Day Three Hundred Eight: Cine Argentino

I had yet another opportunity to participate in an activity with Jeff's school today: Cine Argentino. Jeff had attended one of these video-viewing events a couple of weeks ago which was apparently quite colorful, and he ended up learning some vocabulary they don't teach in class, although he did report that it was a great way to practice listening to Spanish and to learn more of the culture of Argentina. I was hesitant to go today because I really didn't want to watch a crude movie, but since I very much wanted to get out of the house, I decided at the last minute to walk over to the school and check it out. It turned out to be fine. In honor of the first day of the World Cup, we watched a comedy about a man addicted to watching fútbol (soccer, for those of you in the U.S.) whose wife issues him an ultimatum, which was the movie's namesake: El Fútbol o Yo. With the Spanish subtitles to go along with the Spanish dialogue (and with the predicable plot), I was able to follow along pretty well in my first all-Spanish movie viewing. Woohoo!

Day Two Hundred Ninety-Four: Museo del Area Fundacional

Jeff's school had an outing to a local museum scheduled this afternoon, and I decided to join Jeff there after his classes, even though the kids weren't interested in going. Therefore, my first First of the day was wandering around the city by myself on this cold, wet day looking for a cab. There were plenty around, but either they weren't available or they were on the other side of the street and super hard to hail. I had no luck, so I was just generally heading in the direction of the museum when Jeff called to say that his driver and our guide for the afternoon would pick me up if I would just stay where I was. I was directly across the street from a Shell station, which seemed like a good place for them to meet me. I didn't count on having to play a live version of Frogger to get over there, but that just added to the adventure. When Jeff and Maggie picked me up, I found out that it is "impossible" to get a cab at that time of day (12:30) because it's rush hour. Interesting.

The museum commemorates the birth of the city and actually sits atop the original governor's palace, which was buried by an earthquake at some point. The museum itself seems to be a working excavation site for the palace and the original plaza, which was pretty cool. I somehow managed to follow most of the Spanish tour until the very end when it became like drinking from a fire hose. I was glad to hear later that it felt the same to Jeff. My favorite exhibit was the "Water Room," which explained how Mendoza would be nothing but dry desert if it weren't for the irrigation systems that were developed to divert water from the Mendoza River, which is one of several that flows down from the Andes. This city seems lush, with gorgeous tree-lined streets and so many large parks, but all that is basically fake. Everything has been planted and absolutely nothing grows here naturally. I loved the photo of the installation of the first fountain which showed a background that looks very similar to our family's ranch in west Texas. We have been to the park that houses that fountain, and I can assure you you would never guess it was originally a desert.

The most hilarious part of the tour was near the end of the fire hose speech when our guide (and ride) suddenly said she was leaving and wished us luck with finding a taxi to get back home. Jeff and I kind of looked at each other to see if we were understanding correctly, and the next thing we knew, we were receiving our customary cheek kisses and a wave. Thankfully, the rain had let up, but it was still pretty cold, and of course, we had to walk quite a distance before finding a cab. We got a good laugh out of the situation, and I told Jeff I was kind of glad for it since it meant I actually got to walk the entire route to/from the museum.

Museo del Area Fundacional

A mural of the original plaza faces the new plaza,
which has been built over the original.

The entrance to the museum reveals
 the ongoing excavation.

A fountain in the desert

The same park now

Day One Hundred Nineteen: Udemy

Udemy had a huge Black Friday sale, and I decided to purchase some classes for the betterment of myself and my kids. Clay has been doing a kid-friendly watercolor class, which he absolutely loves and which has been saving this art teacher's sanity the last couple of weeks. Today, I started a Spanish course, not for a kid or for school, but just for me, which felt like a treat. Based on these two classes, I could definitely see us utilizing Udemy for more classes in the future.

Day Ninety: italki

Today was my first time to experience italki, an online language learning site that connects potential language learners with native speakers of all kinds of languages for an immersion type experience. I sat in on Jeff's class but was encouraged to participate as I could. I was kind of a nervous wreck, since my speaking Spanish is even worse than my reading Spanish. But I got through it with the help and patience of both Jeff and the tutor, a very sweet Venezuelan woman, who now lives in Peru. It's pretty amazing how small the world is and how connected we all are. If my bravery holds out, I will open my own italki account and try to dive into Spanish a bit more.

Day Eighty-Nine: Translate an Article

Jeff has been taking online Spanish classes for a while and has been encouraging me to try it out as well. As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been quite rebellious about doing this for mostly unknown reasons. But, I finally agreed to sit in on a class with Jeff tomorrow, so tonight I spent some time doing the homework, which was to translate an article about discrimination in schools in Spain towards immigrants and ethnic minorities that mirrors discrimination in other parts of daily life. I have not done any serious Spanish study in quite a long time, so it was a struggle to get through the article, and I was tired after I did it. But, I did it (with a little help from Google Translate). Talking in class tomorrow will be an entirely different matter, but at least I'm taking baby steps.

Un informe en espanol