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School kids in the Plaza Sobremonte, Cordoba
School children always wear these lab coats for some reason.Learning Spanish is ‘murder’, there’s no other word for it! We’re here in Cordoba to attend a 4 week language school. The school is great, our teacher, Blanca, is great, the students are great but the learning is ‘muy dificile’! The whole experience brings back long-forgotten memories of school: homework (and the pressure of getting it right), repeating conjugations of verbs (o, as, es, a, amos, an), little games in class (eg using flashcards), silly simple sentences (‘the dog is in the house’), publicly being put on the spot, the mind going blank and then internal panic!
On the 24th April we arrived in Cordoba, Argentina’s second largest city, about 500 miles north west of Buenos Aires. We flew with Aerolineas and for some odd reason managed to find ourselves in first class along with one other person. It is only the second time I (Gerry) have been in first class, the other occasion being an internal flight in Vietnam. On both occasions we had purchased economy seats! As this was only going to be an hour’s flight we reckoned we wouldn’t get anything to eat (and in any event Argentinians don’t go in for breakfast much) so in the
airport we ate a hearty breakfast. To our surprise we were greeted on the flight with another huge breakfast (hot kebabs, egg flan, rolls, smoked salmon sandwich, a ham, corn and cheese bagel, crackers, a jar of delicious dulce de leche, which is a national speciality of caramel flavoured spread, cake, orange juice and coffee all beautifully presented on starched white linen!
Once in Cordoba we were taken to our separate homestays. We had decided not to stay together as we would only speak English to each other and we wanted to learn Spanish. When I arrived at my house the friendly couple had prepared a big lunch! I managed to postpone this until such time as I could force some more food down my engorged stomach!
To my disdain I discovered the couple could not speak English and I, of course, didn’t know a word of Spanish! After much gesticulation and looking up dictionaries we managed to ascertain each other’s names and I convinced them I wasn’t American as they had been led to believe. Not long after this Denise suddenly turned up with two other women. Turns out the woman she was supposed to be staying
with didn’t have her room ready and had another student living with her, so they had telephoned my house and asked if Denise could stay with me until they could sort things out! A few days later Denise moved on to her new homestay with a lovely old lady who when excited rattles off in 100mph Spanish. Unfortunately since Denise arrived (hopefully nothing to do with her!) she became very ill and is presently in hospital. Her sisters and various others are helping to cook for Denise.
Despite the language agonies we are enjoying Argentina and Cordoba. There’s a nice atmosphere and the people are friendly. Cordoba has some lovely old buildings built by the Jesuits in the 17th century, mainly clustered around the centre, not far from our school. Eating out is a joy as the food is meat-dominated and incredibly good value, not to mention the great coffee and pastries. So no losing weight here then!
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