The morning began with a great success: I got up on time at around 6:20am! The night before, I played in a soccer match with my partner and his friends against another group of friends from a different part of the city. Before arriving to the field, my partner told me to not talk to anyone that he doesn’t know. In addition, he also told me to sag my shorts in order to “look less American”. Despite my efforts I think my lack of Spanish and soccer abilities gave it away. The match went late, and we didn’t get home until around 10:30 for us to have dinner. Therefore, it is safe to say my biggest accomplishment of the day was waking up on time for my first day of school. We had a 25-minute commute to school and I’d say my main takeaway is how unorganized and aggressive the driving is.
School starts at 7:30 and during the school day we toured the school and met all the classes and different grades. The school is much smaller than Cary Academy with each grade having roughly 25 students. We went and visited the Quilmes day care and kindergarten. It was so adorable, and it truly put into perspective how our exchange students have all grown up together by going to the same daycare all the way to the same sophomore year class. At 12:10 we walked to a restaurant for lunch where I had my 4th milanesa (a thin piece of fried chicken or steak) this trip. Class started again at 2:00 where we visited the elementary school. In small groups we gave various presentations with ours on American sports. The students were fascinated and as we were leaving, they swarmed us and asked for our signatures as if we were celebrities. We then returned to the high school where we finished the school day with a presentation on comparative history of the United States and Argentina. It was nearly impossible to pay attention as I was exhausted and half awake. The school day finally wrapped up at 5:00. We then spent the evening at a friend’s house where we watched a movie and ate dinner. This evening, I realized the amazing hospitality these various families have for each other. The friend’s mom made steak and made absolutely sure we stuffed ourselves. We then headed home, and I quickly fell asleep around 11pm. -Deven
This was our first day at Quilmes High School. I woke up at 6:45, got ready, had breakfast, and arrived at QHS at 7:45. We stood in lines in the school courtyard and watched them play the national anthem and raise the flag. Then, the head of school made an announcement about all of us Cary students being there and we stood at the front and introduced ourselves. Next, we walked to a classroom with our partners where there were some really good cookies and cake for us to have as a welcome breakfast! We then hung out with our partners there for a second before they had to go to class.
Then we heard a presentation about QHS and had a tour of the school. When we returned to the classroom, they gave us really cute QHS hats! Throughout the day, QHS students have ten-minute breaks. I liked that because that meant I got to hang out with my partner in between her classes and my activities. The next thing we did was visit the day care and kindergarten. The kids were SO cute! A lot of them were shy and didn’t want to play, but some of them were really, really excited and happy. In one class, we sat in a circle and played music and sang songs. It was so fun, and the kids were so cute.
Next was lunch, for lunch we went out to a pizza restaurant. The pizza was really good, more similar to Italian pizza and way better then pizza in the US. We ordered a couple of different types, but the Margherita pizza was my favorite. We then went for gelato at Luchiano’s. It was amazing, the gelato here is so much better. I got pistachio cheesecake and dulce de leche, but they also had Dubai chocolate which I tried, and it was amazing.
After this, we started doing our presentations about the US in the elementary school. We presented to a group of 11-year-olds, and they were so funny. This was my favorite part of the day because they asked thoughtful and entertaining questions. They also asked us for our autographs and treated us like we were famous, which was so funny. Then once the school day was over, we went to Gaia’s house and had snacks and played games. It was a lot of fun! Then my partner’s family took me into Buenos Aires to go to the River Plate Stadium where there is a restaurant that has a view of the field. I had milanesa de pollo and it was really good. I also really liked seeing the stadium. Then we drove back to her house and went to sleep! – Elina
