Salta, Jujuy, y mis primeros meses

Hello from Buenos Aires, Argentina!

The idea of having a blog somewhat intimidated me which is partially why I have waited so long to start one. My friends (and more specifically my cousins) who have had them in the past wrote so eloquently that I felt as though I had to live up to that and write beautiful pieces. But, I realized I don’t! I just want to share what I’m up to with the people I love. So with that, let’s dig into what I’m actually doing here in Argentina!

I’m studying abroad, practicing my Spanish, and exploring this beautiful country. I’m living with a host mom in a beautiful apartment and share it with a super sweet roommate (also from the US). I came one month before classes began to take an advanced intensive Spanish course. Now my regular classes are in session and are all taught in Spanish. The intensive Spanish course was incredibly helpful, but my course load is fully taught in Spanish, and I’m still coming to terms with my language proficiency. I arrived here with a certain confidence in my Spanish abilities, which made it harder to accept my inadequacies.

Argentina requires me to relax my Type A personality every single day. Por ejemplo: I just started my fourth week of classes and am still not officially enrolled in any of them. Ejemplo 2: My passport only allows me to be here for about one more month and there’s no word on when my visa is coming. But there’s good to this too. The picture at the top of this post is the result of a trip planned 4 days before it took place. It made me nervous, but the trip came together surprisingly well and was some of the most fun I’ve had during my time here! In fact, the video I made for the trip was my inspiration to start writing this blog so take 2 minutes to check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUcOlwegPCU. In this trip, my friends and I traveled to the provinces Salta and Jujuy. We had just about as much fun saying Jujuy (hoo-hwee) as we did during our time there. I’m glad to be here, so I don’t dwell on the uncertainty of my visa processing! Usually. I’m still Type A, so of course I dwell some.

I’m learning everyday to allow myself to make mistakes, and let go of things beyond my control. That includes starting this blog 2 months in, and being at ease with my lack of course and visa approval. Thanks for reading post #1. All my love,

xoxo,

JoJo