Lots of fun, and lots of confusion...

Wednesday was very exciting and very packed with lots of important things for us to see and do. We started off by taking the bus to the university, receiving a orientation-like lecture, listening to descriptions of all the classes offered to us, taking a short tour, and then taking the much-anticipated language placement test. Every student in the program has to take at least two classes -- a Spanish conversation test, and a Spanish grammar class. After taking the placement test, the professors place you in either level 1, 2, 3, or 4. I was very excited for the level four professors to call me down later that day to tell me in person that they recommend that I take the level four classes. However, my excitement was short-lived...haha. After another long day of constantly having to be extremely social, as well as often being quite nervous and anxious, it was time to meet our host parents. Ay ay ay. It took me just a few sentences of dialogue with the sweet Vilma, to realize that I was definitely NOT in Mexico! When she asked if I had eaten lunch, and what I had eaten, I answered quickly: “Si, pollo y papas fritas.” Vilma just looked at me like I was loca. I thought about what I had just said for a moment...I know that I just said that correctly, I thought...”pollo” and “papas fritas” are words from like Spanish 1!! As I have now learned, and re-learned several times, the “ll” sound in Argentina is very very different than in Mexico, or truly, any Spanish classroom I have ever set foot in. “Pollo” is not “poy-yo”, but “poi-sho”. I was thrown for yet another curveball, learning how to say “you”...yet another Spanish 1 skill! Haha. In Argentina, “tu” is replaced with “vos”, and phrases like “De donde eres?” become “De donde sois?” Suddenly, the language that I was completely surrounded by, was not one that I had been studying for 7 years, but one that was completely foreign to my ears. And to top that off, I was still utterly exhausted. Needless to say, Vilma and I did not learn much about each other that first night... ;)