For 2 weeks in Buenos Aires I stayed in an apartment with
about 8 other Spanish students from around the world. I loved meeting new
people, listening to people speaking Portugese, Dutch, Serbian, and German and
hearing about the differences and similarities between countries. Tons of perks
when doing the hostal or residency thing abroad. The negative? With varying
abilities of Spanish, almost all conversations were in English. Great practice
if it’s not your native language but if it is, it’s hard to improve when you’re
mastering what you’ve already erm…mastered. You also are with people who come
and go and don’t get the personal feeling of a home or daily conversations
about issues and problems that occur when you’re a local like oh, you know,
“how to get out of the house after you’ve locked yourself in”. Wait, that’s just me? Enter my experience in Córdoba, my home for the next week
and a half.
Settling in and feeling comfortable took all of 5 minutes
when I met Yamil, my “hermanito” and self proclaimed best host ever (I won’t
argue) Originally from Guatemala, he lives in the house along with his mother
and sister and at various times up to 7 or 8 students studying Spanish or going
to University in Córdoba. When I moved in, my “familia” consisted of 2 other
American girls, a Brazilian, German, Colombian and the family-helloooo
diversity! I was supposed to share a room but got lucky and had a whole room to
myself which quickly looked like 2 people were occupying it once I did my
“spread out all my stuff because we all know it’s easier to be organized when
you can see every.single.thing you brought with you,” thing. It was great
that they understood English but it was so nice to have native speakers to
practice on at home!
Mi Profesor
I forgot to mention my grand entrance to the city: after
deciding the best decision ever was to save a bit of money on accommodation AND
not miss any Spanish school, I took an overnight bus from Iguazu to Córdoba
(hello 22 hours of fun) that was supposed to leave at 10:30am on Tuesday and
arrive at 8:30am Wednesday, perfect since Monday and Tuesday were off because
of the Carnivale holiday- Great! My plan was to arrive, head to class for a few
hours and then go home to a relaxing afternoon of relaxing and unpacking. Hah.
Hahahahaha. I arrived after 10pm and then discovered that no country is remiss
from the post vacation traffic nightmares. Wednesday ended the Carnivale
holiday and every person living in Córdoba decided 10am was indeed the time to
return to the city.
What I observed next of I can only refer to as organized
chaos with a rapidly disappearing focus on the ‘organized.’ The line for a taxi
had about 75-100 people complete with luggage, wrapped around the corner and
into the station. What I initially thought were 2 workers tasked to help
passengers hail a cab turned out to be 2 workers tasked with collecting your
change. With taxis coming at a rate of 1/minute, it seemed obvious that one of
these guys would head to the bottom of the ramp and start beckoning like a
madman to the hundreds of passing taxis
that “hey! We have enough business here to keep you busy for the entire day!
Come visit!” This thought passed through my head for the next SEVENTY-FIVE
minutes as I waited for a taxi. Had I been with someone else, I’ll be honest
and say I would have ran like “that crazy American” down to the bottom of the
drive and started flagging them myself. Unfortunately, the negative side to
independent traveling is I wasn’t with someone and I had my massive backpack,
small bag and overstuffed purse to keep me looking crazy enough.
And then, all cultural relating came to a standstill. I
don’t think I will ever understand the concept of tipping someone who does
exactly nothing to make your experience easier. When a taxi rolled up to drive
me to the place I could have walked to in the same amount of time, these dudes
held out their hands for a ‘propina.’ Why did I tip them you ask? Well besides
one of them holding out his hand for a tip which would have made me extremely
rude had I ignored the protruding hand into my personal space, they did hoist
my bag into the trunk, the same bag I had been holding and lugging around
for the last 75 minutes waiting to get a taxi.
They also shut my door and then laboriously beckoned to the person behind me to
step up for the next taxi. For those of you still waiting for an explanation I
why I tipped them-yeah, so am I! But hey, I guess it’s the same for people when
they come to the U.S and have been told to tip 15%, even when they think the
service is awful, es la vida, no?
ANYWAYS, If you’re still with me (I’m done ranting I
promise,) the rest of my day was fantastic; no more problems locking myself in, I met cool new people in my class, my new teacher was nice, and I went back to my temporary home and settled in. Córdoba looks promising!
(my new room!)
