I Remember When I Thought I Spoke Spanish

Hey everyone-

    My name is Sam Cooke and I´m a fifth year senior just starting my last semester of college here in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I´m no stranger to study abroad as I studied in Cambodia last winter, and actually blogged for HPU this past fall when I was studying in London. However, this experience is Buenos Aires is completely different than any experience I´ve had before.

I could write a book just on my first 16 days in this country, but I´ll just hit on some of the key points for now.

First off, I took a couple Spanish classes at HPU before coming here, and naturally, I thought my Spanish was pretty good. However, after walking around the city for 2 minutes, I realized my Spanish was not at all good. It´s one thing to have a conversation on Fort Street with a kid from Barcelona, its another to live in a country where no one speaks any English. Living here is absolutely the best way to learn Spanish and I´ve already learned a lot, but it definitely takes some getting used to.

I live with a single mother who rents out her extra two bedrooms to college students. I have a pretty decent size room with a desk, a dresser, and good size bed and a ceiling fan. I also have a private bathroom attached to my room, so it´s a pretty decent setup. The other room is rented out to a student from Pepperdine. Every morning we are served breakfast and dinner from our host mom and we are on our own for dinner.

Meals here are very different from the USA. The food here is amazing as I´m now convinced I could survive the rest of my life on empanadas alone. However, the meal times take some getting used to. Breakfast is early, around 8 or 9, then dinner isn´t until 9 olcock at night. Breakfast is normally very light, and dinner is very big. I´m still trying to adapt to what I should eat during the 12 hour gap between meals, but I´m starting to figure it out.

The night life here is ridiculous. There´s not much else to say. Everything is a little cheaper, and everything stays open all night. The exact opposite of London. Generally the clubs don´t get busy until 2 or so, so be prepared for a long night out. You can easily find a place to go every night of the week if you wanted to.

However, I would not recommend staying out all night every night because you still have to go to school every morning. If you study here through AIFS, you have the option of taking a one month intensive Spanish class before the start of the semester. I am currently taking this course to get ready for my regular classes which start next month, and will all be in Spanish.

I don´t want to make the first blog to long so I´ll leave you here. I got to start making my plans for Carnival (coming up soon) and get a little studying in.

Adios-
Sam Cooke