So unlike the title could suggest, until now everything is fine for me. I really enjoy to be here and get quite used to the everyday life and how all things work. Beyond that, all the guys I have met (especially my pension mates) are amazingly friendly and helpful, I think we’re having a lot fun The only thing where we definitely will never agree with each other is the question on how to drink red wine: they seriously cool it down with lots of ice cubes and dilute it with sparkling water. But on the other hand I must admit that they really know how to prepare the food, especially everything that has to do with “carne”, e.g. the “asado”, national dish of Argentina (and with the preparation considered to be an art), which we eat nearly every week-end (no meat in Europe can be compared to that!).

Regarding the main reason why I am here, everything is going very well. Even if everything is taught in “castellano”, I understand most of the topics during class (mainly because the professors tend to explain everything slowly and in a very clear way). And the practical exercises (mainly written format) have not been that hard until now. So it is working much better than expected. Furthermore, the professors and assistants are really open and friendly to me and already offered me their help and particular courses if some day I need it or have any questions. I think they’re somehow interested in the rather exotic student attending their classes , and want to know everything about the high school system in Germany and the topics I have already taken there. The same holds for my classmates. Nevertheless, last week a quite impressive event happened at the campus. Since it was raining INCREDIBLY hard (truly, I have never seen such rain before, two seconds and you feel like just having taken a big shower), the courses were suspended and we were told to go home for safety. At first, I wasn’t taking it too seriously, but quickly I understood that it was no fun. I took more or less the last bus driving from the campus back to the city, but I think a boat would have been better for swimming over the roads (I’m not even sure we always followed the road as water was everywhere). Fortunately in Tandil there was no big damage (although they don’t know what canalization mean), but for instance in the next town (Azul) or in Buenos Aires the water has caused considerable accidents and devastation ….

Another quite interesting story concerns the achievements of the local bureaucracy. After having already spent tons of hours and money for different documents in Germany, I was given the chance of comparing the efficiency of both systems. For only two little documents (one of those is an Argentine penal record to be sure that I have not become a serious criminal yet):

• on a Friday I went to an office (at one end of the town) where you request those documents to be told to come back an Monday
• I returned there on Monday to be told to come back on Tuesday (yes, surprisingly it worked the third time)
• in order to complete the application, first I had to pay 130 Argentine pesos in that office and then 50 Argentine pesos in a specific bank (of course at the other end of the town)
• then I went to another office (again at the other end of the town) for another document needed, for this I had to pay 5 pesos (~ 1€) more in a second bank (please don’t ask why it is not possible to pay everything once at the same place)
• I continued my journey by going to the police station (hey, it is right in the middle of the city!) where I needed to let them take my fingerprints
• unfortunately the responsible officer was not there, so I came back the next day (don’t think of a modern machine for taking the fingerprints, and it is almost impossible to get rid of the used color)
• finally I returned to the first office where everything started and astonishingly one week later I had all the required documents together

Right now it is the university’s turn to do some magic for completing my visa application. Supposedly when everything else is ready I will have to go to an office in Mar del Plata and perhaps be able to finish this process, such that I am allowed to stay here for more than 90 days with the official status of an exchange student. To be continued

I think this is more or less what has happened since my last post. As a conscientious student, for sure I will continue to attend my courses, but since there are still a few free days to come (due to weeks of resit-exams), I will maybe see whether I could go for some smaller trips, for example to the Iguazú falls, as the weather there is already pretty warm but we still have the low-season period. And of course, I will support Juan Martin del Potro during the coming US open, because he is from Tandil (I know where he used to have his training sessions) and is seen as a kind of national hero here in the town