class was class. i'm still getting frustrated. mainly with me and my perceived lack of progress. other students in the class (4 others) monopolize the speaking time. i feel like i'm not improving. i get most frustrated when others have the confidence to just put words together. why do i have this wall up that prevents me from speaking? why do i do this to myself? even when i walk into a shop i clam up. i have a perfect opportunity to speak and use my spanish, exactly why i came here. so, majority of my frustration lies within me.
2:00
after classes today i went to lunch with some other students, 7 total. 2 germans, 1 swiss, 1 french, 2 americans and i don't remember the nationality of the 7th person. it was a nice group except for the frenchie. she had a poor attitude. both german guys were funny. I asked the one german if he'd taken a tango class here. he said no, he wasn't interested. I said "it's like traveling to germany and not drinking the beer". he was quick with saying "it's like traveling to argentina and not eating meat". I burst out laughing. (I don't eat meat) Nice comeback...(...but I may try a small piece)
after lunch was over i began my stressing...which i think i'm very good at. ''crap, why'd you go to lunch, you should have been looking for a place to live, saturday morning is going to come pretty quickly and you have no where to go'....
last night i wrote down 3 phone numbers of bed & breakfasts in my neighborhood. each would be around $40 a night.
3:30
i walked back to the school in search of a 'locutorio'. it's a store with multiple glass phone booths inside. Inside the glass booth, that is around 5 foot by 5 foot, there is a typical household phone. When you are finished you pay the cashier. some locutorios also have computers with the internet.
to my luck there was a locotorio under my school. i walked in, called 3 of the numbers....and nada. no rooms available. crap. it's 4:30 on thursday and i don't have housing for the weekend. (in my world this is really swinging it) My 3 short phone calls cost 90 centavos (a little less than 30 cents).
i walked back up to my school to use the internet to feverishly write down more numbers to call. The stress was building... and then i saw the schools coordinator. i asked him if he could give a recommendation. he was so calm. he called one number and then asked if i would want to stay in a hotel for $30 a night in a rich neighborhood. SURE! he had another girl who works there call. LUCK! They had rooms available for Saturday, Sunday and Monday night. big breath.... I'll have a private room but a shared bathroom. It's just for 3 days. I don't mind sharing a bathroom.
Have I mentioned how impressed with my school I am? They are so kind and so helpful. When I had the issue with my host family the coordinator listened to me with such sympathy and said it would be no problem to move. They are so helpful and kind.
To kill time after I found some weekend housing and not wanting to go back to the host family's house, I walked to 9 de Julio Avenue, the widest avenue in the world. Its name honors the Argentine's Independence Day. It takes four traffic lights to cross and there's somewhere around 20 lanes. There's places to stop along the way while your crossing the street, so I sat in the sun for a bit too and admired the flowers on the avenue.
6:30
When I returned to my barrio I walked a couple blocks to the Botanical Gardens. On Tuesday, when I move into my apartment, this garden will only be 1 block away! I'm not sure why, or how, but the garden is full of stray cats. They look healthy, but so strange to have so many cats living here.
10:00
I ran into Mirta in the kitchen. She was nice. She asked what time I would be leaving on Saturday. She said she would be awake to get my key. Alejandro just sat there and didn't look at me. I'm glad, I didn't want any conversation from him. Tomorrow the two students and I will go out to dinner. Hopefully I won't see Mirta and Alejandro until Saturday morning when I leave.
Overall the day was good. The sun was out and the sky was blue. I need to work on removing my language wall that I somehow built and I need to stop stressing so much. I'm going to start practicing these things now in anticipation for my new years resolution.
I'm in B.A., studying Spanish, and enjoying wonderful weather. Even with a couple minor blimps, Life is very good.
4 comments:
glad you found a place to stay (and at a bargain at that!).
i'm so glad too! i feel like i can breathe. when the coordinator at my school found the inexpensive hotel with rooms available I wanted to cry I was so happy. What a huge huge relief.
Oooo don't forget to take pics of the hotel room! Its a shame that your homestay had to end on such a sour note but yea, for the school pulling through.
Regarding the cats... At Longwood Gardens they have several resident cats throughout the gardens for vermin control. So, they may not be stray.
thanks for the post! i was curious after your post, so i had to google 'the cats of the botanical gardens'. here's what i found out...
"In recent years a large community of cats has established itself within the garden, encouraged by neighbours who leave food out for them. Attempts to remove the cats have so far proved unsuccessful but thanks to the dedication of volunteers in the local community who formed a voluntary committee, a humane resolution became possible, cats are allowed to live out their lives and no new cats are allowed in the garden while the current population receives care and free veterinary services from Instituto de Zoonosis Luis Pasteur"
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