Great music, awesome food, and relaxing drinks (drinks can be relaxing, right?)

After my breakdown on Sunday, I decided I needed a walk in nature, unfortunately; I live in a city and the only real nature is in gardens. I headed out to the Jardin Botanical. Let’s just say I didn’t quite get the beautiful nature scene I was looking for but, it was tranquil and with all the plants I did feel like I was breathing some fresh air. The gardens were really sad looking to me, I know its fall but it’s just the beginning of fall and still in the high 60’s low 70’s most of the day. I had to search hard to find any color other than brown and green. The walkways were just as bad as the sidewalks in BsAs; with crumbled stairs, closed parts under construction, piles of rock for the footpath everywhere, it just really was quite sad. I think the part that got me the most was the park is a Porterños favorite place to abandon their cats. In an hour I managed to see about 70 cats of all types and ages. It really broke my heart, especially since most of them were so friendly. I don’t understand why people abandon their pets…….

On to a lighter note, that night I met up with a friend of a friend from America, who has also quit her job to move to BsAs and learn Spanish and figure out life. We at dinner at what I think so far is the best restaurant in BsAs, Cumana, it was delicious and incredibly cheep for how great the food was. Monday night I went to a concert at Konex, an indoor/outdoor warehouse type place, to listen to La Bomba de Tiempo. They were awesome. The drummer from Punte Celeste (see prior blog) is the conductor of this drumming band. The music is catching and the best part is he makes up the songs as he’s up there. A great time, minus my sore throat from all the cigarette smoke, I love America because you can’t smoke inside.

Tuesday I got the internet back at my house, only to leave my computer cord at school and have minimal battery on my laptop, it’s my Irish (err Scottish) luck, I swear. I did manage to stay in this night, I think…..Can’t remember, my memory is going with the lack of sleep here. Ha-ha

By Wednesday my mind was numb from all the Spanish. In 3 weeks, I have re-learned the present, past simple, past perfect, past imperfect, future simple, future conditional tenses, the gerund, imperative to give instructions both positively and negatively, connectors, prepositions,  possessive pronouns, object pronouns…….and all the irregular ways to do this, plus many nouns, adjectives, verbs, masculine, feminine…..forms…..ugh, exhausting! My mind is reeling with information. So when Connect 123, the company who found me my internship, was having a drinks and appetizer night, I was all for it. We headed to Congo and had a pretty relaxing night, talking in mostly English, I needed this by the way, but again it was a late night. Because as usual we didn’t order apps until after 9:30pm.

Work has been……well work, and it’s that third week mark (I think), maybe it’s the fourth, I am losing track quickly, but I’m at bit overwhelmed with all the Spanish so work has been taxing, but I do really enjoy marketing and I enjoy working for a small company in an informal setting. The people here at Vos Buenos Aires are truly great people to work with. I am glad I am here to learn and live, even if it’s taxing at times.

Too much nightlife and not enough sleep

I don’t understand how the Porteños function on so little sleep, although the numerous tiny cups of coffee consumed, continuous mate drinking, and eating a sugary pastry at each meal and for snack time, seems to be doing the trick. This last week I have had to partake in this caffeine/sugar consuming lifestyle just to stay awake and function, as unhealthy as it sounds, it seems to be working, but I think I would gain a million pounds if I had to live here for more than a year and would have to take many vitamin supplements because I think my diet would be so overloaded with carbs, caffeine and sugar. Besides working and going to school 40+ hours a week, I am trying to live the lifestyle here while, finding time to complete homework, write this blog, a Spanish blog, practice yoga and keep in touch with friends. Wednesday I attended tango lessons at school and then went out (at 10pm mind you) with my classmates and teacher to a Cameroon restaurant because one of the students is from Cameroon. My plate was a pile of green mush, which if you knew me as a child or even a few years ago would not have been consumed by me, I used to be such a picky eater, I still won’t eat tomatoes but I managed to eat my mashed up veggies, fried plantains and goat, which was tasty despite the fact that it looked like someone threw-up on my plate. 

Thursday I went with my schoolmates to a fusion concert at CAFF, the band, Punte Celestial, was interesting. Everyone in the band could play more than one instrument and the music was…..well interesting or exotic would be good words for it. youtube.com The band was amazing, the wine so-so, the beer bad but plentiful and the empanadas the best I have had so far. Friday was tough because we again didn’t get home till about 2am. Friday I was exhausted but, had plans to go with my cousin’s friend Peter and his girlfriend and daughter to a Spanish Play. We saw the Estrella de Seville by Vega at the Teatro Nacional Cervantes, the whole thing was in Spanish and everyone wore a grey suit, I was so tired and so confused. The funny part was I wasn’t the only one who didn’t understand, most of the Argentines couldn’t understand the play either. You see, the play was written in Spain Spanish from Shakespeare’s era, which is a foreign language to most Argentines! It would be like going to a British version of a Shakespeare play where everyone wore black. I was surprised to know that I did understand a lot of the play after talking about it. After the play I was hoping to go home and get some sleep at a decent hour (10:30pm) but no, it’s Argentina and that’s dinner time, even for people who are 60+.

Saturday I went to La Boca, a neighborhood in Buenos Aires that contains brightly colored houses thanks to the Italian immigrants from long ago. La Boca is known for its asados (bbq), tango and the colorful homes. I went with my Norwegian friends and my English roommate. We had a fantastic steak lunch with sangria in a lovely courtyard while listening to a wonderful tango singer. It was a beautiful afternoon that was followed by hour d' orves at my house and capped off with a wreck the house party with 1,000 beers, Argentines and expats, circus acts, and the loca but extremely fun hostess Sunny who’s apartment was being torn down the next week to build a high rise…..again no sleep until about 5 in the am. Let’s say my internet breakdown Sunday morning also have come from lack of sleep from this past week.

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Melt down……you knew there would be one

Everyone says then when learning a new language the third week is always the hardest, you sort of hit a mental wall within and shut down, at least you feel like this, when actually you are peaking and truly starting to comprehend. I felt this way in class this week, like I just wasn’t getting any better and even felt like I was moving backwards in my learning. However, this was not the case, in fact, this week I acted as a translator for a pharmacist who was trying to give directions to an elderly English speaking woman, I was asked for directions twice from Spanish speakers, and had been told numerous times that for being here 3 weeks I was doing really well. So even though I am totally stuck on the future tense and feel as if I can’t do my homework, I am learning, and I am able to hold conversations with people, if they speak slowly and use small words.

I have also heard that when you study abroad or travel for a set time, you have 2 points where you sort of break down and miss everything about home. The first break down happens around your third week in a new place and the second comes about one and a half to a week before you head back home. This phenomenon didn’t happen in New Zealand, so I never believed it, unfortunately, it happened today for me. I don’t ever feel like I need a phone, in NZ, I didn’t have one for the entire 5 months, and here I have one, but, I can only text and receive calls because for some unkwnon technological reason my phone doesn’t like to call out, which is fine with me. However, I didn’t realize how addicted I was to the internet and how much I depended on it until this weekend. I got home Friday from work and my landlord Jose said there was a problem with the phone lines and that we probably wouldn’t have internet this weekend, okay, not bad, there is a café on the corner with wifi, I will be fine. Well I was fine Friday, Saturday was a bit different, I headed to the café at 8 to use the wifi and had finally gotten a hold of Nick at 8:30 when I realized they were closing, so I only had a minute to talk, which was frustrating. It was frustrating on two levels; first I wanted to talk to Nick and second people don’t eat dinner until 9 or 10 here, so why the hell was the café closing so early on a Saturday? Ugh….this was more of a nuisance, my melt down happened Sunday. I woke up and headed out to use wifi, unfortunately all the café’s with wifi were either closed or they told me it wasn’t working today, and all the stores that said they had computers with internet were either closed or again said they didn’t have internet when they had a huge sign out front! This was very irritating and I started to get very frustrated and stressed out, all I wanted to do was call Nick. Here is where I was upset at my phone, because I couldn’t even buy a calling card to use with it since it won’t call out. I eventually got so stressed I started crying, a nice older gentleman asked what the problem was and told me where to find a café but I couldn’t find it and was getting desperate so I saw a hotel with wifi and through tears was able to get a coffee and use the wifi. I hate how I can work myself up so much to tears over something so stupid, but I do. At least my Spanish held up and I was able to cry and explain in Spanish what I wanted, so I guess my third week Spanish slump was just in my mind.

As frustrated as I was about the internet, I was able to get it to call out. And tomorrow I will have unlimited access to it at school, and hopefully the problem at home will be fixed and if not, I will need to learn patience and understand that it’s not the end of the world if I don’t have access, I can get it the next day at school. I know that I mentally needed this break down to feel human and I learned that I can be resourceful and get through things, although, I don’t know how the world ever functioned without the internet or blackberries (because I truly miss mine, I wouldn’t have had this problem with it, it always calls out and it has internet, it’s the perfect invention in my mind). In the end I calmed down grabbed my iPod and strolled through the botanical gardens…….

Squid has a bone?.....and I’ll never have clean clothes here

So last night my British roommate Louisa was tricked into cooking paella by our landlord José. I say tricked because she didn’t realize he doesn’t cook, and she mistakenly told him a week ago how she loves to cook, and Monday when he said he was going to “cook prawns” she told him it sounded great, but actually he just wanted her to cook everyone Paella de mariscos. 

The cooking adventure was interesting, as many of you know, I’m not the best cook and often fumble in the kitchen (my parent’s might disagree but, really I stink at cooking). The paella ended up taking about 2 hours to cook not a problem since Argentines don’t eat until 10pm anyways. It was hilarious since Louisa was looking up on her iphone how to cook this and that. I took up my normal kitchen duty of sues-chef. When it came to the squid I was a bit disgusted at the consistency and surprised at the long plastic looking bone thing that is inside of them. I had no idea they had a cartilage like bone. The things you learn…..

Well the Paella turned out marvelous, although it lacked a bit of color, who knew that the can with a photo of bright green peas on the label would actually have yellowish-grey peas inside? And again we were up until after midnight eating dinner, drinking wine and conversing in Spanish.

As for the clean clothes, I just don’t think it’s possible here. First of all the washer is tiny and old. If you put ¼ of the clothes into it that you would in the states that’s still ½ too much…. Plus, it never fully drains, or at least it doesn’t for me since I guess 10 articles of clothing are just too much for it. The water never drains fully, soap is left behind and I am left with a soaking wet pile of clothes I now have to hand wring out and then hang outside to dry since dryers don’t really exist here. My kind Argentine roommates showed me an antique looking centrifuge machine today that will thankfully spin the water out of my clothes and again I have found a way to make that machine not function properly. I found out that hard way it can only hold 1 pair of pants or 2 shirts at a time too! Ugh….needless to say, everything that I have washed smells mildew, since it rained for 3 days last week and I had laundry drying, or my laundry is stiff with leftover soap and the smell of polluted Buenos Aires air! Why can everyone else in this house use the machines properly, maybe I am just not that domestic, or I really miss my hearty GE American appliances and really took them for granted when I was in the states?

Trabajo mucho.....but it's good for me

Good thing I had a relaxing weekend. Well Sunday it was very relaxing. Friday night I went out to dinner with the Norwegien girls to La Cholita, we wanted to go to the resturant next door but it had an hour long que, so we went next door and waited an hour anyways! Just our luck. The food was amazing though. For $34 pesos, roughly $9 I got 3 huge slabs of beef. Which I am going to call my heart attack on a plate! The cuts were phenomonal too, some of the best beef I've eaten in a long time; however, my stomach was a bit upset at me the next day, but I think that was some of the beer and vino talking too. Afterwards, we headed to an "Irish Pub', I say this in quotes because the title of the bar was Shamrock and it had painting on the windows which said traditional Irish pub, however; there was not a Guiness, Smithwicks, Harp, or Magners in sight, so I have to wonder how one can say they are an Irish pub and not serve Guiness at the minimum. They did however serve Imperial from Costa Rica, or so we thought again, the happy hour sign said Imperial with the Costa Rica Imperial logo but, we got Imperial from Argentina with an Argentine label! Loco.....

Saturday was spent relaxing, I did some yoga and wandered down Santa Fe with the girls to window shop. We did buy some amazing ice cream at freddo. It's like Italian gelato but creamier and oh so tasty! Saturday night was the birthday of my Argentine roommate Jessica. A big group of us got together to head to La Davina, a bar in San Telmo that is popular with the locals because it plays "reggaeton" or a type of Latin urban music. So much fun and very crowded. But tons of dancing, more salsa type than anything which was a blast.

Sunday was a recovery day because when you dance till 4 or 5 am, (as a side note this was without alcohol, well a few beers with dinner, but that was it, I know, I know, a rarity for me, especially since we consumed so much in college, but the people here can stay up all night sans alcohol), all you want to do the next day is sleep and relax. And I have found the perfect place for that the nice lawn at the Ferria Recoletta. A group of us brought books, lunch and mate and hung out the whole day listening to tunes from the ipod until a band started. Such a perfect Sunday that only ended with a beautiful light show from a large lightning storm at sunset.

As you can tell I am really enjoying my time here, it has been a great eye opening experience so far, and I am busier than ever. I know I said I would like to keep you updated by blogging about my Spanish but, another project has fallen into my lap. My school has asked me to blog everyday in Spanish about what I am learning in class. I will post my homework in Spanish and talk about what I am learning. I do not want to bore most of you with this but, for those of you who can Speak Spanish and are interested the blog is http://vosspanishargentina.blogspot.com/ I will not be translating this into English so for most of you it's meaningless but, for others it might be interesting to see how my Spanish progresses. My teachers will be editing my posts before and after, lots of red pen or typing!

Chau for now!

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Getting into the swing of things.....or trying to

I'm trying to settle into this Porteño lifestyle. Since it's been my second week here I decided I should walk you through my daily schedule. I am currently taking 20 hours of intensive Spanish lessons at VOS in Recoletta as well as putting in 4-5 hours a day of work in marketing at the school. My whole day is pretty much spent at VOS from 9am until 6 or 7pm when I get off work, unless I stay later at school for the activity of the day. As I have told you Porteños don't sleep. They eat dinner after 10pm and maybe hit the hay around 2 or 3am, daily! I've been trying to get up at 7:30am to do yoga but, some mornings I just need that extra 45 minutes of sleep. 
Currently at work I have been doing different marketing research projects. My first project was to research the other Spanish language schools and compare the top 10 schools to VOS based on advertising, website, courses offered, prices, and an onsite visit. This was a fun project. They told me that they wanted to compare VOS to other schools and it was up to me to determine what levels we needed to compare ourselves on, plus I also got to get out and explore the city a bit and play "espía" or spy by searching out and asking about the other school's programs in person. My second project was to help research the U.S. universities who are here to learn about the Spanish language schools and possibly partner with them to offer study abroad opportunities and university credit. I also had to put together a plan on how to market VOS to these schools based on demographics and program strength. I have finished the first phase of this project and am starting to work on how to pitch the school.
As for Spanish lessons, well, they are going. I can hold a pretty choppy conversation with a Spanish speaker. I'm having a hard time thinking in Spanish and trying to come up with the words I need to use. My reading is going well and I think I am listening well but, that depends on if the person talks slowly and I understand the vocabulary. I have decided that I need to learn vocabulary on my own, so I have decided to start a project and keep you updated on my learning and try to teach you at the same time. I am going to try to learn the vocab for different subjects one week at a time and update you with a blog about that subject weekly. So this coming week I am going to try to learn vocabulary associated with food; the names of food items, how to prepare the food, and items in the kitchen. I decided to start with food since I am tired of knowing the easy ingredients in food and not knowing the rest and then being surprised when I see what I ordered and it's not what I thought it was. Like last week I ordered a Tortilla de verduras, which is eggs and vegetables in a quiche type style or omelet style in some places, however; I got a plate full of overcooked spinach with a few eggs and some cheese. I think I ate all the free bread instead, at least I'm not allergic to bread anymore, or I might starve here. Another disastrous order was Ensalada con manzanas, apios y nuezs which is salad with apples, celery and walnuts and all I got was the apples, celery and walnuts, no lettuce! Guess I should have looked for the word "lechuga" to be included in that, again I ate a lot of bread because as tasty as the "salad" was it wasn't very filling and the vinegar for dressing was interesting. For my food lover friends I till try to remember to take some photos of my interesting food.
If you are wondering about the photo it's of my Spanish class, we learned the verb form for instructions and Vane, mi profesora, had us convert the recipe using the command form for chocotorta vosbuenosaires blog and then follow them. Basically its dulce de leche (caramel) and chocolate crackers, it was errr, too sweet for me, I don't think I'm a huge fan of the ducle de leche, but it was fun to make and pass out to the other students.

I can say that it's been a busy week with school and work but, I did find sometime to enjoy the nightlife. I attended a movie in Spanish on Monday at Vos, a comedy 'Esperando la Carozza' youtube, Tuesday I went to a jazz bar with Gussie, a girl from my program, it was very 'tranquilo', then Wednesday I DANCED! Well only a little bit, but we had free tango lessons at my school and it was so much fun, tango is something I definitely need to learn before I leave since BA is the world capitol for tango. Thursday was spent with crazy Celine and her boyfriend, she is Argentine but went to a bilingual school, which made for a great evening since we spoke a lot of Spanish but when I didn't understand she could clarify and correct in English, now if the music wasn't so loud and if the beer had stopped flowing I might have learned more. jajaja (hahaha, the h is pronounced like a j in Spanish). I am proud of myself for getting up early twice this week to do yoga in my room, and I went for a run this afternoon, although, I think it might have been counterproductive because Buenos Aires has some of the worst air quality in the world and running during rush hour might have given me lung cancer.....more on that in another blog...chau for tongiht!

¿Hola, hola, hola, sí?

I've finally explored a bit of Buenos Aires. I started the "fin de semana" or weekend with a very American Friday evening, well we did eat dinner at 10:30, so that wasn't American but, the conservation was and the dance club felt like it or Europe, even the drinks cost as much at home. But it was wonderful, some girls from my program, had a bunch of us over at their home in Palermo for dinner and drinks, then some clubbing. It was nice to be able to understand people without concentrating because the whole evening was in English. I enjoyed it but, I am here to learn Spanish and about the culture.

Saturday I did just that. I woke up (early for Porteños, about 10am) and headed out to explore my neighborhood of Recoletta. I decided to start by waking up the dead at the famous Recoletta cemetery.   This is what being a millionaire does for you, it gets you a marble or stone home for your corpse in a village like setting.  But you tell me you only have a few million in the bank, not hundreds, well you can get a spot on the wall of the town. The place was beautiful and I don't want to be disrespectful to the dead but it was pretty creepy as well. Many of the grave homes had windows and you could see the coffins stacked up inside. Just peering in gave me the jitters. 

After the cemetery I went next door to the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Pilar mainly just to get upstairs to the bell tower and take a photo of the cemetery. The church was beautiful inside but, I think they were about to start a service for someone's funeral and I didn't feel like crashing that party. Off to the next stop which tested my navigational skills, good thing I have some sense of direction, although I did take a longer path than necessary to get to where I wanted to go. I did end up seeing the Facultad de Ingeniería, a decaying but still functioning school of engineering. I guess its a prestigious one too, but you can't tell from the sad state of the building. My walk took me past a few plazas and to my destination of Floralis Genérica, a large metal flower sculpture that is supposed to close up at night but it doesn't work most of the time and when I drove past it later that evening in a taxi, it was still open. Needless to say its beautiful and one of the symbols of BA. And the reason my walk to the flower was so out of the way is that literally a block away from the flower was the plaza Recoletta which houses the cemetery that I started at!


I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the crafts fair, Feria Artesanal. After I was tired of looking at crafts and hippies I bought some fruit and empanadas with my Norwegian friends (also in my program) and we sat down to hopefully listen to a local singer. Well we thought we would listen to him, this guy took 2 hours to sound check his equipment and kept strumming and singing " ¿Hola, hola, hola, sí?" we thougt that maybe he really couldn't sing, but alas after about 2 hours of ¿Hola, hola, hola, sí? he finally sang but I had to leave to make it to an ex-pat yoga class (facebook.com/pages/YoGO-Power-Yoga) that was being taught by a friend. 


My evening was spent fully in the throws of learning, speaking and understanding Spanish. I had dinner with my 2 Argentine house-mates, and then went to a house of their friend for some wine, and finally out to the bars at 2am (these people really do not sleep, and it is unfashionable to get to the bars before 1 really). I had a great time, and really enjoyed myself, even tough I had to concentrate to understand.

On Sunday I got up at the time the Argentine's would, 12, but alas that was early for them too! I decided to get lost in BA, but really didn't. I walked from my house down the famous Ave 9 de Julio (considered "the widest road in the world", it has 16 lanes) to see the Obelisco (the symbol of BA) and then the Plaza de Mayo which holds many famous buildings including the famous pink house of Casa Rosada which holds the presidential offices, we have the white house and they like pink, I like the pink too.  The plaza is also the main area for protests, there was only a silent semi-permanent protest there today, and I have no idea what it was about. I continued my walk all the way to San Telmo and the Feria de San Telmo, another street and crafts fair. There were hundreds of craft stalls selling mate gourds, to leather goods, to scarves, paintings, jewerly, you name it they were selling it, there were also many street performers including a great band called Hormigas Negras or black ants who have a Latin music style mixes with various forms of rock (hormigas-negras). 


I know this was a long one, but thank you for re-talking my walks with me. I think I must go for now, as a pigeon told me today that I was done with lunch by pooping on my table, I will post (not poop because I am smarter and nicer than pigeons) one more link to more photos facebook.com/album and head to a dinner party.
Chau!

Totally lost.......and trying to remember

So I've had 4 days of Spanish now and I feel more confident that I did when I arrived but, I also fell very frustrated and lost. I want to go back to beginning Spanish where they show you photos of objects and verbs and tell you the name. I know that would be too elementary for me but, I keep forgetting what words mean or what word to use and it's very frustrating because I know I learned them once! I know it takes time, everyone says about 3 weeks but, I'm impatient and want to know it all now. Does this sound familiar to some of you?
Well I should learn Castalleῆo  or Spanish very quickly, I am around it all day, and I mean ALL DAY. I have class from 9 to 1, then a break for lunch where I cheat and speak English with the other students or hang out along and go for a walk, and then I work at the school from 2 till 6. And this is 5 days a week. I can do my work in English but, can only talk in Castalleῆo. At home my house-mates only speak Castalleῆo so I can't speak English either. I am here for an immersion in Spanish and I am definitely getting one. I like it, although, at times it's frustrating.
Spanish classes here are not like Spanish classes in school in the states, there is no textbook with photos and pages of conjugated verbs. No, I am sort of intermediate and my class is taught in Spanish, confusing things are explained in easier Spanish and we have worksheets to fill in and lots of speaking. I don't think I could have learned the language this way the first time but, it is making me remember things on my own and I think helping. More on this later.
I have had some time for fun, although, this dinner after 8pm thing is not really working for me yet.I just tend to skip it since I am not hungry after 8 most days, I'm just tired. I have had my first bus ride, wasn't too bad, when the buses are crowded they just start taking off with people hanging onto the door, I almost fell out the first time, but there was someone behind me. Anyways, I took it to Palermo to meet some other people in my program for the birthdays of two people. It was fun, although the first restaurant we wanted to go to was still closed at 8:30, so we went to a bar and didn't get to another restaurant until 11:30 to eat. Needles to say, my dinner consisted of 2 beers and a mixed drink because by 11:30 I was not hungry at all. And dad the beer was a bit watery, some local beer, not very tasty, but cheep and 2 for 1.

The next night my host, who is in his 60's mind you, told me I went to bed too early....if you think 11pm on a work night is early, then you are crazy or just a porteῆo (someone from Buenos Aires). Yes everyone here eats late, stays out late, and gets up early, all without the siesta. I don't know how they function, but it's not just the young people like me, it's kids and seniors as well. Strange.

To get back to the Spanish speaking and being lost....well I still haven't explored BA, much less my own neighborhood, but I have learned how to successfully take the bus! I went out tonight with some students at my school and a teacher and I successfully led the group on the right bus to the correct stop! Yay, my navigational skills still work, even down here. And my Castalleῆo  skills functioned because the whole evening we were allowed to only speak in Spanish and  I was able to understand (most of it) and communicate (somewhat). But I felt like I was included this time and the veil of unknowing and not being able to communicate was slightly lifted.
Yo empezo a saber Castalleῆo mas mejor! (Actually I'm not even sure if that sentence is grammatically correct, I have so much more to remember)http://www.facebook.com/album

The Marvels of American Plumbing

So I found myself a place to live, it's what us American's would call a penthouse, the room at the top of the building. It's a lovely place, a few blocks from my school in the fancy BA neighborhood of Recoletta. I have my own room, a shared bath, use of the kitchen and laundry and there is a doorman. I rent from an older gentleman named Jose (he's a friend of a friend of a family friend). Currently there are 2 other borders here, both are girls from Argentina. No one in the house speaks much English, so I better learn my Spanish (or in Argentine Castalleno) very quickly.  We also have one room open so maybe an English speaking girl will come and I can speak some English, since right now all I can really talk is Castalleno.

You are now probably wondering about the title? Well, I want you to know that I'm not complaining, I know it could be worse (aka Kaitlin in the Dominican) but, I had to share some of my observances so far. First, no the toilet water does not rotate the other direction, it just gets sucked downward. Second, I miss American toilets and plumbing already, I mainly miss how quite it is. The plumbing here is horrendously noisy, it's a pump system and it is LOUD and takes about a minute to refill. Third, I will not even get close to that bidet thing. Fourth, the elevators are small and strange. You have to close the outer door and the inner door to move, and they are really noisy as well! And if you forget to close a door the elevator gets stuck on whatever level it is on.....at least we have a back door to stairs and another elevator if this happens. Fifth, the keys are the strangest things, they look straight out of colonial times or something. large metal things with huge prongs and grooves. Sixth, you already know about not having screens, I was able to get some mosquito coils and was able to be mosquito free last night with the window open. Seventh, there is no clothes dryer, so I will need to learn how to hang dry my clothes, no more downy soft clothes for me. Eight, I don't have an eight yet except I hope that soon I can sleep through a night without being awakened by the elevator or toilet flushing or sink being used. I have posted some photos in the link on what my accommodations look like, if you were wondering.

To continue on, I spent Easter Sunday or Paquia at the horse track with a family friend Peter and his friend Mari. I think it's a sin to do that but, I didn't bet because I don't know how to bet on horses in English much less Spanish. I also was surprised at home and invited to a potluck type meal at my apartment. Jose has some friends who also rent out their homes and they had a few of their borders over with some of their friends from the states and some Argentine friends. We had a party of about 20. It was nice to be able to speak some English and meet some people my age who are working here. The dinner started at 9:30 like most Argentine dinners and lasted until 2am, mind you I had to get up at 8 to be at school the next day by 9. I had a great time but, am unsure how I will manage with eating so late and getting up early. This late dinner is so strange!
I had my first day of school at VOS vosbuenosaries. There are 3 people in my class this week, and I think its an advanced beginner course. I am finding that much of my high school Spanish is coming back to me, now I just need to learn how to listen (I know, I know most of you will say that's impossible for me to listen, but their pronunciation is so different from the Spanish I learned in school that I really need to listen and pay attention, which is difficult for me). I also had a walk through of my internship, or at least what I will be working on my first week. I am excited but feeling a bit overwhelmed right now with all the Spanish. So I am hopefully going to take a siesta and then attend an Argentine movie at school.

Oh please ignore the giant dust spot in my photos facebook.com/album, when I was in CA it was in the corner and I was going to take the camera to a shop to get it cleaned when the speck disappeared. To my Irish luck it decided to reappear in the middle of the screen in BA and now I have to take it to get repaired. Ugh!

I made it!

So I have officially made it to BA. Had a small delay in Lima with the connecting flight, but LAN is such a great airline, instead of making the Argentine's wait to head to BA, they made the Los Angeleno's wait longer. I might regret this on my flight home in 3 months (because by then I will just want to get home and not be delayed). Our flight had mechanical problems so instead of making us wait too long they put us on the LA flight's plane (which was bigger, so I got my own row to nap in) and made the LA flight delayed even longer. HAHAHA, guess I was heading in the right direction.

Upon arrival I was met at the airport by a family friend who is a local and speaks English (thank God, for now, because my Spanish stinks). He is a very nice gentleman in his late 60's and his girlfriend. They were very nice and took me to lunch and a car tour of part of the city. After the second day I decided that my hosts were very nice and generous, but there is only so much you can take of hanging with your "grandparent's", and I'm in a new country so I need to explore. Well I couldn't say no to another lunch, this time at the "rugby club", but I really wanted to be in a place of my own......I struck gold on this place. My host has a friend who is in Recoletta (the posh neighborhood of BA) which is also where my school is located, and that friend has a sweet penthouse like apartment with 4 rooms (3 get rented to people like me), a few blocks from my school.

 So after my host's car broke down across town, and a taxi later I arrived at my new accommodations, and I'm getting a great deal on rent too. Although there is a bit of a language barrier here, my host only knows Spanish and the 2 other borders are Argentine females my age, but don't know English either :( Needless to say I still don't know when I need to pay rent or anything about them. But I'm here to learn so I will learn.

I did manage to get some food at the supermarket without too much trouble and amazingly find my way home (the supermarket is only a block away). Now the only problem is the vampires (my new term for mosquitoes). The windows/doors here don't come with screens (also most of the air conditioning comes from boxes hanging in windows even in skyscrapers) and it's warm, right now its 78F and 10pm! I might need someone to send me citronella candles if I can't find any tomorrow. So I left the window/door open as long as possible but, now I am waging a war against the tiny vampires and I'm hot!

Well I am trying to get on Argentine time (although I don't know how people get up to be at work by 9am and eat dinner after 8pm, they must never sleep, or there is a Siesta time I don't know about yet, sleeping in 2 shifts sounds weird but hey, when in Argentina (er Rome)). Okay well time to get some cena "dinner" and kill some vampire bugs.