Well...today was eventful.
I normally carry shorts in my backpack to school cause we have to wear pants but it gets really hot in the afternoon. So when my friend Nacho told me, ``hey, you´re coming to rubgy practice with me today. You are going to try out being on the team,`` I decided to be adventurous and go play rugby for the first time in my life...amidst a bunch of hardcore Argentinian adolescent males. Rugby is big here.
After school I trolley`d back home, put on my cross trainers and a pair of tennis shorts, and went out not knowing what the hell to expect. When I met up with my friend Nacho at his house, he took a look at me and burst into laughter. ``you can´`t play with those shorts, chè,`` he said to me. Well why not, I answered. ``Because they will get ripped off your body and torn to shreds...`` Wonderful. A beautiful image get me excited for rugby. He loaned me a pair of shorts....more like mid seventies tennis thongs. Apparently the correct apparell for rugby consists of shorts that are smaller th an American boxers. All the guys here wear short boxer briefs...but I wear boxers. So about an inch of my boxers poked out from the bottom of my shorts. Including my Americanly white legs. Beautiful. Already feeling a little...weird, we headed out for practice.
Practice is two hours long. For the first hour, we ran. I dont mean we just ran, we worked. First we did sprints on the field. Then we headed for the stairs. I thought we were just gonna run up and down a few times...I was wrong. First we sprinted up and down 10 times. Then without a break we had to jump without movnig our feet apart up the stairs and down the stairs ten times. That is really, really hard. After that, we had a three minute break, then more...Next we partnered up and sprinted up 6 stairs and back down as many times as we could in 6 seconds. My recordd was 3, the normal. Then when our six seconcds were up we had a break for about 10 seconds while the other group went. Then more. We did this for 10 minutes. Then we sprinted up and down, and tagged our partner. This we did 10 times. Next more jumping, and we were done. I was exhausted by the end of it, but the great thing about those kind of warm ups is that your body goes into super drive. Five minutes later I had adrenaline pumping through my body and I felt like I could run forever.
They sent me to train with the forwards. If you don`t know what that is...its complicated. We form a line, and lift someone up between us to catch the ball as its thrown inbounds from out of bounds. The peculiar part about it is...how we lift each other up. The coach decided to show me. He told me to stay still, and then disappeared behind me. The next thing I knew, he grabbed my ass, literally, and threw me into the air. I landed on my feet, but barely. The way we actually throw people is the jumper stands in between two guys. The one in front pushes up on the things and the guy in back pushed up...well he pushes up on the ass. No joke. So they made me try lifting from the back. I decided not to say anything, and for about 10 minutes was roughly lifting other boys I didnt know by their butt cheeks. Super duper fun. Then I got to be jumper. What you do is begin to jump, and then when you are in the air they push up on you, and you get really high. I caught every pass and simply tried to ignore the hands pushing me up, and where they were pushing from. When you land with the ball, you have to go into a huddle like thing. Basically everyone grabs onto you by whatever body part is availabe, again sometimes uncomfortable, andp pushes. Then you drop the ball to the back of the huddle, and it gets chucked to a side where we start running around making more little huddles. All in all, it was fun. A lot weird at times, but I feel I´m not homophobic and its part of the sport so it´s all good.
Then we played a scrimage. I can undestand spanish pretty well in conversation when people are talking with me at a reasonable rate. But when coaches are screaming at me random words very specific to rugby in spanish I can´t catch anything. So I ended up running around like an idiot randomly attempting to tackle people and at points getting the ball and getting slammed by three people at once. Or rarely I passed it safely away without getting hit. But I thought the game was really fun and I hope to keep trying it. My schedule as is...Work out monday, wednsday and friday, and go to rugby tuesday, thursday and saturday. Chau
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
First day of Spring and Day of the Students
Well I´m back from my weekend. Here´s how it went.
Friday night of my friends and I got together at a shopping mall to hang out. Elizabeth, the girl from Texas, had to buy a coat so Joseph (New Zealand) and I hung around while the girls did there thing. At around 10 pm we split up to go back to our respective houses to eat dinner and get ready to go out. At around 12:30 at night Elizabeth, another american girl, and Marnix (Holland) met up at my house. We took a cab into the city to go to Johny Be Good (a nice restaraunt bar place) to chill for a hour or two before we decided to go out. At around 2:30 in the morning, just when people where beginning to come out in Argentina for the nightlife, we took a cab to the Mitre. The Mitre is one of the nicer clubs in town. The bouncers didnt give us any prolems and the entrance fee was 20 pesos for guys, 10 for girls. We paid the fees, paid to have our coats held for us, and went into the club. I don´t think anyone back home has ever experienced something like this. Being my first time, I was pretty blown away.
The club was jam packed, and I mean crowded. You couldn´t move without kinda pushing and wiggling through the people. There were two floors. The main floor was the main dance floor plus bar plus balcony. It was playing dance music and rock and random other stuff. The music was so loud that if you were holding a drink, the liquid vibrated constantly. Bit of advice in Argentina. If you ever need to clean wax out of your ears, dont buy cotton. Just go clubbin. It works.
The girls split immediately, so Marnix and I wandered around for a while. The bottom floor was a techno rave style dance floor and bar. Pretty nice. There was alcohol everywhere, including the floor, but I didn´t drink anything. After about half and hour, I decided to have some fun.
I don´t know if there is a law against ugly people in Argentina, or if the bouncers are just very selective, but there was not a bad looking girl in that club. Or the ones later in this story.
I wandered around until I spotted a group of girls who didn´t seem to have any male counterparts hanging around. I walked up, tapped one on the shoulder, and asked in Spanish just slightly worse than what I am capable of, "What kind of music is this?" Honestly, I knew exactly what kind of music it was. It was Cumbia, popular here in Argentina.
The girl politely answered my question, then turned away. I smiled. On average, it takes two seconds for them to figure this out. Two seconds later, she turned back to me and asked, "Where are you from?"
After that, I was mobbed with questions by a group of excited girls for about half and hour. One of them thought I was Argentinian and pretending to have a bad accent because I understood everything they said, but a wandering exchange friend of mine verified my story. The cool thing about clubs is that once you have friends, you don´t need to worry. I stayed with that group of girls the rest of the time. One of them in particular was very beatiful, and we danced together a lot. The policy in Argentina is that if that happens, you should kiss the girl. Unfortunately, the other girls never really left us alone, but I got her instant message address and will hopefully see her again. At about 6 in the morning I left the club with the girls, walked a ways, and then split off fromt hem, catching a taxi home. I got to sleep at about 6:45.
I was woken up Saturday at4 9:30 by my host brother who told me I had 5 minutes to pack my stuff for a weekend getaway to Carlos Paz. I packed quickly, and before I was fully awake we were on a bus to another city to catch a large spring festival party thing.
Fortunately, we have lost of family in Carlos Paz so we stayed at the house of the grandparents. At around 7 pm that night, we took a bus to Mayu Sumaj, a small town who´s main revenue comes from the riverside club it has. This weekend was the first party at that club in the year. Its only open spring and summer. We got into the town around 7:30, which is ridiculoulsly early for Argentina. The reason we did that is cause its a good idea not to take buses at night. We had friends coming to meet us... but they didn´t get there until 12:30. We waited 4 hours outside in the cooolllld. It was miserable. I was really pissed.
Then to top it off, when everyone finally arrived, the cops shut down the party cause there was like 5 thousand people wandering around this town the club didnt have the permits to throw the party yet. Great.
What happened next was hilarious. Thousands of kids lined up along the highway waiting for passing buses and taxis. It was crazy. Whenever a bus pulled up, there was a riot to get in. I suggested a smarter idea. I took my little group of seven people and walked a ways down the road. The next taxi that came by I got, and we piled in. We took it all the way back to Carlos Paz. Along the way we saw many people from the party just walking the 5 miles or so. In the end it costed me about 11 dollars U.S. I paid for it since the others didnt have any extra cash on them and we were heading to a club in Carlos Paz.
We took the taxi to Keops. Keops is...spectacular. It is the largest club in all of Còrdoba district. From the outside, it looks like an ancient egyptian pyramid palace. Thats its theme...egyptian. At around 3:30 we got into the club, for 25 pesos a pop. This place was nice. They even had bouncers who were midgets, just for show. The place was huge, but also more crowded then anywhere I have ever been. It had 3 seperate areas to dance, many floors, and many bars. But there was about 5 thousand people at this place.
My host brother, his friends, and I wandered around for a while. Bit of advice. Its more fun to go into clubs with girls beforehand then to just go with guys. Its kinda boring after a while. I decided to make some new friends. I quickly thought of a new question to ask, and squirmed, wiggled, and pushed my way to the wall, were the music wasn´t quite so mind blowing. (The music was sooo loud, my shoelaces came undone, no joke. It felt like your entire body was vibrating. Much louder than the Mitre). I spotted a girl, and asked in spanish, making sure to pronounce clubs like an American, "Are there many clubs this size in Argentina?" A couple minutes later I was chatting with all her friends and just haning around dancing. Nothing more happened but it was a lot more fun than wandering around getting smashed by the crowds. We left at 6, and got picked up by Pablo`s cousin and her boyfriend in a small little car. We fit a total of 9 people into that car and took a unforgettable journey back home. It was great. We were blasting Argentinain music and singing at the top of our lungs all the way there.
The next day I decided to split from my brother and meet up with some friends from my school. We met in front of the largest stage I had ever seen. It was a concert, but more like tens of thousands of people had been randomly misplaced in this one park. It was really hot, really crowded, and I was getting miserable. My friends and I were right in front of the stage and had to be careful to avoid the mosh pits going on. After an hour or two I had had enough of the heat and bad music and walked to the bus station to take a bus from Carlos Paz to Còrdoba. It was an uneventful trip.
Now its Monday morning and I have caught up on my sleep. The weekend was a lot of fun and sometimes really boring, but unforgettable. It was loud, hot, but fortunately safe.
I dont think I am going to try three concecutive days of clubbin and concerts for a long time haha. Chau
Friday night of my friends and I got together at a shopping mall to hang out. Elizabeth, the girl from Texas, had to buy a coat so Joseph (New Zealand) and I hung around while the girls did there thing. At around 10 pm we split up to go back to our respective houses to eat dinner and get ready to go out. At around 12:30 at night Elizabeth, another american girl, and Marnix (Holland) met up at my house. We took a cab into the city to go to Johny Be Good (a nice restaraunt bar place) to chill for a hour or two before we decided to go out. At around 2:30 in the morning, just when people where beginning to come out in Argentina for the nightlife, we took a cab to the Mitre. The Mitre is one of the nicer clubs in town. The bouncers didnt give us any prolems and the entrance fee was 20 pesos for guys, 10 for girls. We paid the fees, paid to have our coats held for us, and went into the club. I don´t think anyone back home has ever experienced something like this. Being my first time, I was pretty blown away.
The club was jam packed, and I mean crowded. You couldn´t move without kinda pushing and wiggling through the people. There were two floors. The main floor was the main dance floor plus bar plus balcony. It was playing dance music and rock and random other stuff. The music was so loud that if you were holding a drink, the liquid vibrated constantly. Bit of advice in Argentina. If you ever need to clean wax out of your ears, dont buy cotton. Just go clubbin. It works.
The girls split immediately, so Marnix and I wandered around for a while. The bottom floor was a techno rave style dance floor and bar. Pretty nice. There was alcohol everywhere, including the floor, but I didn´t drink anything. After about half and hour, I decided to have some fun.
I don´t know if there is a law against ugly people in Argentina, or if the bouncers are just very selective, but there was not a bad looking girl in that club. Or the ones later in this story.
I wandered around until I spotted a group of girls who didn´t seem to have any male counterparts hanging around. I walked up, tapped one on the shoulder, and asked in Spanish just slightly worse than what I am capable of, "What kind of music is this?" Honestly, I knew exactly what kind of music it was. It was Cumbia, popular here in Argentina.
The girl politely answered my question, then turned away. I smiled. On average, it takes two seconds for them to figure this out. Two seconds later, she turned back to me and asked, "Where are you from?"
After that, I was mobbed with questions by a group of excited girls for about half and hour. One of them thought I was Argentinian and pretending to have a bad accent because I understood everything they said, but a wandering exchange friend of mine verified my story. The cool thing about clubs is that once you have friends, you don´t need to worry. I stayed with that group of girls the rest of the time. One of them in particular was very beatiful, and we danced together a lot. The policy in Argentina is that if that happens, you should kiss the girl. Unfortunately, the other girls never really left us alone, but I got her instant message address and will hopefully see her again. At about 6 in the morning I left the club with the girls, walked a ways, and then split off fromt hem, catching a taxi home. I got to sleep at about 6:45.
I was woken up Saturday at4 9:30 by my host brother who told me I had 5 minutes to pack my stuff for a weekend getaway to Carlos Paz. I packed quickly, and before I was fully awake we were on a bus to another city to catch a large spring festival party thing.
Fortunately, we have lost of family in Carlos Paz so we stayed at the house of the grandparents. At around 7 pm that night, we took a bus to Mayu Sumaj, a small town who´s main revenue comes from the riverside club it has. This weekend was the first party at that club in the year. Its only open spring and summer. We got into the town around 7:30, which is ridiculoulsly early for Argentina. The reason we did that is cause its a good idea not to take buses at night. We had friends coming to meet us... but they didn´t get there until 12:30. We waited 4 hours outside in the cooolllld. It was miserable. I was really pissed.
Then to top it off, when everyone finally arrived, the cops shut down the party cause there was like 5 thousand people wandering around this town the club didnt have the permits to throw the party yet. Great.
What happened next was hilarious. Thousands of kids lined up along the highway waiting for passing buses and taxis. It was crazy. Whenever a bus pulled up, there was a riot to get in. I suggested a smarter idea. I took my little group of seven people and walked a ways down the road. The next taxi that came by I got, and we piled in. We took it all the way back to Carlos Paz. Along the way we saw many people from the party just walking the 5 miles or so. In the end it costed me about 11 dollars U.S. I paid for it since the others didnt have any extra cash on them and we were heading to a club in Carlos Paz.
We took the taxi to Keops. Keops is...spectacular. It is the largest club in all of Còrdoba district. From the outside, it looks like an ancient egyptian pyramid palace. Thats its theme...egyptian. At around 3:30 we got into the club, for 25 pesos a pop. This place was nice. They even had bouncers who were midgets, just for show. The place was huge, but also more crowded then anywhere I have ever been. It had 3 seperate areas to dance, many floors, and many bars. But there was about 5 thousand people at this place.
My host brother, his friends, and I wandered around for a while. Bit of advice. Its more fun to go into clubs with girls beforehand then to just go with guys. Its kinda boring after a while. I decided to make some new friends. I quickly thought of a new question to ask, and squirmed, wiggled, and pushed my way to the wall, were the music wasn´t quite so mind blowing. (The music was sooo loud, my shoelaces came undone, no joke. It felt like your entire body was vibrating. Much louder than the Mitre). I spotted a girl, and asked in spanish, making sure to pronounce clubs like an American, "Are there many clubs this size in Argentina?" A couple minutes later I was chatting with all her friends and just haning around dancing. Nothing more happened but it was a lot more fun than wandering around getting smashed by the crowds. We left at 6, and got picked up by Pablo`s cousin and her boyfriend in a small little car. We fit a total of 9 people into that car and took a unforgettable journey back home. It was great. We were blasting Argentinain music and singing at the top of our lungs all the way there.
The next day I decided to split from my brother and meet up with some friends from my school. We met in front of the largest stage I had ever seen. It was a concert, but more like tens of thousands of people had been randomly misplaced in this one park. It was really hot, really crowded, and I was getting miserable. My friends and I were right in front of the stage and had to be careful to avoid the mosh pits going on. After an hour or two I had had enough of the heat and bad music and walked to the bus station to take a bus from Carlos Paz to Còrdoba. It was an uneventful trip.
Now its Monday morning and I have caught up on my sleep. The weekend was a lot of fun and sometimes really boring, but unforgettable. It was loud, hot, but fortunately safe.
I dont think I am going to try three concecutive days of clubbin and concerts for a long time haha. Chau
Friday, September 19, 2008
Another week of school, and staring a crazy weekend in the mouth
I have completed another week of school. My routine is the same. I go to school early, and leave late. But this week I made some mistakes haha. I went to school one day wearing shorts. Bad idea. The enforcer told me to go home. So I spent the 3 pesos to go home, change and come back. That took about an hour. The next day I show up at 7:45 as usual only to find out we dont have to be there until 10:30. I swear, every week we have 3 days that are supposed to be long but for some reason we get out really early or come in really late. So I was able to walk to my friends house about 8 long blocks away. I got lost on the way, so it took a while haha. When I got there, he was there but no one else so he let me sleep in his mom`s room. No one in the my class is ever gonna let him forget that I have slept in his moms bed. `Your Momma` type jokes here are very popular, and very serious. So that was hilarious. This weekend is the Day of Students and the first day of spring. Two huge reasons to party in Argentina. Im going out with some friends tonight to dance and tomorrow going to another city with my host brother and friens to stay at a grandmas house and go out dancing there. Should be lots of fun. Ill write a more detailed description of this weekend after it happens. Chau
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Two weeks down
I have been here for two weeks, and I love it. This weekend was my first Rotary meeting. It was an orientation for all the inbounds and outbounds and there were over 100 kids in a hotel for the weekend. It was a lot fun, especially meeting new people. We had a party type thing and a talent competition. I was able to avoid performing somehow.
Im excited to take the big trip to the South in a month. Its a 18 day trip by bus and it seems like its going to be absolutely fantastic.
Today there isn´t school cause there is rioting and protesting going on in the city and tomorrow won´t be school cause the bus drivers and trolley drivers are on strike. Gotta love Argentina.
Life has a slower pace here. Things usually happen spontaneously and aren´t planned. For an Yankee like me, it takes some getting used to.
I have lots of friends all over the city now. Whenever we don´t have school or weekends we all join up in a house or something and sit around hanging out. This coming weekend is going to be nuts though. Its the first day of spring and the Day of the Students, so everyone goes crazy. Lots of clubbing and stuff. Should be fun. The cleaning lady is here so I gotta jet. Chau
Im excited to take the big trip to the South in a month. Its a 18 day trip by bus and it seems like its going to be absolutely fantastic.
Today there isn´t school cause there is rioting and protesting going on in the city and tomorrow won´t be school cause the bus drivers and trolley drivers are on strike. Gotta love Argentina.
Life has a slower pace here. Things usually happen spontaneously and aren´t planned. For an Yankee like me, it takes some getting used to.
I have lots of friends all over the city now. Whenever we don´t have school or weekends we all join up in a house or something and sit around hanging out. This coming weekend is going to be nuts though. Its the first day of spring and the Day of the Students, so everyone goes crazy. Lots of clubbing and stuff. Should be fun. The cleaning lady is here so I gotta jet. Chau
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
School
school is great. its sooo different here. we dont do anything during class except talk. after class we cruise the city, then come back for afternoon classes. the people are like most people anywhere. there are good, bad, pretty, ugly...the works. but everything is more physical. everyone gives a kiss on the cheek for everything and people are constantly hanging off of each other but it doesnt mean anything more than friendship. our proffesors understand very well that I am an exchange student and they dont really expect anything of me hahahaha. its great. im getting to know the city better and can go places by myself. i take the trolley bus everywhere and have lots of good friends at school. i get up at 6 every morning, which isnt tooo fun. but things are great! Chau
Thursday, September 4, 2008
My first couple days.
Today is my second day in Argentina. I love it here! I have so much to say, but I will try to cover the basics. The driving is crazy, absolutely nuts. Everything is fresh. If you want orange juice, you squeeze oranges. Pablo and I have an entire house to ourselves haha. They havent moved into the new house yet, but Pablo and I have a room in it and we stay there, so we have an entire house to ourselves hahahaha. Its great. I havent started school, but will soon. Today I went to Pablos school for a festival and it was nice. I got to meet a bunch of his friends and they like me haha. The girls are funny as hell. They look at me like they are about to purchase something. Kinda creepy. Chau
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