I have officially lived in Mendoza, Argentina, for one month and am coming to terms with a newfound mindset that has kept me laughing throughout the experience – appreciating the little things in life.

I came to Argentina knowing I would make mistakes, and I prepared for my small moments of internal panic when someone would speak rapid-fire Spanish to me or for the times I would get lost while navigating the busing system in a foreign city.

One of the things I have learned while living abroad, though, is to laugh at yourself when you make those mistakes. The mistakes are inevitable, and new ones arise with every new experience. I now journal about all the funny things that happen to me every day, and these are just glimpses at some of the ridiculous, uncomfortable, laughable moments I’ve had here.

In addition to getting lost on the bus and showing up to brunch an hour late because the bus stop, which is five feet next to the other bus stop, turns out to run on a completely different busing system and the cab drivers never understand where I ask them to go. For my first few weeks here, I apparently read addresses backward, so none of the cab drivers understood where to take me. One cab driver actually turned around and started laughing after I requested to go to a specific street, and together we laughed for the first ten minutes of the ride until he finally understood what I was attempting to say.

I even got locked out of my bedroom in my homestay after closing the door, which I honestly had no idea would lock from the inside, while I was in a towel going to shower twenty minutes before I had to be in class. Thankfully, my host dad picked the lock, but my host mom and I laughed about me having to borrow her clothes to wear to school if I wasn’t going to get back into my room.

On Tuesdays, I have three hours of free time before my next class, so a group of five of us pile into a cab with room for only four people and stuff ourselves with pasta, burgers, pizza – you name it. And, of course, some gelato or tiramisu to top it off. In a country where red lights are essentially treated like stop signs, the rushed cab ride back to school for class at two pm is always an adventure, as the cab bounces along the road and all five of us in the back seat start sliding back and forth. We usually make it back to class on time, but one time we didn’t get our empanadas from the cafeteria on time and had to devour them during our lecture. Living abroad is an experience like no other; it’s absolutely hilarious.

I visited my friend’s apartment and rode the elevator up and down several times before figuring out that I needed to open the door aggressively in order to stop the elevator from moving. I came home with a bottle of wine that day in my backpack, and my host parents laughed with me about my hunched back when I walked through the door. My host mom proceeded to weigh my backpack and discovered it was 8 kilos, which turns out to be roughly 17 pounds. Who knew?

Living abroad has taught me to laugh at myself, even if I spend a little too much money on a cab or eat that extra dish of pasta (is that really a mistake though?). It is certainly not an easy adjustment, moving to a new country, but with the support of people around you who laugh at the silly moments you experience on a daily basis, you quickly realize everyone makes the same mistakes. Appreciating these little moments makes living in a foreign country that much more of a rewarding, unforgettable journey – a journey of a lifetime.