Spanish in the City

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Yesterday it snowed in Argentina. The first time Buenos Aires has seen snow since 1918. Rosario hasn´t had snow since the 70s. It is cold. I had to buy a jacket, some gloves, and just picked up some long johns because jeans are not doing the trick.

We´ve just begun our third week of classes at the Universidad Nacional de Rosario and are adjusting to life in Rosario. We live in a very nice home about 10 blocks from the small school and have begun taking the bus in the mornings because it is hard to get out of bed on time when it´s still dark and freezing outside. The first week here we were living with Graciela Romero, a very sweet lady who had to go to Spain to take care of her son who was going into surgery. She said she´ll be back in 50 days. So her daughter, Sole, moved in while she was gone to take care of us. Sole is an architect who works from home and takes care of Augosto, a darling 1 year old, while Lisandro, her husband, goes to work every day in the bank and teaches soccer on the weekends. We´ve learned that Argentines are very hospitable, and our family has been taking great care of us. They are very patient with our broken Spanish. They speak a little English, and we speak a little Spanish, which makes for some interesting dinner time conversations.

Every day we have a Spanish grammar class in the morning, followed by a conversation class in the afternoons after lunch. I think our Spanish is improving, but it´s hard to tell.

Argentines are soccer fanatics. Almost every night at dinner we watch soccer with our family, and it´s on about 4 or 5 channels on TV. We went to Tomate, a local bar, to watch the US play Argentina in the Copa America when we first got here. Twenty Americans were quite a spectacle when we crowded in among the screaming locals. They cheered extra loud each time Argentina scored. I think it's probably good that the US lost-- soccer is apparently not a joking matter here.

Last weekend we went on an excursion with the program back to Buenos Aires for an amazing dinner and tango show in a beautiful old theater. We had some short tours of the city and got to wander the Sunday street markets that we´d missed the first time in Bs As. Next weekend, a gaucho party at an estancia (ranch) outside the city in the province of Entre Rios. More steak and maybe some horse-back riding? More soon... love to you all! Ciao!

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