post #1

hello everyone. you are well, i trust. a little story, if i may: so there i was, going about my day today, checking my email, checking my facebook, and i noticed that joleen (a middlebury classmate) had written me and was wondering how to make a blog. as if i would know? i am not the biggest blog person (kind of an understatement), but i do know that a lot of people use blogger, so i started writing her a message with the link to this site, and then i clicked on it to make sure it worked. it did, and when i got on the page, it showed that i was already partly logged in with my gmail address. i thought, "hey cool, let's see if i try and get in with my gmail password, whether it lets me in." and it did! "well that's neat," i thought. and then it seems i accidentally set up a blog. so here i am, i guess it was a sign, i might as well try it out for a bit and see how often i actually update this thing.

now that i'm on here, i will be giving the link to whoever may want it (yes, including my parents) and i'll try and write about some thoughts, experiences, and in general my time here. also i'll try and put some pictures up on here so you have more of a visual look at how things are going. feel free to pass the link to this blog on, and also- COMMENT COMMENT COMMENT! one of the reasons i am not a blog fan is because i like to have a handle on who i am talking to, and with blogs you just don't know, i think that's kind of lame. but i love to hear from others, no matter who- i don't care if i've never met you, or if you were stalking me on facebook and clicked on this site, talk to me, let me know, i want to hear from you! if you have questions, i will try to answer them here, and if you have comments, i want to hear them! just don't be obnoxious, duh.
another thing- obviously, i prefer one on one contact any day, aka i prefer emails to one person, and then receiving responses, as opposed to writing to an anonymous audience, so if you want a more personal look into things here than this blog will give you, comment with your email address, and i might email you (ha. if i like you, that is.) and if you write back, we can keep going like that. i'm not putting my personal email address on this site because i just got a new one to keep spam away and i don't want to make it any easier for those horrible genital-enlargement-programs or african banks interested in money transfers to find the newest way to contact me.

*ON WITH THE SHOW*
so for those of you who don't know, my name is hannah. i'm just beginning my junior year at middlebury college. oh yeah, i wanted to make this blog visually stimulating, so i'll start that now. here's me at a party at midd. gawgeous, dahling, i know. thank you, thank you.
so anyway. although i attend middlebury, i'm now in buenos aires, argentina, starting off a year abroad. so far i've been having a lovely time. but i know what all of you gossip-mongers want to know- what do i not like about argentina? ok, fine, i'll humor you, geesh.

-it's WINTER! it's COLD! also, i've had a cold since i got here on july 18th- it's now august 19th, you do the math. it's very uncomfortable and i've been doing what everyone tells me to do, but nevertheless it seems that i am doomed to be "that gringa who blows her nose a lot" in this country. oh lordy. hopefully i will get rid of it though, and just in time for some warm weather. preferably sooner rather than later... (i know that in a few months, i'll be whining about how scorching it is here, but hey, that's later, focus on the here and now, please)

-i love being in a big city, and seeing all the different people and places and things, and in my case i have been getting to know all this exceptionally well, because i am always getting lost here. it's not a serious kind of getting lost, just, you know, realizing i'm going up a street when i should be going down it, or getting off a bus a few stops too early or too late, etcetc. this is a negative aspect now only because it's cold, and because it's a pain to get everywhere late. however, i keep telling myself this is only temporary, because as i get to know the city more and more, i will (hopefully) get lost less and less, and the times i DO get lost will be nice strolls because they will be few and far between and it will be warmer as i am attempting to to find my destination. right? RIGHT?

-i'm sure i will have more complaints as time goes on. stay tuned.

what do i like?
-that my spanish is improving. obviously i have lightyears to go still with the language, but just watch, i'll be talking like a porteña in no time. and you'll all be jealous.
-that i am getting to know my argentinian relatives. pictures to follow. sorry, i still haven't taken any pictures of la familia, give me some time and i promise i will.
ok this compare and contrast what i don't like vs what i like is getting boring, so now i will change the subject. don't worry, i like more than two things about this place, i just don't feel like writing them all out, i've decided.

so in order to contribute to the visual-stimulation aspect of this blog, i will now take the opportunity to stick in some pictures that i already have of my time here (hint- if you click on the pictures, you can look at bigger versions of them):


these are the other middkids and me in buenos aires; we were at a yale function at the MALBA, a modern art museum here in buenos aires. schicki micki!


this is me after getting made-up argentine-style by my housemate, klaudia. in the background you can see a little bit of our apartment.


this is also me. hello.


this is me together with klaudia (my housemate, on the right) and her friend gaby. if you drink coca-cola, you will always have a good time.


these three are from when i went to tigre, out in the 'burbs of buenos aires with amanda, a middkid in BA, and ashleigh and alethia, two girls from middlebury who are studying abroad in chile for the semester, but came to take a break here in lovely city of buenos aires. in the first photo, you can see ashleigh and alethia's backs, and the second photo is somewhere in tigre, and the third photo is me putting on leg-warmers that i bought in the market in tigre. the market is very well known around the world. and my leg warmers are COOL, even though they keep me warm. amazing how some accessories can retain aspects of both temperatures, isn't it?

as time goes on i will hopefully put photos that show more of the city and time here, but for now this is all i've got. by the way, i forgot to warn you that i tend to write a lot when i write. if this bothers you, i'm not forcing you to read this, although i figure if you've made it this far, it probably isn't bothering you.
i'm going to go now, i hope you enjoyed my first entry, don't forget to tell all your friends, comment, and check back in a few days!