Trip to Argentina

The international IB exchange (which stands for International Baccalaureate) activity took place this year. The second part will be next year.

What is it? A person from our school, Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, goes to his partner’s school in Argentina. Then, the partner will come next year. This activity is to help people discover cultures of another country.

I and 9 other people, including a teacher from Brébeuf, left for Argentina on August 13th. We took a flight to Toronto, then to Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was roughly a thirteen-hour trip. During the flight I enjoyed a few movies. We landed in Argentina and went straight to school. That gave me almost no time to sleep: the flight from Montreal was at 5:00PM, and we arrived at Buenos Aires around 7:00AM, the next day.

We had breakfast with our partners. We ate a very sweet kind of croissant, called medialunas, which is a typical Argentinian dessert. For the first few days, I learned Spanish, studied programming, and helped some students with their French.

My partner’s name is Juan, and he lives in a country club: an euphemism for gated communities. It’s a private residential community surrounded by fences and walls. Theft and robberies are common in Argentina, and that is why there are a lot of country clubs. He lives in a very big house, of a size that is rare to find in Montreal. The gated community is located at Pilar, 30 minutes from Buenos Aires.

We first visited the city of San Antonio de Areco. We explored a church and a gaucho museum. Our teacher led us to a chocolate shop. One of the workers there showed us a video about the way they made alfajores, a typical candy of Argentina. Later, we ate at a local restaurant. I gobbled milanese, which is “breaded meat,” and I really liked it. With our stomachs full we continued our journey and visited a museum that featured cannons and primitive tools, though I am not sure about the name of the museum.

The next day, we visited an ecological site where I saw snakes and spiders in showcases, which scared me. After that, we ate at another restaurant. It was pasta with chicken parmigiana. It was good, but the portion was too small for me. I remained hungry for the rest of the trip. After that, we explored another church. I learned about the confessionals in a church.

In the weekend we visited one of an Argentinian student’s farm, located at a two- hour drive from Buenos Aires. I devoured chorizo bread, another very tasty meal. I rode a horse for the second time in my life and tried a little bit of polo. A gigantic mansion dominated the farm. It had a ping pong table and two pool tables downstairs, so we played for a while.

Next day, I visited Buenos Aires with Juan. His father drove us around and showed some important buildings, like the Canadian embassy and the pink house (the White House of Argentina). One day later we checked another museum in Tigre, the museum of ships. We saw different kinds of ships, from heavily decorated ones of the 17th century to the modern ships equipped with missile launchers. We saw the kind of torpedoes and bombs used in the first and second world wars.

Later on, there was a week of school. The last day approached, and we had a meeting where we shared our experiences of this trip. For the flight, I woke up at 4:00 AM, and then returned to Montreal around 1:00 AM. Bye Argentina! Hello Montreal and a ruined sleep schedule!

Photo credit to Jean de Brebeuf – IB exchange program

Departure from Montreal – group photo:

Arriving at the partner school in Argentina -in front of the entrance:

@Carpenter class:

@ Hockey room:

@ the classroom:

What are you doing? @ restaurant (milanese):

@ workshop:

In front of a church – San Antonio de Padua:

With Ombu tree:

Picnic @ a farm:

Horse riding with Juan:

@ mansion-at-the-farm:

A weekend full of actions:

Carefree laughter:

Outdoor luncheon!

@ another restaurant:

Near the ocean:

Outing:

Lots of pets:

“The major sheep-producing area in Argentina is the Patagonia region in the south where there is around 10.5 million sheep, of which 75 per cent are Merino”: