been interesting for me. Because my scholarship is through the Department of Education here in Argentina, I had to send my passport to Buenos Aires (CABA) in order to get my visa renewed for the rest of my time here. This means that I have not traveled anywhere within the last month and have stayed in Bahía Blanca. While a month doesn’t seem like a long time, I usually travel about once a month here while on a regular school schedule here, so it’s been weird not only to not have traveled, but to not have the ability to travel if I wanted to for the past month. This has forced me to examine more about where I live here in Argentina. I’ve spent more time at festivals, checking out more local food places, and going to locations that are closer to Bahía. For example, this past weekend, I went to a place called Pehuen Co Friday night and Saturday. My housemate, Vanessa, and I went with our friend Fede and his family to their house there. It’s only about 45 minutes outside of the city of Bahía Blanca, but it was nice to explore the small beach town a bit. This weekend was the first day of spring, so there were a lot of people in the neighboring beach town, Monte Hermoso, but not so much in Pehuen Co because it tends to be more of a family town. We explored the city, seeing the art and the beach, had asado with my friend’s family, and played lots of card games. It was a relaxing day there. Being in Bahía and not being able to plan for trips makes me focus more on being in Bahía, rather than thinking so much about the future. It’s a good thing for me, because I tend to focus a lot on the future. I’ve enjoyed being able to relax in Bahía a bit longer! I’ll get my passport back this week, but I’ve been happy to have spent some time in my routine and exploring the familiarity of Bahía Blanca.

Asado for lunch!
My housemate Vanessa and I with our friend Fede.
A boat shaped house
Giant sloth statue with me for scale
Beautiful stone carvings throughout Pehuen Co

Busy!

Hope everyone is having a great start to the week! I’m currently writing this blog after 4 hours of solo teaching, an informational interview in an hour, and an interview workshop in a couple hours. I’m a lot more busy this semester than I was last semester because of my professional English workshops (my Fulbright side project) and I’m applying for graduate school. I’m trying to do a lot of research into programs before I apply and it makes for a lot of informational interviews with people to talk about the programs. Along with being busy with work and grad program research, I also am facing the fact that I’m here in Argentina for about 9 more weeks–68 days to be exact, but who’s counting? I want to make sure I do everything in Argentina that I want to do while I’m here and I want to spend time with people I care about here before I go home to the U.S. While 9 weeks is still a lot of time, it feels like it’s not that much since I’ve been here for 6 months now! But, to be honest, I like to be busy. Maybe not as busy as today has been and will continue to be, but busy enough to have things to do. I have trouble slowing down. It’s still in my head that I should multitask all the time–like having lunch at my desk while I work (an almost daily practice I’ve had since college). While I don’t always have to do things, I find it hard to slow down and to “stop and smell the roses”. Argentina has helped me to slow down a bit and to worry less about the future. Things are a bit more unpredictable here in Argentina–with the peso changing all the time, strikes that may interrupt classes or buses, and more–so it makes you slow down a bit. But I think that not even 8 months in Argentina will get rid of my love of “busy”. I will always prefer to have things to do than not have things going on. In the first semester, weekends were my least favorite time (unless I was traveling). This was because many of my friends are students here so they will study during the day and go to the club at night. I’m not a student so I don’t need to study and I don’t particularly like going to the club, so I would end up mostly watching Netflix and reading. Weekends were so slow for me last semester–it drove me crazy! Now I try to make some sort of plans every day with my friends so it’s much better, but still the week days are my favorite usually because I stay busy. Busy for me is good. While Argentina has helped me to slow down some, I think that will still be a part of my U.S. identity no matter what.

Sopes and a Mexican flag heart
New friends–Anna, Elsa, and Batman!
Another weekend, another food truck festival!

Food

Anyone that knows me knows that I like food. Not that I eat all the time or anything, but if there’s good food around, I will most likely be there. In Argentina, the dinner time is much later than in the U.S.–sometimes at midnight on a late night–and my friends here joke that I will eat and leave because I can’t stay out as late as a lot of people here. It’s been hard for me to change my dinner time and my “compromise” for dinner time is usually around 9:00pm, which is an early dinner here. But I will go to pretty much every event if there’s good food. I’m always trying to get my friends to go to the food truck festivals, go to new restaurants for diverse food, and most recently–an international food festival. One thing that I do miss while being in Argentina is having easily available diverse food. In my last city, you could find Chinese food, Mediterranean food, Thai food, Spanish food, Japanese food, etc. very easily. There was a wide variety of food and I loved it. While I love asado and empanadas, I do miss the widely available international cuisine. I can get stereotypical “American food” when I want–there’s a ton of hamburger and hot dog places here, but I miss other types of food that I don’t think I’m skilled enough to make. That’s why I had to go to the international food festival that was held in downtown Bahía Blanca yesterday. There was international food from Spain, Switzerland, Colombia, Cuba, Poland, Venezuela, Israel, and more! There were beautiful dances done and music that played throughout the festival. I got to eat paella valenciana from Spain, food from Colombia, and a daiquiri from Cuba. I didn’t realize how much I missed having different types of food so much. While I do have a running list of food I want to eat when I go back to the U.S., I don’t usually think about it, but I was happy to have it available! I love good food and getting to share some diverse international food with friends made for a very good day!

They make me–a 5 foot 9 inch girl–feel short!
Beautiful garb at the festival!
My friends Aura and Cami from Colombia and Vanessa from Canada
Colombian food
Paella Valenciana