Brooke Thomas - NSW to Argentina

Tue 18 Aug 2009

Brooke Thomas, from Coonabarabran in NSW, has recently arrived in Argentina on her 5 month student exchange program. She recently sent us an update of her first few weeks in her new country:

“Hi, Greetings from Argentina! I have been in Argentina 3 weeks now, and I am having such a great time so I thought I would let you know what I have been up to.

Firstly I was really anxious about flying by myself, and having a stopover in New Zealand. There was a big delay in New Zealand with the plane, but apart from that everything went well. As we were travelling the plane seemed to follow the darkness, so in the 24 hours of travel I only saw about 3 hours worth of daylight!

I arrived in Buenos Aires at about 8pm and travelled by bus to Rosario, which was about 4 hours away. I was really lucky and didn’t get any jetlag, whereas a lot of people in the group had it for about 3 days.

The first week in Rosario was really great! As well as learning heaps more Spanish I got to see all the sights of the city, which was really lovely. After that first week, I flew to my new hometown, San Martin de los Andes. Here it’s freezing, and I don't think I have ever been to a place so cold! It snows and rains basically everyday. The town is so lovely, it's a small city in a gully surrounded by huge snowcapped mountains.

My family is really nice and we all get along very well, and even though they speak no English we can still have a conversation, which is good. I have been in San Martin for two weeks now, and I have been to school for one week. The school here is so different. It starts at 1pm and goes to 7pm. The school is much smaller than my school in Australia, but I really like it. School is hard, but a lot of the teachers can speak a little bit of English, and I have made heaps of really great friends. A few of them speak very good English, so they help me when I don´t understand.

This town is a very touristy town, so there are many things to do. The weather hasn’t been good enough to do anything yet, but when it gets better I am going to learn to ski up in the mountains which I am really excited about. I am also going to join the local soccer club as a friend of mine plays for them.

The people are very welcoming here, and everyone wants to talk to you and get to know you.

I would just really like to say thank you to you and all the people at Student Exchange Australia for making this happen. I am really enjoying the experience, and I am so happy that I am here, and I would encourage everyone I know just to do it! I can’t express my gratitude.”

Bye for now,

Brooke

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