Life in a new country is full of adjustments, and living in Argentina I’ve had to make a lot more adjustments than I originally thought. Since I’ve been spending so much time at home, it’s been harder to integrate into my local community. I haven’t gotten to meet many new people or visit local places. However, there are many small ways I’ve started to learn about my community. I have talked with my landlady about her family and life in the city. I’ve talked to neighbors when we’ve both been out on our roofs walking and soaking up the sun. I helped one neighbor retrieve his cat Pepa, whom you may remember from earlier pictures, when she got stuck at my house.
One big change I noticed the first time I came to Argentina was dinnertime. Lots of people in the United States eat dinner at five, six, or seven o’clock. In Argentina, dinner at home could be around 8:30 pm, but if you are going to eat at a restaurant it usually starts at ten p.m. or even later. This was so hard for me! I would eat lunch around one, and then would be so hungry by the time dinner was ready to eat. Very quickly, I learned about a fun extra meal called merienda. The merienda is a mini-meal that people eat between lunch and dinner.
