5-26 Here We Come! Buenos Aires!

By: Eric

We arrived in Argentina to a wonderful sight… people wearing surgical masks. Since the flight was coming from America, to prevent from getting the flu if people on the plane are contaminated, the workers at the airport wore the masks. They checked us to see if we had the flu also. A doctor stood by one of the first doors who checked out our eyes to see if there were any signs of the flu. There was also a camera with a thermal lens to check our core body temperature. It was a great start to our wonderful trip we were about to undergo. We arrived at our hotel. Gran hotel Argentino. It seemed like a nice place and the spiral staircase was a cool accessory, but when we arrived in our rooms we soon realized it wasn’t the BEST hotel we could be in. The first clue was the old key that we got for our room. The streets were amazing, and just walking out of the hotel you could see the main avenue with the 16 lanes.
All of us were pretty much dead. We were given very little time to rest before we went on a walk around the city. It was chilly. We walked for quite a while and we arrived to a pedestrian shopping mall. Basically like a normal mall just not inside. Walking through the stores we saw interesting sights such as the drug store that has the slogan “open 25 hours,” along with maybe about 3 burger kings on this street as well. We went into an enclosed mall and the first thing we saw was the beautiful fountain right in the middle. It was amazing. The roof was painted on. There were some cool shops such as a Sony shop there.
The lunch at the hotel was wonderful. The three course meal seemed to be a bit too much for everyone it seemed... except me. It started with a salad and this tortilla looking thing with a nice sauce. The entrée for the day was a piece of steak on a bed of vegetables with a side of French fries, very formal French fries. The desert was a little bit of vanilla ice cream with an amazing brownie drizzled in a warm fudge sauce.
We went out shopping and browsing afterwards. We went to an interesting place where the buildings were all different colors with outdoor restaurants and free tango performances. We were all given time to browse the shops and many of us found some nice things… shot glasses, shirts, magnets.
It was around 6 when we returned, and most of us were dead tired. We were given some time to sleep until we had to be downstairs and ready to go to dinner around 8:30.
I was woken up abruptly by loud banging on our door and what seemed like people breaking in. The door opened showing Tiffany, Zach, and Ian. All of them screamed that we had swine flu (we didn’t of course.) At first I thought we had swine flu and were to be quarantined in our rooms but they explained that it was actually North Hills High school that we were to attend. A student returning from Disney world got sick and the entire school is closed for 14 days. We were unable to go and stay with our families. We were all pretty much depressed and mad and tired and bored and everything.
After the bad news we went to la bistecca, an all you can eat restaurant with an interesting choice of foods. Everything was amazing. Even the water and the soda tasted better than the stuff in America. We went back the hotel with time to hang out and sleep before waking up early tomorrow morning to go to Uruguay.

5-25 Magician At The Airport

By J.T.

Today at the Miami airport was crazy. Everyone always had something to do, even though we were stuck there for four hours. For example, Max Henning had actually lost his wallet for a little while. Although this caused a scare, Wynton ended up finding it and becoming the heroine of the day. Once Max had his wallet, it gave him the rest of the 3 and a half hours to talk to his girlfriend. As he did that, Jack Stutesman dazzled us all with his magical card skills. With flawless execution and precision of the right hand, he was able to trick everyone. Once he passed the trick onto Paul Vandergrift, Paul went around and displayed his newly obtained knowledge to tired bystanders in the airport. With camera crew JT and Kramer on the scene filming the excursions, not a moment was missed. It did seem to intimidate some people though. As time passed, Max Braun just listened to music. He, along with a few other people, was saving his energy for Argentina. Scott Kenney made sure to have a good time, telling jokes and creating conversation with the people sitting down. While everyone had their fun, Laura and Alex seemed to have the most fun with a puppet they made from a paper bag that they named “Crack.” They would set the puppet up in various locations and take pictures with it. Senor Quesada even posed with it. Now that we are situated on the airplane, many people are sleeping, and some are watching “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” for the second time over. Even though the hours have been long, this group of individuals has forged new ideas and creative ways to do things in order to make everything fun. We are having a great time on the plane and plan to have an even better time in Argentina.

(P.S. by Ming-An
Vic accidently met several former students of Cary Academy at RDU airport while waiting, those who just graduated from college weeks ago, they asked: “are they as crazy as we were?’ and Vic smiled back with a mystery facial expression. It’s always good to meet former students especially know they all are doing great in language and everything else. Kramer’s first flight was very good except the ruff landing, but the second landing at Buenos Aires was awesome.
We arrived at Buenos Aires airport safe and sound, J. T. fell to sleep in the plane even he swore he will keep awake entire trip. Everyone got luggage with no problem, and right away started intense Spanish practice with our tour guide, and senior Quesada switched to complete Spanish as well, therefore basically I am the only one need interpreter here. We checked in hotel already and in one and half hours will start our journey in Argentina. Personally I feel this is a very good group of students, they are polite, eager to learn, cannot wait to practice their Spanish, so far they all are well behaved.)

Pre-trip

Necesitan escribir un ensayo sobre las expectativas que tienen de Argentina. Tienen que tener el ensayo listo para el jueves 21 de mayo.