Rockin' the Suburbs: ¿Conoces a Jamie Gonzalez?

Bienvenidos a my blog!

Hello everyone; sorry for the lack of updates. Right now I'm sitting in my house waiting to go out to go to the centro to hang out with the AFS kids and their host families. We do this pretty much every day; we'll go to the centro, look at stores, talk, go to a park or something, and just hang out. Winter break started on monday, but Mariana and I were both sick on Thursday so we stayed home, and no one went to school on Friday because a lot of kids had the flu and those who didn't just decided not to go and start vacations a day early! School is so different here- teachers move around the classrooms and don't show up some of the time! The kids are loud and talk all the time, even when the teacher is talking.

On Saturday, the AFS students and their siblings went to a boliche (discoteca). It was very different than anything I have ever experienced. They played a lot of American music, which apparently isn't normal, and there was a fashion show. We got home around 6 am (we left around 2 am) and the next day we had an asado (like a barbque) for all AFS students. It was delicious, and there was a blurb about it in the town newspaper!

I have found that a lot of the AFS kids can speak very little Spanish and that I'm one of the better speakers and I understand more than most. I've been talking to a few of my AFS friends and they tell me that they communicate via hand signals in their houses, whereas I talk in Spanish and when I need help with a word, I ask my sisters.

I've also been taking dance lessons to learn cuarteto and tango, but they've been cancelled due to the flu (not swine, just regular flu) and apparently everything is completely empty in the larger cities. Hopefully this will all pass, but we were given an extra week for winter vacation to sanitize the schools, so who knows.

Here are some pictures to enjoy!

Buenos Aires