I can't believe I have already been here a week! Pretty soon I will be getting ready to leave for Peru and will be saying I can't believe I've been here 8 weeks!!
Here is just a few random things I have noticed since I have been here...
-Life is not as slow paced in a big city despite this being Latin America. I will probably do this a lot, but, compared to Costa Rica the lifestyle here seems to be a lot faster!
-It's hard to get used to the noise of the city around me at night...and pigeons outside my window in the mornings.
-I don't think curly hair is common...every one seems to be fascinated by the fact that I have curly hair! ha!
-When you go into a bakery or similar shop, you pull a number from a "machine" (its not really a machine but I dont know what to call it) and people dont stand really in a line because people are helped by the number they pull. Kinda strange..this may be because many of the shops are too little to form lines...everything here space wise (other than the city itself) is smaller.
Anyways, my class is going well. The professor's name is Mage and she is fun and good at working with international students! I am in class from 10 - 3 everyday with two short 20 minute breaks in between. I have about a 30 minute walk to and from class everyday so I get my exercise! Not to mention the hundreds (or at least it sure seems that way) of stairs I climb each day at the University. The food here is hard to get used to..it's not my favorite. It's good but very bland and I feel like its always the same thing...pasta, bread, more pasta, more bread. I have been eating medialunas dulces (sweet croissants) every day for breakfast..an empanada (similar to a hot pocket) for lunch..and then whatever Monica fixes us for dinner...pasta, pizza (it's probably my favorite), soup, etc. Two foods that I really do like are choripan and alfajor. Choripan is basically a chorizo sausage cut in half and placed on bread with chimichurri..a little bit of spice thank goodness! I ate my first one this weekend and really liked it! We had tango lessons last Thursday...I don't think I'm too bad...though I'm no where near a professional tango-er! But it was a lot of fun to try! And to get to the lesson I rode the Subte (subway) for the first time (not by myself)...not as scary as many make it seem but I guess it's always good to not have anything in your pockets just in case!
On Saturday, we had our first day Excursion to El Tigre on the River Plate about 30 minutes outside of Buenos Aires. It's the rowing capitol of Argentina and we saw many of them on our tour of the Sarmiento River area by boat. It was fun, good to get outside of the city, and was a warmer and very sunny day. After our boat tour, we had about 3 hours to shop in Puerto de Frutos...so I finally got to get me some Argentina souvenirs! I bought two rings, a bolsilla (small purse), a decorative pillow case, a mate (pronounced MAH-tay not "mate" ..it is a cup and straw common in Argentina and Uruguay and surrounding areas to drink Mate out of..or a type of tea), my first Choripan :) and a chocolate covered churro all for around $40! What a deal!! On the way back in from El Tigre we stopped at a restaurant for a "Submarino Chocolate." It's hot chocolate but they give you the hot milk and a chocolate candy bar to put in it. The restaurant was on the river plate outside of Buenos Aires enough that there was a view of the city from across the water and it was so pretty for taking pictures!
(Big breath in!) AND Finally, today we went back to El Centro for a free tour of the Casa Rosada...basically Argentina's White House! It was interesting and I got some good pics of it too!
I'll post new pictures soon but right now I can't hardly keep my eyes open!! What a weekend!! Buenas Noches Buenos Aires!
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