Study Abroad in Santiago, Chile and Travels in South America 2013: A Swedish Story of A Girl And Her Turtle

Hola todos,

During my trip in Argentina, I met so many interesting and fun people. One of them that I met and became very close with, especially after Jason left, is Johan, who is from Sweden. The first time we met, he was sitting in the lobby by himself and we were about to go to the Tenedor Libre, so I invited him. He fit right in with the rest of us and it was so much fun. After that, he became a part of Jason's and my experience in Buenos Aires, considering he started to visit places with us. It was as if he had come with us from the beginning. Johan however, was not on vacation, but was actually beginning to study there. He was staying in the hostel while he tried to find an apartment to live in. This made me jealous; how I was finishing my travels in South America, yet he was just beginning them. It was funny though because he was viewing the city as if he were a tourist and would only be there for another week or so, just like Jason and me.
When Jason left, since Johan and I had gotten to know each other so well in the past few days, we stuck together and he continued to be my travel buddy.
Along the way, I also learned some Swedish!! They include: historien om mitt liv which means story of my life. For example, Person A: Ah I just failed a math test! Person B: Historien om mitt liv! I also learned Helvete which roughly means, Why me?!?! As in: We all decided to travel to Peru, but we didn't hear back from you so we just left. Person B: Helvete!! The final word I learned was ö, which means, island. I know that's random, but he tried to teach me the vowels, but I gave up because there are 9 vowels, that I can't even begin to try and pronounce. Either way, ö is one of them.
Johan and I got along very well because we have the same humor. One of the first times we met, I was talking to Jason and said something sarcastic and Johan laughed but Jason looked at me and said he didn't get it. My reply was, "Wait, English isn't even Johan's first language, yet he understood it. Really Jason?" From that moment on, I knew that Johan and I would work well together because he could understand my humor, therefore me. While I am talking about humor, some of the funniest things that happened on the trip were with Johan. The winner of this was actually due to his not-so-perfect Spanish (he agrees with this so I'm not mean): We were at the Sky Airlines office in Buenos Aires changing my flight, and it turned out that if the change in flights was made in Chile, I wouldn't have to pay the Argentina tax. Therefore, I was going to call my host mom to do it for me. The guy was saying I could use the company phone and told me to wait a minute while he got a piece of paper for me. However, Johan thought he said, "One minute" as in, you only have one minute to talk on the phone. So, he looked at me puzzled as to how I would be able to tell my host mom what was going on and ask if she could change it for me/give her the details of how to, all in Spanish. I let him know that the guy said to give him a minute to get a piece of paper before I made the call. We laughed about this afterwards, and Johan was saying how he could just imagine the guy taking out a huge clock that counted down the seconds, starting it the second I picked up the phone. Perhaps this story is a you-had-to-be-there story, but I hope you all find some humor in it.
There are so many other humorous events, but I won't go on and on about those. However, the last few days, we were talking about what we think of when we think of Argentina and he said that he thought of Arge 'n' Tina, a story about adventures with a girl named Tina and her pet turtle named Arge. Moments like that reminded me that he is Swedish.
All jokes aside, it was wonderful to travel and spend time with him during the last week of my trip and will, not hopefully, but definitely, see him when he comes and visits NYC in December. These experiences are the benefits of staying at hostels; you meet so many wonderful people, and I am so happy I met a Swedish boy named Johan.