And the classes begin...

Hello devoted blog followers! I hope this post finds you doing well and enjoying Valentine´s Day with those you love! This past week was a great first week of classes for the UBP exchange students! I can already see huge improvements in my Spanish-speaking abilities and in some of my classmates´ as well! For this month, we meet every weekday from 9:00am to 12:30pm for an intensive Spanish language and Argentina culture class and, so far, it hasn´t been too stressful! I was a little worried when I saw the word ¨intensive¨ but they know how to teach us a lot of material without stressing us out! :)

So, Monday, after the first day of class, in which we learned how to use the word ¨vos¨ that Argentine´s use instead of ¨tu,¨ we took a Spanish placement exam. Exciting news! I got the highest score in the class! Thank you Jesus! :) So, what they usually do is split up the class into two groups, advanced and beginner, after looking at the test scores. However, even though a few people got really high scores and a few people got really low scores, most of the class seem to fall somewhere in the middle, so they decided not to split us up. Therefore, all 14 of us are in the same class every day! I hope it will work out and that some people won´t feel lost because we´re going too fast or that others won´t get mad because we´re going too slow!

So, anyway, Tuesday and Thursday we learned more about the Spanish language and practiced speaking to each other. Everyone´s definitely getting more comfortable making mistakes and speaking out in class. Our teacher is really patient and encouraging too. Wednesday, we had our first Argentina culture class with our other professor and we learned all about gauchos, which are like Argentine cowboys, who played a big role in Argentina´s history. What I have loved most about this program is that we´ve incorporated things we learn in class to the trips we take as a group. Tuesday, we took a tour around downtown Córdoba, visiting the Jesuit University (the first university in Argentina), Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, and some other famous locations and monuments around the downtown area. Except for the Jesuit University, the entire tour was led by our Argentina culture professor, so the next day in his class, before we started our discussion on gauchos, we discussed what we had learned the day before.

Yesterday, our Spanish language class was really like a culture class as we studied famous mysteries and myths in Córdoba´s history. We studied the most famous ghost in the history of Córdoba, ¨La Pelada de la Cañada,¨ another mythical ghost named ¨La Mujer del Angelito,¨ and Córdoba´s mythical werewolves. It was really interesting! Then, after class yesterday, we took another trip to downtown Córdoba to get our student visas and then we took a ¨ghost tour!¨ I´m pretty sure they have something like this in Williamsburg, VA too, but there are tour guides here that take groups around to different old buildings and locations in the city where ghosts supposedly used to visit and they tell you the ghosts´ stories. The tour was in Spanish, but studying about these same ghosts that day in class really helped us as we tried to keep up with the tour guide´s speed talking!

Before the tour yesterday, we attended a tourism presentation on the city of Córdoba with another U.S. group that is studying this semester at Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Before I left the States, my mom introduced me to a Christian girl from USC who was studying abroad this semester in Cordoba at the national university. When I heard that another group was there from the States, I thought, ¨Wouldn´t that be so funny if this was Laura´s group?¨ And, guess what? It was! Laura and I only talked over the phone in the States so I was so glad to finally get to meet her! She is involved with Navigators at USC and one of the guys in my group is in Navigators at Clemson. They both went to the Navigators´ fall conference this past year, so they had already met! She visited a church last Sunday in downtown Cordoba and really liked it, so that´s where I´m going to go tomorrow! I´m so excited! I´m really missing Christian fellowship right now!

Well, I´d better run! Our group is taking another trip tonight to Villa Maria for its annual ¨Festival Nacional de Peñas¨ and we have to interview people there about the festival, then write a paper on it for Monday!

HAPPY VALENTINE´S DAY!!