My host family is very nice. They only consist of my host mom, about the same age as my real mom, and my host sister, who's 22, the same age as my real sister. Coincidence? Who knows. It is nice though, as I have the freedom to come and go as I please and do whatever I want.
However, living with a host family, not to mention in a foreign country, is somewhat of a lifestyle shock after being in college for two years. When I was a freshman, I lived in Roskie, and when I was a sophomore, I lived in a house with 3 other roommates. After having such freedom for two years, and friends around me at all times, it is weird living with an Argentine family. I can't really invite people over to my house to hang out because it's not my house. I can't go to other people's houses to hang out because they live with host families too. This makes having a social life ridiculously difficult, or ridiculously expensive. Hanging out with people takes a lot of effort here. First you must come up with an idea of something people want to do. Then make sure people can come. Then make sure whatever it is doesn't involve spending too much money, because we're all broke college kids. But if you can't hang out at somebody's house, you basically have to spend money, whether it be at the bar or at a restaurant or in transit or doing any activity, everything has a price.
Along with the social life difficulties are the difficulties of adhering to your host family's schedule. In a host family, you get breakfast and dinner included. You pay for it, so you want to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, Argentines aren't big on breakfast, and they think that Americans love corn flakes. My "included breakfast" consists of corn flakes and coffee. I do not like corn flakes, so I stopped eating those a while ago and just buy my own breakfast food. Also, Argentines eat dinner extremely late. I mean ridiculously late. On Thursday I ate dinner with my host mom at 10:00 pm. Honestly, I hate that schedule. It's extremely unhealthy. I like to eat a big breakfast, a smaller lunch, and a smaller dinner, and I don't like eating anything past 7 or 8 at night. Argentines are the opposite. They eat their entire calorie intake for the day at dinner, which happens between 8:30 and 10:00 depending on the night, and then they go to sleep. I can't sleep immediately after eating. I don't even want to eat at that point. In order to be hungry at dinner time, I basically have to starve all day, which makes me incapable of doing anything productive, which I don't like either. But, I paid for dinner, I should eat it. It's a vicious cycle. I am very glad it's almost over.
This is just one more reason it's easy to gain weight while studying abroad. If you live with a host family, you can't make your own dietary choices. If you're like me and are usually hungry for dinner around 6 or 7, and you have to eat a snack to tide you over for dinner, you end up eating an entire meal you could probably do without.
But, there are pros and cons to everything. My host family is really nice, and I'm glad I live with them. They are good to practice my Spanish with and through them I have definitely been able to experience Argentine culture firsthand.
Of course, if you live with anybody for a long enough period of time, they are going to get on your nerves. It's been over 4 months, so clearly some things have started to bother me, like the late dinner time. But, as all things come to an end, I think I'll survive my last week with my host family, and I'll miss them when I leave.
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