First days in Buenos Aires

I finally made it to Buenos Aires! I arrived on Friday morning and I have been really busy. As some of you already know I had a hard time adjusting at first. I think I was a little overwhelmed, culture-shocked, and having serious withdrawal from my American cell phone and wireless internet. Luckily, I learned how to hijack the wireless from a cafe down the street and use it in my apartment. Thanks to the godliness of Skype I'm not as homesick as I was. Today, I feel much more adjusted, and I'm really excited to have the next two months in this city.

Buenos Aires is amazing. It's HUGE, but very European, I love it. I'm living in the barrio of Belgrano with a single woman names Ivonne. She's in her fifties and she's an artist. Her apartment is covered in her paintings and works - it's like living in an art gallery. The apartment is minimal compared to what Americans are accustomed to, but I already feel at home. Ivonne is a fantastic cook (and she doesn't eat red meat!!!) which makes her even more of a dream housemom for me. She's been cooking vegetables, chicken, and interesting Argentinean dishes. Most importantly, she makes really good strong coffee in the mornings ;). It's just me and her in the apartment (she has two children that live in Barcelona), so at meal times we talk a lot (all in Spanish, of course). I've never spoken so much Spanish in a 3 day period in my life. I better be fluent by the time I come home! (PS the last photos in the album link at the botton of the page are of my street and the front of my apartment. Photos of the inside are coming soon! I tried to load the photos onto thhe blog but the internet connection is too slow, sorry!)

Our ISA group has 15 students from the US in it. Everyone's really different so it should be fun getting to know each other. We all get along pretty well, and we've take a couple of excursions together already. Yesterday we went to El Tigre, which is a large delta about 30 minutes outside of Buenos Aires. We hung out on a fake beach and got some color (all of us were nice and pasty white due to our winter hibernations in America) - it's been in the 80's and sunny here almost every day. In El Tigre we went to a fruit market where they made delicious, fresh fruit shakes with every kind of fruit you could imagine! We also ate lunch at a place where they tried to feed us the intestines of a cow...all of us took a small piece, chewed for about 1.5 seconds, and then spit it out onto our plates. I'm all about trying new foods, but that was a failure, it was disgusting.

Today we took a tour of the city. It's much larger than I expected. There are a bunch of different neighborhoods (barrios) that have developed over the years. I live and go to school in Belgrano. Just to give you an idea of how big the city is, it takes me 30 minutes to walk from one end of my barrio to the other, and there are about 15 different barrios! Of course you can take buses (colectivos), the subway (el supte), trains, and taxis all over town. On our city tour we visited Recoleta and its famous cemetery, La Plaza de Mayo, San Telmo, La Boca and Puerto Madero. I have tons of pictures that you can look at on Snapfish (the link's at the bottom).

Another interesting thing about Buenos Aires that I think is really hard to comprehend until you visit (so you all should come!!) is that it is ALIVE at night. At 2 a.m. last night I was leaving a cafe with 5 other girls, and families with little kids were still being seated! The streets were still full of people and we were going home! The clubs don't open here until 2:30 a.m. and it's embarrassing if you show up at that time. So if you think staying out til 3 or 4 a.m. in the US is late, that's just when things are getting started here. Clubs are full until in the morning!!!

I still have SO much to say, but this is getting long so I will leave more for next time. I miss everyone at home A LOT! Once things slow down, I'll be able to email more often.

Photos: Snapfish