Loving it

I have so much to tell, and no idea how to tell it! Okay, so in my first weekend, there was a "holiday" and a carnaval downtown, with women dancing practically nude! It was crazyyy!!! and a 4 year old girl pulled me into the parade with her to dance. Boys were playing the drums and the women, little girls, and some guys were dancing in very little clothing with lots of feathers.
I have been in school for a while now, and have gotten used to and am enjoying the relaxed atmosphere. We had convivencia today, so we did not have school. We went to a campsite to bond and chill. We dont have school Thursday or Friday either! :) We have many holidays here, apparently, which is fine with me! My family and I are going to Bariloche for the long weekend. I have "traveled locally" outside of Junin, to San Martin de los Andes and to this incredible lake, below the volcano. My sister and I sat on boulders and talked while she tanned, and I got burned :).
I can officially say I have friends here, which is exciting!! I go out to lunch with friends, and after school I go with a group of my classmates to someone's house, or we meet on the weekends to go out or "do homework". Anyway, I am adjusting well and I can't believe that in 2 days, I will have been in Argentina for a month. Five months no longer seems long enough...

School

Today I had my first day of school! It was great, but sooo different. There are 12 courses: Literature, Math, Chem, Logic, Phsyc., Music, Phys. Ed, English, Civics, History of Education, History of Argentina, and Geography. All the students in the grade are in the same class, so I had 30 people in each of my classes. We don't change classrooms, the teachers do. The school was very relaxed, and the students drank mate and talked the majority of the time. At first, there was only one chair open when I entered the room, so I sat in the front row all by myself, but after the first class, some girls invited me to sit with them. It was a fun day, even though I could not participate in any class! I had no problem understanding, but I had no books! In fact, they have no textbooks. I have to buy photocopies! I find it quite funny that I have to buy photocopies. Today I had Logic, Geography, Literature, and Music. Logic is the hardest class for the "seniors," and it was really confusing. In literature we did a word search, where all the letters are scrambled and we have to find the words, but everything we looked for was from the stories they read last year, so of course I had no idea what to look for. Music was really fun because it was a complete joke. For 45 minutes, people just jammed on guitars and sang if they wanted and drank mate. Geography was nice, but I didn't have any photocopies until the last 5 minutes when a girl let me share her packet. I don’t have any homework due tomorrow because the classes rotate, but I have Geo. due Monday, and a big logic packet due April 27.  Hopefully today I can buy the photocopies to get started. Everyone was friendly because “I was like a new toy,” one of the girls said, which is probably true!

Beginning

I apologize for not writing yet! I have been really busy. I spent a week in Rosario for orientation, and I was the only one who actually spoke spanish, so I translated EVERYTHING, but it was good practice. I made amazing friends during orientation. I dont have much time to write right now...and I have over 20 pages in my journal, so I am going to have to find some time to write everything that I have done here. In Rosario, we went to many museums, parks, and had 4 hours of classes a day. I arrived at my new house 2 days ago and I am having an amazing time. Yesterday my sister, Juli, and I went out for a friends birthday party and got home at 4 am (and we were the first to leave)! I woke up today at 1 :) Her friends are wonderful, and the town I am living in, Junin, is incredible...I have never seen anything like this town. Its time for lunch...more later. xoxx