10-30 Turning 15 and Happy Halloween

A lot has happened in the past week and a half, I thought I would write a blog entry early. I went to my first '15th Birthday Party' and wow is all I can say. Turing 15 is very important to this culture and I am so glad that I was able to experience such an event. To this culture turning 15 is like a right of passage and becoming a women. (17 for boys becoming a man) This birthday party was like a mix between My Super Sweet 16 MTV Show and a wedding. This party probably coasted over 3 thousand dollars. The venue was beautiful, chairs with the bows and matching table cloths, flowers and countless other decorations. Everyone there was dressed as if it was a wedding, black tie formal. There was tables and tables of sweets, cupcakes, tarts and other deserts. The invitation said that it started at 10pm. I got ready with some friends from my class and we left her house around 10:30, welcome to Argentina where it's rare to be on time. There was so much family and friends there to celebrate this big day for Anto. But no Anto. She didn't make her entrance until about 12:00. And her entrance was big. Once she got to the venue a camera crew met her at the door and had a live showing on a projector of her getting out of he car. She was escorted by her father. She was in a beautiful cream dress, hair curled, and make up on. She looked beautiful! Once she arrived a toast was said by every member of her immediate family. Then dinner was served all the family and very close friends that sat at a table but the other friends and classmates had another section for us. We were served empanadas, sandwiches, mini  hamburgers, min pizzas, meatballs, and other appetizers. After all the family was done eating there was an hour long slide and video show for Anto from her whole family. It was so obvious how much time and effort they but in to this birthday for her. After the video music started to play and she had her Father Daughter dance, then all the Uncles, and Grandpas. The Mother, Aunts and Grandmothers came up individually and gave her a big hug. After the family was done all of her guy friends got a chance to dance with her and the girls got their hug. There was so much love in the air. After all the more serious stuff was over the up beat music came on and all of her other friends came and danced and had a good time. This party was amazing.

For the past couple of weeks a lot of my friends at school have been asking me so many questions about Halloween so I thought how fun would it be to have a Halloween party. Then they can see how Americans celebrate one of their holidays. I asked my mom if it could be at our house and she said yes. It was perfect I made an event on Facebook with all my friends. But 4 days before the party my mom told me that she now feels uncomfortable about having a Halloween party in her house and how it is bad to God. I wasn't mad in anyway, not going to lie I was slightly frustrated because now I needed to find another place for my party in less than 4 days. In a way I am glad this happened because it gave me a chance to be culturally understanding. In no way do I find Halloween to be bad on God anymore. The roots of this holiday were but now it has been so diluted that now it is just a day out of the year to eat as much candy as you want, dress up crazy, and have fun. One of the other exchange students here offered to do it at her house the day before the party so it all worked out fine. My mom was even willing to donate some mini pizzas to the party, Rosangela and Paulien, the other two exchanged students that helped make this party happen were more excited about it than I was. This was going to be their first Halloween party too. Rosangela was focused on the decorations, we bought orange and blacked table cloths, 20 candles, spider webs. 50 orange balloons, and lights. It truly was a greatly decorated party. We bought cookies, lots of candy, donated pizza, chips, soda, and made a cake. I was surprised how we planned and executed this party in less than 24 hours. We had music and bobbed for apples, and we were going to watch a scary movie but never got around to it. This was so much fun and such a success. So many more people showed up and dressed up than I would have expected. One of my friends Carlo came as a girl! I was so happy everyone was getting in to the spirit.

I am getting to comfortable here which is a good and a bad thing at the same time. I feel it's a great thing that I have am able to feel so comfortable in my life here in Argentina as I would in the USA, but I I need to remember I am in a different country and that I don't have the lessons learned or consequences under my belt that everyone else here have experienced. For example I finally confident enough to walk to the gym by myself with out getting lost or putting my self in harms way. But with me being to comfortable almost put me in great danger. I was walking the way I always do and with out noticing I walked close a house and a protective scary dog tried to bite me and get me away from his home, not thinking a ran away strait in to the street and could have easily been hit by a car. It was one of the scarier things that has ever happened to me. Now for the next couple weeks I will be taking the bus to the gym.

My Spanish, today at school 3 of my friends commented on how it's getting better and that sure was a confidence booster! I still have many mix ups though. Like just the other day Luciana and I were getting ready to go to our Dads house and I asked in Spanish "how many minutes until I need to be ready to go?" and she replied 'ya' and I said in Spanish 'no, that wasn't a yes or no question...how many more minutes?' and she replied 'Ya' I said in Spanish 'Seriously, how many more minutes?!' and she said 'Ya' the lesson learned from this conversation is that 'Ya' also means now. So Luciana was trying to tell me that we need to leave now. Once I finally understood that we laughed about it. Also another funny thing that happened is I got a 10 on my   math homework and I was showing Daniela and jokingly bragging about it and said 'estoy inteligente' for those that don't know Spanish estar and ser both mean 'to be' so what I was trying to say was 'I'm smart' but in this case you don't use estar but you use ser the  correct way of saying this would be 'soy inteligente' and by me making that mistake defeats the whole purpose of me saying I'm smart hah.

The food, well let's just say I have gained 8 pounds in two months. So obviously it's amazing. This last week my mom and I made lasagna from scratch..well we bought the noodle things for it from the store. But it was so much easier than I thought it would be. I also learned how to make a frozen cake thing that is really good. With every meal here you have fresh bread which is really good but it's so many carbs. I am going to the gym three times a week but you can see it's not keeping up with how good the food is.

Month 2

Today makes 2 months. Break through! For any of those that have been a foreign exchange student or have learned another language you know how big of a deal this is! On october 3rd a majority of my dream was in Spanish, I don't remember all what happened but I do remember writing a Facebook status in Spanish and talking to my host sister about it in Spanish! This exactly what I have been waiting for! Hopefully more will come soon! My Spanish I feel is getting better. I am able to carry on conversations with my friends at school and I'm understanding more in school. In the past month I received my first 'Muy Bien' on an assignment. And I got a 10 on my math homework. I am learning a lot in my history and economic classes, well the vocabulary and some of the concepts. Also our school had a guest speaker come and I was able to understand most of it. I am also becoming very good friends with quite a few people in my class and getting invited to do many things. I have had my Jae over to hang out and watch movies, and i have been going out to the disco a lot lately so now I am slightly  tired of them and decided to take a couple weeks off from going.
 School is going by fast I only have about 4 weeks left until my 4 month summer break, which kind of stinks now because I am finally in the rhythm of things. Now I am able to wake up and get ready in less than 10 minutes and I even have time breakfast and time to pack a quick snack. Compared to me rushing to not keep our ride waiting my first couple weeks at school.
Luciana told me that there is a very good chance that this summer we will spend about two weeks sometime during the break in Chile and in Buenos Aires. I can't wait! The weather will be so nice. Yesterday it was 90 degrees. Unlike what I am used to in Washington, in the almost two month I have been here it hasn't rained yet. It's already so nice now so we'll see how hot it gets this summer. Luciana and I laid out for the first time a couple weeks ago on the roof, (don't worry I used sunscreen) having 3 summers in one year better show off in my tan. But getting up and down from there was defiantly a struggle. We used an old wooden ladder that got us about half way up and we scaled the wall for the rest. My knees are all scraped up from it. Now we aren't allowed to go up there because my mom is scared we'll get hurt.
My family here is so perfect and I feel like so much that I belong here. Which is the most amazing feeling. We are so comfortable with each other. My mom treats me just as one of her kids weather that means paying for most of the things i need and washing my cloths to me helping with washing the dishes after dinner taking out the garbage, running to the store to get something for dinner and any other things she might need help with. I don't mind helping around the house at all because I feel it's a great way to show the appreciation that I have for her for letting me in to her house. I am so blessed to have such an amazing family. Luciana even introduces me as her sister, from the US, I am so glad that the feeling of being a party of this family is mutual. This last Sunday was Mothers day and I got up early and made my mom a big American breakfast. Pancakes, french toast and hashbrowns. The hashbrowns were awful, they distribution even make it to the table. They were burnt and raw at the same time. Apparently you are supposed to bake the potato first and then shred and then fry it. I am going to give it another go next weekend. There is so many things from the USA that I want my family to do, try and to see. I have already invited them to come spend a couple weeks at my house back home over Christmas break next year. 
Speaking of the US I received my first package from my family back there. It had peanut butter, s'more stuff, pancake mix and syrup, and ranch. Just some stuff I couldn't live with out. Thanks mommy! I have had the peanut butter for a couple weeks now and looking how much is already gone I don't know how long this is going to last. I made s'mores with my family and to my surprise Daniela didn't like them! Luciana on the other hand couldnt get enough and Franco was scared to try them. I also made dinner for them, grilled cheese and tomato soup. The grilled cheese was easy and everyone liked it but the tomato soup was not such a hit. I used tomato pulp to start with and it went down hill from there. I ended up having to skype home for help from my mom. I guess your supposed to add baking soda and chicken broth. I would have never guessed. However the brownies went a lot better. I made them with some friends and they loved he batter just as much as the actual brownie. But the again that was our of a box. Everyone in my family liked them which is great. The next thing on my list after the big breakfast thing is chocolate chip cookies. I just need to find all the materials.
Luciana, Dani and I went to a Walmart here in town and I was able to find doughnuts, peanut butter (thank goodness), sour gummy worms, cup of noodle, and Hershey's chocolate. However no marshmallows or gram crackers.
Next weekend is Halloween in the USA and I am going to throw a Halloween party for all my friends. That means everyone will be wearing costumes, carving pumpkins, bobbing for apples, eating lots of candy and watching a scary movie. I am so excited. 

First Month

Today makes one month from home, and wow it doesn't feel like that at all!
It honestly feels like I have been a part of my host family my whole life.  I am so blessed to have 2 such amazing families now. We all get along so well and I love to be around them all.  My sisters, Luciana and Daniella are amazing, and so much fun! We have fun just sitting on the couch watching TV together.  My brother, Franco is really cool too. It's weird to have a brother for the first time in my life but I like it.

This past month I have done a ton of things.  I started school, which is really different than I expected.  There are about 200 students here; compared to the 2000 I'm use to at Skyview.  And being one of maybe 3 blue eyed blondes makes me stick out like a sore thumb. My first day of school I was so surprised to see that hardly any girls did their hair or wore makeup, compared to the every girl at Skyview that wears makeup. So many differences, at my school and I guess most of the schools in Argentina the teachers are the ones that switch classes, the students are in the same room all day.  But we have 3 fifteen minute breaks throughout the day. School starts at 7am and is over at 1pm. My classmates are so nice and so sweet to me. They are very patient with me while I'm "trying" to talk. My Spanish I feel is getting better though, which is the most relieving feeling. My vocabulary is constantly growing. I still have so many mistakes with grammar and all, it's more likely that I'm wrong than correct and I have had my fair share of word mix-ups but I'm getting there. But the language is not the hardest part surprisingly. The sleep schedule took me about two weeks to get used to. They go to bed at 11 or 12 at night then wake up at 6 in the morning for school. Waking up has defiantly been hard but then there is siesta where you’re supposed to sleep for an hour or two at 3 or so after lunch, but for the first couple weeks I would sleep for almost 4!

The food here is absolutely amazing! I'm learning how to make some of it to so I can have it when I'm back in the US. The pizza here has hardboiled eggs on it, as gross as that sounds it's so good. My Dad here makes a mean lasagna he's teaching me how to make. The ma-te is so good; I would take it over anything at Starbucks in a second. Oh, and the dolce de leche! I don't know how I ever lived with out it. I will find myself just eating it with a spoon sometimes hah.
In the month that I have been here I think I have seen the total of 3 cats and over 3000 dogs! There are so many dogs just running around everywhere. My biggest fear while walking down the street here is not getting hit by a car (which is kind of likely, because they don't have any cross walks and it seems that the stop signs and red lights are optional), or something bad happening to me, it is getting rabies. I am terrified of the stray dogs here. None of them have touched me yet thankfully and I plan to keep it that way.

Another challenge I am facing is time, I am kind of a planner and always on a schedule. Well, not here. It is perfectly accepted to show up to a party an hour late or 10 minutes late to class at school and that’s not just for the students but also for the teachers. So I just keep reminding myself to go with the flow, and being on time is really not that important. If I learn anything while I am here it's going to be patience!

Here I take the bus just about anywhere and I can spend up to 20 minutes waiting for it which can really put a damper on things. The bus really is not as bad as I used to think of it back at home, not saying I like it by any means but it's bearable, just like anything it just takes time to get used to. I don't know if this is all public buses but here the drivers are so impatient. I swear I have almost face planted into the ground or in some innocent persons lap half a dozen times because the driver doesn't even wait until you are seated or let alone have paid before driving off. So while turning sharp corners and accelerating he is taking money and giving tickets. It's crazy. But the first time on the bus I went with Luciana (my oldest host sister) and some friends to a friend’s house and my ticket was what they call 'capicua' when the number on the ticket is the same both ways, and I guess that is really lucky. So I was pretty excited about that.

My Argentinean Journey

Hello There!

For all who may not know me, I am Chaney Skadsen. I currently am a sophomore at Skyview High School.  I have been born and raised in Vancouver, Washington and have wondered what it would be like to live somewhere else (possibly somewhere where the sun might actually come out more often than it rains). Over the last couple months I have been working hard to get my AFS application submitted. AFS stands for the American Field Service. An intercultural program that has been around for quite a while. My Dad has also gone through this program when he was a Jr. in high school as I will be next year.

Now I am officially accepted and will be off to Argentina in a few short months. I choose Argentina for many reasons. First of all the climate sounds wonderful to me, but anywhere’s climate sounds better to me after living here all my life. The long coast and large mountain range would be great things to experience. My journey begins this August and I will return late July 2012.  I plan to fulfill my passion for learning the Spanish language, becoming bilingual and living a life of new culture. I am so excited I can hardly stand it. I am also so grateful to have such an amazing opportunity to study abroad. This is a once and a life time experience that I am fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of. Unfortunately this great experience comes with a large expense. But AFS has granted me a very helpful scholarship but I'm still working to cover the last of my tuition. In this month of April AFS is willing to match the first $500.00 dollars that I fundraise through my blog.