Observations and excursions

Today, for the first time, I walked down the street listening to music on the way back from the bus stop.
Whilst that seems fairly insignificant, it indicates a level of comfort in the immediate surroundings that I hadn't had before. Yay!

We have a new volunteer at Conviven who's pretty new in BA, and chatting to her made me realise quite how used to life here I've got. And how much my Spanish has improved since I arrived! Not just any Spanish, but Argentine Spanish; I now take for granted that "vos" is the second person singular pronoun, with the conjugations that follow and that sentences will always be punctuated frequently with "viste?" or "me entendés?" and "che" is a natural way to call someone's attention.

Classes today went far better than Monday's too! I was a little better prepared and perhaps a little less tired... Scott managed to use up half of the first class with a numbers practice game which seemed to clarify things a bit and teach those who were less sure. The second half consisted of several renditions of "Heads, shoulders, knees and toes" and a few games of "Simon Says". The second class went equally well; I decided to avoid numbers entirely. If I was bored of numbers, they almost certainly would be! We began with body parts and singing, as in the second half of the first class, adding on some extras that weren't in the song, writing them on the board and asking lots of questions. Ensuring to repeat stupid words like "knee" and "wrist" which are not intuitive at all when it comes to putting the written word together with the sound! This led neatly on to some grammar work - the purpose of the letter "e" at the end of the word. I taught that although it isn't directly pronounced, it does change the sound, giving example pairs eg. her - here, sam - same, etc. They really seemed to get on well with this! Finally they were getting some form of explanation for the seemingly ridiculous spelling of English words. I also mentioned that all nouns are neutral in English and grammatical gender doesn't exist. Class 2 are way more responsive to written teaching so I think I'm going to try continue down this road as it's something I find fascinating. Pronunciation is fun to teach too. :)

I had Scott and Sergio round for dinner last night, so I made a veggie pasta dish with my home soaked chickpeas, roasted aubergine and olives. Served with a green salad. I thought it was delicious, and it seemed like they enjoyed it too! I'm beginning to build myself a bit of a reputation! It was a lovely evening and was only improved when Francisco and his Columbian friend dropped in unannounced as he was early for work at the hostel round the corner! Andres got back from uni not long later and we had a few impromptu drinks, on the whole exactly how I like my evenings to go. Also surprise guests are fun. Andres said after that all my friends are "muy buena onda" to which I responded that I only have nice friends. ;)

I also had a job interview yesterday, but before you get excited I didn't get the job. They were looking for at least a 12 month commitment. Which I clearly can't offer. However I did play the eager beaver part and I might have got myself on the reserve list, and may end up helping them "anglicise" their website as I pointed out to them that it was slightly clumsy (nothing to lose once I knew I had no chance!). Who knows, might lead to something. For those that are curious, it was for teaching English to businessmen in a course framework specifically tailored to each company. Sounded pretty interesting but oh well. The search continues.

Not wanting to waste a beautiful day, I went for a wander. It seems spring may have finally arrived....

 

Welcome to the city centre.

It was interesting, but I'm not shopper really. So I walked along some more until I came across Plaza San Martín. A nice little park on the edge of Retiro:

Lovely no? Buenos Aires does have some quite nice parks. No comparison to Sheffield though. I do miss the countryside here though. There's nowhere you can go to escape the traffic. Even Los Bosques are surrounded by roads and during the week even have traffic through the middle. Though I met a Frenchman who knew of the tiny pueblito where I'll be spending the rest of my year abroad and it appears that there's no lack of countryside there. In fact that's pretty much all there is. So I'll more than make up for it in 2013! 

If you were wandering how this meeting came about, it was due to a language exchange night. You turn up at the bar and they give you little flag stickers for all the languages you can speak. Quite cute really. :) I wanted to go and speak some French to try and keep it up, I managed to a reasonable extent and was quite pleased with myself. Although it became apparent later on that there were several people who had mistaken the concept for speed-dating. Ah well. To be expected I suppose! I had some interesting conversations all the same and enjoyed the evening alcohol-free due to the impending interview. I'm certainly glad I chose to spend my year abroad this way round, i.e. Spanish first. My French is still there in the back somewhere, it's just getting to it that's the problem. I really don't think my Spanish would have held up so well. (y)

Since the weather has got so lovely, I borrowed Andres' bike on Tuesday to face the kilombo* that is BA traffic and head to Los Bosques for some greenery. A comfortable little blue fixy (single gear) which is perfectly serviceable for the mostly flat routes of  BA. I took a circuit of the park and sat in some tree roots for a while reading a local paper, feeling almost porteña.

*I really like this word - It means something along the lines of a kerfuffle, but less specific. Difficult to translate. But equally as fun to say as kerfuffle. Close anyway. 

Tonight I think I'm heading out with Andres to the couchsurfing night at the bar a few blocks away. They have free pizza again.... Always a guarunteed crowd pleaser.