New semester (SS 2010)

Now, being back in good (c)old Germany, I’m trying to fall back into the old everyday life. But it is definitely not as easy as you always imagine. Culture shock does not happen when you go TO a “foreign” country but when you come back FROM it, into your home country believed to be familiar!

The time flying back seemed to me like passing in a flash. I usually traveled twenty hours in bus the last three months. Therefore the thirteen hours by plane were like peanuts.
Of course Tina and I had problems with baggage over weight.  We had the chance to weight our baggage in front of the airport and could rearrange all stuff. I had about ten kilos too much. At the end I had two cases, my backpack, my laptop bag, and a huge plastic bag with my carnival mask and other stuff I needed on the air plane. But I didn’t have to pay any fee.

Leaving Buenos Aires we had 36°C. Arriving in Hanover I was freezing at 0°C - a shock! The first week at home I had to experience snow after all. I froze my balls off! At least I could enjoy a last Feuerzangenbowle (”Flaming Fire Tongs Bowl“, a hot red wine punch with a sugar cone soaked in rum lit above it) for this winter!

The abrupt change from the Argentinian everyday life to the German way is more difficult as I thought:
First of all, the Argentinian day has 25 hours and you can definitely feel it. There you go out for dinner at 10pm at the earliest, and here in Germany your day “ends” already at 8pm when you have to meet your friends or family yet. In my town there are no buses bringing you home after 11.30pm while in Buenos Aires they circulate all day and night through. And although Argentina is a threshold country you can use WiFi in every café for free - and there are cafés every 50m. In Germany I still have to pull myself together when it comes to traffic. I hate wasting my precious time of life waiting for green - even though there is not a living soul as far as the eye can see! I guess I have to be patient?!

I stayed at my parent’s house for one month till I found a new place to live in my university city. I now got my own nice floor with living, kitchen, bath, sleeping, office, and corridor.

Semester is quite stressful cause I can work twice as much in my old job. I started with the course Portuguese 2 (Portuguese 1 was only offered last semester) but I don’t have any difficulties to keep up in this course.

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Update (middle of May):

I’m still fighting against some of the culture shock - especially the weather! I fear, this is the punishment for trying to “skip” German winter… I want to go back to South America!!!

Countdown

There have been only nine more days left till today when I have to fly back to Germany…

For the last week, after the trip to the waterfalls of Iguazú and to Brazil, I theoretically planned to go to Salta in the north of Argentina but there were neither time nor money left. Therefore I used these last days to walk the city to try capturing every corner I haven’t seen or hasn’t been on a photo yet:

I participated at a guided tour through the Casa Rosada waving from the balcony to the people of Argentina, visiting an art exhibition in the Biblioteca Nacional also trying to take a picture from the city, looking in on the university for the last time, visiting the Tango museum seeing some original object from famous tango celebrities as Troilo and Gardel and enjoying the art sculptures of tango couples, taking tango lessons at the DNI Tango school every day and eating as much beef as possible closing our semester abroad with some international friend in the parilla restaurant La Cabrera having a Vulcano de Chocolate, an unforgettable dream!

At the end, time was to short so that I could see everything. Therefore I definitely have to come back to Buenos Aires one day!!!