¡Bienvenidos a Rosario!

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Well everyone, here I am in Rosario, Arbentina beginning my adventure. I had no idea that all of those years of Spanish would pay off, but I seem to be able to communicate basically everything that I could want to. It´s only the third day, and I´ve already had more adventures than I normally have in a month in Eugene. On the first night, I arrived in Rosario with a group of girls from the program that I met up with in the airport in Buenos Aires. One of the girls, Randi, and I were hungry and went walking down Cordoba Street (the Main drag in Rosario) looking for a place to eat. We were planning on going out with the other two girls later on, so we had to eat quickly. In the end we wandered into this small bar and ended up eating pizza while desperately trying to communicate with the waiter there. He was very patient and nice. When we wandered back to the hotel the other girls had already ditched us, so we walked around town looking for bars and not finding anything that was really great. Eventually we went back to the same bar and asked the waiter for recommendations on where to go. We stayed long enough talking with him that we ended up having a beer. In the end he asked if he could come with us to a club that he recommended, and we all went together and danced until five in the morning. He protected us from questionable guys all night, and walked us home dropping us at the door of our hotel at six in the morning. It was very brotherly of him, and he´s my first local friend.

There are so many different things in Argentina! Nobody obeys traffic laws... maybe there aren´t any traffic laws. There are lines on the street, but people drive wherever, and just try not to slam into each other. Pedestrians are in mortal peril everytime that they cross the street. There are other differences also, like the fact that people don´t go out until one or two in the morning and don´t come home until six or seven, our first night here was NORMAL. Families are different also, my family is wonderful, but everything is very casual. People just wander in and out of the house whenever they want to. Oh, and the house is beautiful! There´s a dog named Bono, and my family just visits and talks all the time. This morning my host Mom, Lucia, walked to school with me, since there is a bus strike. Everything feels very safe though and I love everything that I´ve seen so far.

¡Ciao, mis amigos! Voy a hablar sobre mas cosas mañana.

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Photos

Bienvenidos!
The hotel that we stayed at on the first night... where the bathroom flooded with an inch of water during each shower.

Beautiful City!
This is one of the most important streets in town, Calle Córdoba. Everything is on this street, or if not on it, then right off of it.