A simple exchange experience...

Being back in Elisa brings back so many memories, and all good... I was just a teenage girl looking to get away from my family for awhile wanting to experience something different than the typical high school experience (yes, it is quite ironic that I am back in high school as a profession)... when we had an assembly on exchange programs I couldn´t think of anything else more perfect- living with a new family, a place where no one knows you and learning to speak another language.  I never imagined it would turn into what it did and affect my life as it did... if I had never begged to study abroad, and the program to Spain hadn´t been full, and Mexico to close thanks to my mother saying how she could visit me, and Ecuador only having a 1 year program while I was only allowed to go for 6 months...I would have never ended up in Argentina.  I would have never experienced the all night boliches, or the asados en el campo (beef barbecued on farms), finishing school at 6:30 in the the afternoon, the endless rides in bike, moto, and car around town, the most perfect jeans that exist for women in Argentina, the most fabulous Italian food you will ever find outside of Italy, what it feels like to have endless amounts of grapefruit and orange trees in your backyard, or the warm sun pouring over you while drinking mate with your friends.. ah mate... or the endless countryside views, riding bikes down dirt roads, the Sunday afternoon soccer games or the all night soccer tournaments in the summer (everyones parks around the field, wait, around 10 pm there is an asado con cuero if you want to eat first, then entry to the field, teams from other towns come and it last until the last game is played around 5 am), the afternoons by the club pool, or what it feels like to sleep with a hot water bottle at your feet!  Or what it feels like to have an entire town know who you are and welcome you each time you come back as if you are one of them and they give you a piece of them each time you visit and you leave a part of you behind each time you go, and to this day, children saying hello as you ride by knowing who you are without you knowing them. I can´t imagine a life without all those experiences I never would have had if I didn´t beg to go on an exchange program, and the program to Spain hadn´t been full, and Mexico to close thanks to my mother saying how she could visit me, and Ecuador only having a 1 year program while I was only allowed to go for 6 months...I would have never ended up in Argentina... Elisa, Santa Fe, Argentina, a place that feels more like home than anywhere else, even my real home...