Migueletes

The title of this blog is the name of my street. It is really a nice street. There are a lot of bakeries and small shops. Tonight, after dinner, I want to go to get icecream on the corner.

This morning we had orientation and found out that we have class Monday-Thursday at 9-11 and then 11:30-1. The 9:00 class only lasts 4 weeks and after it is done, we only have the 11:30 class. There is one extra long weekend when we have to option of going on a 3 night camping trip in the northern mountainous region. I would like to go to Uruguay that weekend but we'll have to see.

Apparently Matt Damon has a house near 2 of the guys on our trip!

Lunch was an amazing experience today. We went to a restaurant called Kork where I ordered a ham and mozzarella Ciabatta. I also ordered one of the more popular beers here just to try it and after taxes and tips and sitting fees, it was $7.50. Once we were done eating, I got up to go to the bathroom and was waiting in line and the guy behind the counter started talking to me. We ended up talking for like 15 minutes in spanish about lots of things like, why we were in Buenos Aires, and we talked about his daughter too. His name was Carlos and I really want to go back there. He said he was trying to learn english.


After lunch, we walked around and window shopped for about an hour and then decided to split some wine at a place called "Vino y Queso" (Wine and Cheese). It was A LOT of fun. It is very easy to carry on a conversation (in english and spanish) with anyone in our group. No one is ever left out and we aren't divided into smaller groups or cliques that we don't venture out of. Everyone is friends with everyone and everyone talks to everyone. Also, everyone is very good about sticking together. We never leave anyone behind unless that person has told us to leave them. It makes traveling slow, but I'm very glad we do it. Today I bought a cheap "go" phone so I can communicate with my group in case of emergencies.

This is about half of our group enjoying some wine :)

I am one of the youngest in the group. The majority of the students are 22 and older. There are probably 5 that are 20 and only 1 who is younger than that and there are 25 students total.

The driving here is crazy! There are a lot of pedestrians, but no cars stop for them in the cross walks. At intersections, it is chaos. Most of them don't even have stop signs or yield signs. I am always afraid that someone will have an accident but I haven't seen anything yet.

This is really typical parking. How do you even get out?

About Buhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifenos

HOLA!

In case some of you are wondering, here is a map of where everyone in our group is living and also where our main campus is. I live in an apartment in the left most cluster of houses up on the 9th floor.
Housing

This mornin I went for a walk and was going to go to a bakery and get something tasty but I there were a lot of people there. When I came back to my place, Corina and Ashley were rushing to get everything together because we needed to be at the University in half an hour for a tour of the city. Corina dropped us off and we were only 5 minutes late and the tour began! It is a beautiful city.

This is a picture of the most famous monument of the city. I dont remember what this monument is called...but its a symbol of the modernization of the country as well as democracy in the country because it looks a lot like the washington memorial. It was built in 1810 I believe.

here is my photo album on facebook with more pictures. http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1822934971704.2091599.1190100246

Our guide explained that Argentina is considered a melting pot just like the US. Especially in Buenos Aires. There is an incredible amount of european immigrants (spanish, italian, german, polish, turkis, ect).

Our guide said that the spanish tried to found Argentina in Buenos Aires in 1536 looking for plata (silver) and failed. One of the big rivers here is called el Rio de Plata. They've artificially moved it a couple meters to the south to build various places.

Sorry, today was a busy day and I will have to find more time to write later. :) bye!

¡Estoy Aquí!

SOOOO, I made it safe and sound to Buenos Aires :) The plane ride was a lot better than I thought it would be. We had a really nice tailwind the for both flights (about 20 mph going to BA). I watched the Green Hornet on TV about 3 times while I tried to fall asleep. Our stewardess on our flight from KC to Washington pronounced the city "Byoonos Airs" and we all got a pretty good kick out of that. My host mom is really nice and goofy. She actually speaks pretty good English which is really helpful these first few days getting everything figured out. Below is a picture of my room and the view from outside the window.


The weather here es muy bonita! It was about 75 today and I wanted to wear shorts but my host mom told me it wasn't a good idea as I would attract unwanted attention to myself. I met the other girl who I'm going to be living with, her name is Ashley and she's really nice. She's 22 and is majoring in Spanish Education. She has taken the same amount of spanish as I have which is really helpful actually. I think I would feel very intimidated and overwhelmed if she was better than me or if I was by myself.
Our host mom, Corina, took us on a walk through her neighborhood which has a park to the right of the photo above and a shopping area to the left. It was really nice but I was exhausted. Then our host mom left us on our own for dinner and Ashely started walking around looking for somewhere to eat. The thing is, it was like 6:00 and most food places don't open here until 8 so we were wondering around for half an hour at least trying to find something. Eventually we found somewhere that was more expensive than we wanted but at that point, we were too tired to care. We just wanted to eat since we hadn't since breakfast on the airplane. We went to a place called "Pizza y Espuma." In Spanish, espuma is foam which in this context refers to the foam on the top of a beer. Ashley and I struggled through talking to waiter in spanish. It was fun but really difficult.
Tomorrow we are doing a tour of the city beginning with the University. I'm ready for bed :) Sorry if none of this post made sense, I'm very tired

Chao