Day 94: more adventures!

It's been less than 20 days since my last post, but I feel like so much has happened!
I just got back this morning from a trip to Córdoba, the second largest city in Argentina (after, of course, Buenos Aires). For the first two weeks in October, they hold a celebration of Germany's Oktoberfest in a German villa (town) about two hours outside of Córdoba. Oktoberfest in Villa General Belgrano is the biggest celebration of the holiday after Germany's, so of course I wanted to go! We took a nine hour bus ride overnight to the city of Córdoba and arrived at 5am, which was pretty great. At least we got to nap for a couple of hours before we left for a 2 hour bus ride to the Villa. We got to Oktoberfest before it opened and were one of the first people there, so we explored the town a little and then finally went inside the park. We were one of the first people all day to get beer (at 12 noon) and started celebrating :). The whole day definitely turned out different than I had expected, I was visualizing more of a sloppy frat party for Oktoberfest but it was a very relaxed and fun day. There were a lot more families and elderly than I thought, although many of them were partying just as hard alongside of the younger groups. There were about 15 different German beer venders selling all types of beer, with German food venders and a stage where the entire day was filled with different speakers from around the world and song and dances native to their country. We continued drinking all day and met TONS of people from Argentina, who were obsessed with us because we looked foreign (Michelle is black and I'm blonde). They were mostly obsessed with Michelle and kept telling her how much they loved her and her skin color, it was actually the best entertainment of the day. We were there for 10 hours and didn't go 5 minutes without new people yelling to us, coming up to us, or taking pictures / videos of us because black people don't exist in most parts of Argentina. It ended up being a really fun day, and now we have tons of new friends.
The next day we went exploring around the city of Córdoba. The worker at the hostel told us there wasn't much to do in the city, which we found really weird. We went and walked around a plaza, then headed down to a park. The city was a lot like Buenos Aires, except a lot smaller and quieter. The park we went to was HUGE and we got completely lost in it and ended up walking super far to get back where we started. It was also an ugly park - there wasn't much grass but all dirt and the water of the lake was green. We found entertainment all day by counting the amount of people that hollered at us (which ended up being 47 by the end of the day). After the park we went to the bus terminal and took a bus to Alta Gracia, about 45 minutes south of the city. Alta Gracia was a really small town, but very cute, and had a Jesuit ranch which we went to see. Che Guevarra also used to live there, and we went to the museum in his house. When we got back to the city, we went to a huge fair and looked at artisan crafts from Córdoba, which were pretty different from those in Buenos Aires.
The overnight bus rides there and back were pretty comical. On the way there, the driver turned the air conditioning up really high while we were sleeping, so we woke up at 2 in the morning absolutely freezing. On the way back, while we were sleeping the bus driver turned the heat up really high, and we woke up at 4am sweating. You'd think between the two they would be able to find a happy medium.
In the past two weeks, things have gone really well. My boyfriend was here visiting, and it was really good to see him. We rented an apartment for the week and did some basic exploring around Buenos Aires (and may or may not have gone to the same steak restaurant twice in the same week). I was really sad to see him leave but am now going to be home in about two months, so its not too bad.
On Wednesday when he was here, it was a holiday in all of Argentina, dia del estudiante (student's day) where all schools are closed. All of the students on this day go to parks and lay in the grass with friends, drink a lot of beer/wine/alcohol, smoke weed, play/listen to music, and relax. It was really interesting to see and be a part of the holiday because there were tons of schoolkids everywhere drinking and hanging out in the park.
On Friday I had my first midterm, and it went pretty well! We got it back this past friday and I got an A-, so definitely not complaining! I had another midterm the following Tuesday, so hopefully tomorrow I will get that one back too. In that midterm I thought I did really well (better than the Friday one) so hopefully that's a good grade as well. This Thursday I have another midterm in my Spanish class, and two Wednesdays after that is my last midterm in my Migrations class. In class on Wednesday we were asking her about what would be on the midterm and she ended up giving us the questions that it was going to ask, so all I really have to do for that one is prepare for those questions and hopefully I'll be set!
Last week I signed up for the Buenos Aires bikeshare, which is kind of the same thing in the big cities in the states where you can rent bikes to ride somewhere and return them to any of the bikeshare locations. Here, however, it's free to sign up and to ride bikes places, whereas in DC and other cities it costs money. I'm really excited because the weather is getting nicer and I can start riding a bike to school!
On Friday, my mom and my brother are coming to visit! I'm really excited to see them :)
In a completely unrelated note, my inner sociologist has begun to kick in and start analyzing all the societal things that are different or the same from the U.S. For one, I find it interesting that all of the social groups are the same in every country. On dia del estudiante I was people watching the tons of students that were everywhere and realized that they have the same cliques here as we do in the U.S., such as punk kids, skater kids, preppy kids, dorky kids.. I found it really interesting because I figured those were American groups.
It's also interesting to me to analyze the way that guys here act if they want to talk to a girl. At all of the clubs that we go to, guys are very pushy. Instead of coming up to you and talking to you, many of them will literally just grab you and pull you towards them to get you to talk to them. It's also very common here that a guy will introduce himself to you and then try to make out with you after not saying anything else. It's really surprising that they act like this because in the US this would be totally unheard of.
Similar to this, people in general are very open with how they address people. A good example of this is when we were at Oktoberfest and people would come up to Michelle and I and ask us where we were from, without saying anything else. People here are really blunt and will say exactly what they are thinking.. if they have to address someone on the heavier side they will call them "gordita" (little fatty) clearly in a joking manner but definitely too seriously for comfort.
I can't believe I've now been here for three months and only have two months left! I feel like I still have so much that I want to do and the time is going by so quickly. I definitely wish I was here for longer so I could do all of the things that I want to do before I have to go back to the states. But regardless, I've had such a good experience so far and am really grateful that I even had this opportunity :)
Next update hopefully soon!
Dale
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