[me with General San Martín at the Plaza San Martín]
Today I had my final exam for my Intensive Spanish class; it consisted of a written and an oral portion. The written part was great but the oral part was much more difficult; it's rather hard to think on the spot in a foreign language, even when you have a little time to prepare. Our teacher told us what we had to talk about and then gave us about 20 minutes to prepare, and we did it in small groups. I'm not sure if that made it better or worse...
Anyway, since I haven't talked much about my class, it was five days a week for 4 weeks from 10-3. There were a total of seven people in my class and we had two different teachers who taught on different days of the week. Both of them were really nice and really good teachers! I definitely learned a lot from them, even though all of the grammar we learned was review for me, it's hard to remember everything until you've had it drilled into your head a few times.
My favorite part of class was all of the vocabulary I learned, both Argentina-specific and generally useful words and phrases. Whenever we would start talking about a random topic in class (which was often), our teachers would seize the opportunity to teach us related vocabulary, since of course we always had to speak in Spanish. It was very entertaining; I highly recommend the program!
Now I have a whole week off from school until the semester here starts July 26 (don't worry, the semester at MSU doesn't start until August 30, if you are lucky enough to be going there)!
In celebration of my successful completion of the intensive class, and to seize my only long vacation I will have in Argentina, I'm going to leave tomorrow night for Mendoza, a region west of Buenos Aires fairly close to Chile which is famous for its wine. It's also in the mountains, which is far more exciting for me than the wine aspect! I'll be there for three days, and from there I'm going to Salta, which is much farther north and also in the mountains, and contains the highest concentration of National Parks in the northern part of Argentina. I'm traveling with a friend from my program and we're taking buses everywhere, which means a looooot of travel time, but it's also waaay cheaper than flying! And, the buses we are taking have beds, so we can sleep. I've definitely driven further distances in my car (aka: Bozeman to Anchorage), so I'm just happy I don't have to drive!
If I don't have a chance to update again before I leave, stay tuned for the stories of my adventures!
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