Dia Dies

I told myself when I started this blog that I would write everyday for at least 10 days. Well I haven´t been able to write everyday... but I have a post for everyday so far. This is my last daily post. From now on I´m only going to write when something of note happens. So... you don´t have to keep reading my blabber.

Not much happened yesterday. I got out of bed at 1:30 again. I hope that doesn´t become a habit... I wrote my blog posts for the previous two days and got dressed before taking my computer downstairs to try to find some internet. I found a little and frantically tried to do all my internet stuff before it disappeared or my computer died... My computer battery is going and it now only holds charge for an hour or so. I got to talk to Royce and Mom and CJ a bit before my computer died sadly. oh well.

I went for a walk by myself to look at the neighborhood. It was sunday so not much was open. But I found out that there is a park by my house that had a bunch of soccer fields packed full of people. It made me think of Tyler... really he should just travel to another country and hang out and play soccer in the park with the locals. There is also a childrens hospital behind my block. Interesting.

I spent the rest of the day sitting around and watching Love Actually... again. In English. I love that movie. Then I made some soup... badly. Because I didn´t understand the dirrections so I winged it and I think I didn´t put enough water in it. Oh well. Then I went to bed at around 10. Nothing else to do.

On an interesting note... this morning I was reading out program handbook and it had a seccion about Culture Shock in it. I could find myself during the past week and a half in both the first two stages. The second stage... of frustration they said sometimes lasts weeks... I hope not. And I think I´m moving out of it. As soon as I stop writing in english and start speaking spanish. So I´m off to track down a Harry Potter book so I know what people are talking about.

Dia Nueve

Yesterday, Saturday, since I didn’t get to sleep until 7, I slept in until 1:30 in the afternoon. That seriously has to be a record for me. I had to sleep though my roommates doing some kind of hammering downstairs for a while but I was determined to sleep past 10. P.S. I’m happy right now because I’m listening to the Once soundtrack! When I got up I took a shower. All my clothes from the night before reek of cigarette smoke. I need to find a Laundromat pretty soon anyway. I did some more staring at my computer before calling Lauren around 4 to see if she wanted to do some exploring. We met at FLACSO and walked around down Avenida Corrientes. We did some window shopping and she finally bought a coat so she wouldn’t be so cold all the time. She decided that she was going to go out that night no matter how tired she was so we casually called some people to see if they wanted to go out. It was early so we went back to her house to watch Center Stage before meeting up with people. William took the Subte (subway) out our way after he finished dinner and suffered though the peanut butter that Lauren insisted he try and the end of Center Stage. Poor guy. At about 12 we called Gaby and she was going out with some people and we decided to try to meet up with them. We shared a cab and after walking and confusion finally found them in the smoking room of a restaurant. That is not where we wanted to be. So we left and walked around to look for a disco. One of the people handing out flyers on the street told us to go to one of the places on the corner so we decided to try it. OMG. STRANGENESS! When we got in, there were a bunch of people sitting at rows of tables. The man in drag, the woman in the nun costume, and the table of people wearing devil horns immediately caught my attention. Ummm… yeah okay, we’ll give it time. Eventually they took all the tables away and everyone was dancing and drinking… The music wasn’t very good and it was so loud that talking was impossible. The people were older than us for the most part and all looked a little odd. We put up with it for a while before running away to a different bar that William had heard was good. It was fun. It was a pub not a disco so people weren’t dancing but I could hear myself thinking and talking was easy so it was nice. We met a couple guys who heard us speaking English and decided to see what was up. The one guy who did most of the talking spoke English very well so he practiced his English while we practiced our Spanish. His English totally kicked my Spanish’s butt though. But he was great. Turns out he is very interested in the U.S. and has an American flag on his bedroom wall. We even talked about American politics and who would win the primary and who would win the election. Really interesting. It was fun though. We talked about music and what we were doing with ourselves these days. By the time we were ready to leave we gave him our email addresses and I got a picture with all of us. I guess I should have tried harder to remember his name. I’m getting worse with names as my 20 year old brain starts to fail… lol. I got home a little earlier than Friday night… around 5. It’s nice feeling like I have friends to do things with. I haven’t actually seen my roommates for almost 3 days. I’m thinking of everyone at home with love!

Dia Ocho

On Friday I slept in till 9:30 because I didn’t have to go to the orientation for UCA in the morning because I’m not taking any classes there. I sat around for a while. Ate some breakfast. Stared at my computer. En serio. That means seriously. I sat around until 3 when I decided to go to FLACSO and use the computers. It was fine. I updated my blog and talked to Royce and Dan. I had a sort of breakdown moment during which I sent my mother a rather alarming email. Hopefully she’s not worrying too much since I haven’t talked to her in a week because I still don’t have internet in my house.

I returned to my house for a while before catching a cab to the other side of town to have dinner with Lauren and a group of CIEE girls and a cute Austrian guy that Lauren met at her hostel. We went to a Peña where they have live Argentinean Folk music. We couldn’t sit in the music room because we didn’t have a reservation but the food was fine and the music was great even if we couldn’t see them. We finally left at about 12:30 to go look for a bar or disco to hang out in. It was cold out… and for some reason none of the other girls were wearing coat. Seriously the difference between people who live in AK and those who don’t is that Alaskans know how to wear warm clothing when it’s cold out. Anyway, the girls got sick of looking and were tired… a sad thing to be tired in Buenos Aires at 1am… so they all caught cabs back to their houses. So I continued looking for a place with William (the Austrian). We asked a cop where to go and he told us to catch one of the busses to Palermo Hollywood. He he. We just told the bus driver where we wanted to go and he told us when to get off. We found a cool place that was playing good music and had quite a few people. It was fun. Turns out William isn’t much of a dancer but he danced a bit. We met a group of locals because they wanted us to take a picture of them. They were really fun and animated. We might go out with them again.

It was really fascinating to me that as it turns out, William is in a situation very similar to mine. He’s staying in Buenos Aires for a year doing service work as a requirement of his school (I think). He doesn’t know anyone in Buenos Aires and he left his girlfriend in Germany. Coincidentally we both came to the same conclusion about how to deal with that situation, and decided that the most important thing while here is to enjoy being here and not spend all our time wishing we were somewhere else. It was insanely interesting to find myself in Buenos Aires hanging out with another foreigner, though from a different country, feeling almost exactly the same way.

Anyway, it was really fun. I hope we are going to be friends. And I was a good Argentinean and didn’t get home until 7 am… though it did take forever to catch a cab and I’m pretty sure the cab driver took the long way. Yeah sure, take advantage of the foreigners.

Dia Siete

Today at FLACSO the morning lecture was about the program rules regulating behaviors, like no illegal drugs please… etc. I understood most of his Spanish. Then we had a quick break in which I went to “coffee” with my old hotel roommates Lauren and Christina. I had hot chocolate which consisted of hot milk and a block of chocolate to put into the milk and melt. It was good but there was too much milk for the chocolate… next time I think I’ll just eat the chocolate because it was amazing and drink the milk. They don’t drink milk here. Then we went back to FLACSO to sit in our groups and ask questions about registering for classes. It was fine. After, I went to the computer lab and checked my facebook and looked up classes I want to take. The dance classes don’t have times up yet which as the organized/anal retentive person I am annoys me to no end. How am I supposed to set my schedule for the next 6 months if I don’t know what time the dance class is… : p… yeah, I know… silly. Whatever. I found out on facebook that all my old and greatly loved/missed roommates have blogs this year in which to keep in touch. Katiana’s doesn’t have anything in it yet because doesn’t go to Senegal for a few weeks. Emily is good at blogging… she doesn’t write forever like I do but she gets her point across well. Spencer hasn’t really posted a blog yet but the forum is called Princess Children in memory of us. I can’t remember exactly how the title goes but its something like he misses his nemo face (the cat), the girls upstairs, and the sometimes naked one downstairs (that’s me) which by the way brings me joy of no end. I was sitting in a quiet computer lab when I read it and I burst our in loud bubbles of laughter which kept going off and on for a good couple of minutes. That memory… of which many of you probably have no idea… is one of my favorites ever. So FUNNY. For those of you who don’t know… it’s nothing scandalous I promise. But funny none the less. You are welcome to ask me about it someday too. As you are probably noticing, I’m not the most modest and private person in the world. I rather like being an open book.

Anyway… that was a good moment.

I walked around for a while looking for some minutes for my phone. None of the stores of my brand of phone had them… and they kept saying I needed to go to the kiosk… I have never known what that word means. So I went to a tourist station (*blush*) and asked her in my slow Spanish. She pointed me directly to one explaining in patient Spanish exactly where I needed to go. So I got some minutes and went home. When I got home… my brain seemed to have fried. I couldn’t speak Spanish nearly at all and poor Sebi had the hardest time figuring out what I was saying. I could barely think in English much less in Spanish. I ate some food. The phone was broken apparently so Sebi had to go somewhere else to use the phone to ask about my computer. But since he didn’t have the computer in front of him, my computer is American, neither of us know very much about computers, my Spanish was fading rapidly, and I couldn’t connect to the internet to look up online what to do, the instructions the technicians gave to Sebi didn’t do much good and I still can’t connect to the internet. After that I basically stood in front of the stove in the kitchen yawning and staring at the TV. I wonder if standing in front of the stove like that is rude… but that’s what we have always done in AK and I don’t know how to ask. A friend of Sebi’s came over to hang out (they always have friends over). He was nice and tried to talk to me a bit but I couldn’t understand or talk. I was completely broken. I felt like such a jerk. Eventually I went to take a shower to see if that would help… it did a bit. Sebi fed me some more pasta and then we hung out in the kitchen with Vero, Nati, and two of their friends. It was fun to watch them interact. I went to bed soon there after. I never could figure out how to put those minutes on my phone.

Dia Seis

I arrived at FLACSO at the normal 9:45 time. We sat for 2 hours in our small groups and asked questions and listened to a lecture about how to register for classes. After that, I went to lunch with a fairly large group of girls. We ate at a café, apparently just like all the other cafés… but the food was amazing. I had a spinach and ricotta filled crepe with some kind of parmesan white cheese sauce on it. It was really fun. And I am starting to know a few people’s names. We broke up a bit depending on who wanted or needed to get back to FLACSO and when. Me and the other last two girls walked around a bit to work off all the cheese sauce and returned to FLACSO early enough for me to check my email.

In the afternoon we sat in the auditorium and got our results of our tests that told us our level of Spanish going from 0-7+. The lowest anyone got in the program was a three, and she also has required tutoring or something like that. I got a four, along with a good number of others. Many received fives, a few sixes, and two or three got sevens. The sevens are not required to take Spanish courses. There are three options of types of classes to take: regular classes (of each level) that are 4 credits and meet for 2 hours twice a week for 16 weeks, intensive classes that are also 4 credits but meet for 2 hours 4 times a week for 8 weeks, and special objective classes that study Spanish through things like music and literature and movies. I had asked a couple of the advisors what they suggested for me to take because I am staying for two semesters (I think there are only a few doing that, the rest are only here for a semester. There’s a part of me that’s jealous of them.) Anyway the advisors suggested that I take two intensive classes (one the first 8 weeks and the second the other 8 weeks) so that I would be super comfortable by the next semester and able to take whatever classes I want. This past year I wasn’t excited about taking Spanish anymore, but I see their point so I took their advice and signed up for an intensive level 4 and an intensive level 5.

We are required to take 15 credits per semester and my Spanish classes are 8 credits total. That means I need 7 more. We have to take at least one FLACSO course which are 3 credits each. All the other courses at UBA, UCA, and IUNA vary in credits and recommended level of Spanish. Most of the dance classes at IUNA are 6 credits each! That’s exciting but also means that not only will I only be able to take one, I will have 17 credits. I’m not worried though. I think I’m also going to take a dance class at the cultural center for an elective 2 credits.

Anyway, after the Spanish registration I returned to the house. Sebi had told me that they played drums in the living room at 4:30 on Wednesdays and sure enough when I got home that was true. I sat in my room for like 2 hours playing Free Cell and Spider while I listened to the drums and Spanish conversation. It was rather boring without homework, internet, or the new Harry Potter book which is keeping everyone else busy. When everyone finally left, Sebi and Vero also left. So I was again… still, alone. I made some eggs and toast for dinner and went to bed, reading the program handbook.

I could feel myself turning cold to the whole thing. I began to think about this trip as a job from which I could return to my life. I started trying to decide when would be the best time to return to the U.S. during summer (winter for you) break. I think often of Kana and how she felt during her time in Alaska. I remember how I felt the same way I do now about UNC for the first few weeks. I try to tell myself that I know it will get better. But my heart freezes while I stand next to the electric heater in the kitchen. It disturbs me my lack of patience in myself and my undeniable need for friendship. It has been a week…

Dia Cinco

Yesterday was rather uneventful. We had to be at FLACSO at 8:45 instead of 9:45 for whatever reason. My group spent the first couple hours creating a PowerPoint presentation to present to the other groups what we did on our walking tour. I had little input because I wasn’t paying attention to the tour guide. But I looked up a couple things on the Internet for the others. I talked my way out of speaking during the presentation… but in retrospect, I probably would have done fine. Then we presented along with the other groups. After that, I had about four hours for lunch because I had to wait for my assigned slot to do my one on one oral exam. I walked around with some other girls for a while before we had lunch. Then I took the bus back home to see if Sebi was around to help me hook up to the internet, but he wasn’t. Nor was anyone else for that matter. So I hung out for a while before going back to FLACSO for my exam. It went pretty well. The examiner was really easy to understand and that was heartening. I returned to the house at about 5:30. No one was home. My closet was finally fixed though so I put all my clothes away and organized my room. Then all of a sudden my internet hooked up to one of the wireless signal that I sometimes get in my room, and suddenly I could talk to Royce on the internet… of course it only lasted a couple minutes, but that inspired me to walk around the house and see if I could find a good signal. I found an excellent one on the counter in the kitchen. It was really exciting to be able to see him for the first time in a few days (webcam). We talked for awhile before my silly battery died and I had to run and get my plug and adapter for my computer. Anyway, it finally worked out. It was amazing… especially since I don’t see it happening tonight.

I tried to call my mom… left a message. And talked to Spencer for a few minutes. Then I put it all away and took a shower. I finished putting my stuff away and made “dinner” which consisted of the left over noodles in the fridge butter and parmesan cheese. It was fine. But I’m a bad cook when I have food that I know and a microwave… much less with food that I actually have to make on a real stove… I don’t know what to do if I can’t eat quesadillas. The food here is very Mediterranean. They don’t eat Mexican. They eat Italian. And I don’t know what to do with that. Sigh… I’m just complaining about my lack of a personal cook to follow me around. Spencer: I can’t believe you’re in NY instead of cooking my food! So, hopefully they have leftovers every time I need to make food for myself. When I was washing my plate, Sebi finally got home, about 10:30. He made himself some food and we watched a little TV before going to bed. It was a rather lonely evening. I guess I’ll have to start making friends, huh? It’s amazing to me how much I can write about a day in which nothing much happened. Oh well.

Dia Quatro

Today was the day that the loneliness and homesickness started to become apparent. I woke up at 7:30 am to take a shower before anyone else needed it. No one else took one though. I got ready so I could meet Sebastien at 8:40 because he offered to show me to the bus. At 8:40 I ran into the kitchen to scarf a yogurt before I had to go. When I had done that, I looked around and realized that Sebastien was not ready to go, much less in view. So I returned to my room to clean up a bit. Sebastien finally came out not too long after and I followed him into the kitchen. He calmly made tea and toast for us to eat. At 9:15 he finally asked if I was ready to go and I said Sí. He gave me a key and made me a simple map of the bus route to follow so I would know where to get off. He also gave me 80 centavos as I didn’t have any. Then we walked to the bus stop on the corner and when the bus came he said good luck and sent me on my way. AAAAHHHH!!!... We don’t have busses in Soldotna. It was fine though. I held onto my bag and watched how others were getting on and off the bus. When my stop came I was ready. The hardest part was seeing what street we were on because Buenos Aires only has one set of street signs per intersection, if I’m lucky. And you don’t know what corner they are on. So that was fun. But I found it, and I walked the other 4 blocks to FLACSO and arrived on time at 9:45 am.

The morning was devoted to a Spanish written exam which I am sure I bombed. I have the worst Spanish of anyone in the program. But that’s okay. Last year when I was planning to study abroad I decided that I didn’t care how I did in my classes. I have no delusions about the quality of my Spanish. My goals in coming here are to LEARN Spanish, not learn other things IN Spanish. And to DANCE as much as possible. So I was none too concerned with the poor quality of my test. I know, I’m an honors student, what was I thinking. I was thinking that I don’t need any more stress than I have and my Spanish will come eventually. But even so, it’s a little depressing being the worst. After that they turned us loose for lunch. I followed some other girls to a café for a sandwich and “agua sin gas”. There we all searched our transportation booklet to determined the how best to get to the part of town where we were supposed to start our small group walking tours at 2 pm. I got there fine, using the subway for the first time. But I was a little early so I waited around until 2 when I still couldn’t find anyone so started to worry. I shouldn’t have. Everything starts late in Buenos Aires… so of course people started showing up about 10 minutes late. I guess American students learn how to be late quickly. The walking tour was boring and the speaker was talking far too quickly for me to follow her enough to understand what was going on. So I basically just stood and listened and looked around. It was okay I guess. When that was over, me and three other girls went to find a café to sit in and have “coffee” meaning that I don’t really drink coffee. But I like water. It was fun. It was actually good for my brain to speak English, again, not the best for my Spanish, but good for my loneliness. The girls were nice. Then we all went to our home stays and I rode the subway back to my house. It went well.

When I got home, Sebastien was sitting in the kitchen in the near darkness playing his guitar and drinking Maté (a staple tea in Argentina). He shared his tea with me and we talked. Soon Malena came in with their mother visiting from her far off home. She spoke very good English and insisted on speaking it to me. She had so much energy. She was very fun and very nice. They didn’t stay for long. And soon after they left a friend (whose name I have not yet determined) arrived. She spoke so fast that I couldn’t understand anything she said. Sebastien offered me to hook up my computer to the wireless internet and I tried… but the IP address was wrong or something so I couldn’t get into it. Sebastien and his friend went to his room and I went to mine to try to steal some free wireless. It worked for a while and I had a few words with Royce before it quietly stopped working, even though it said it was still connected. Oh well. It was frustrating, but we should be able to get the wireless working tomorrow so I am looking forward to connecting with my American friends and family. I miss everyone. I hope all is well. Goodnight.

Dia Tres

On the third day, I set my alarm for 7 am because we all needed to take showers before we went to FLACSO, the host school, for orientation at 9 am. We walked from the hotel... about 10 minutes, in three groups and hung out in the cafeteria with coffee and fruit before going into separate rooms to take a quick questionnaire about what we know about and expect from Argentina. It was boring... then we met the FLACSO staff who we will be working with this semester. Then we took a break before breaking up into smaller groups to learn about the housing system. That was also pretty boring, but useful I suppose. All the staff are really nice and funny so it was okay. Then we had lunch. The empanadas were amazing. Muy bueno! After, we returned to our small groups and learned about the public transportation system. That was so necessary!!! This city is huge. It was kindof confusing, but I'm figuring it out. It is scary though, running all around the city (that I don't know) by myself. But hey... whatevs. After the transportation lecture, we were dismissed back to the hotel for a few hours before we went to our new homes with our host families. At 7 pm I went down to the lobby with my four heavy bags and waited a surprisingly short amount of time for my name to be called and two people to come forward to meet me with a kiss on the cheek (the standard greeting here). The woman was as average looking as any beautiful Argentinean woman can look. By average I guess I mean she is of average height and build. The man was tall and a little scruffy in the beard. He was wearing a baggy blue sweater. They helped me take my bags to the sidewalk where we waited for a cab. He name is Malena. She is the sister of the man: Sebastien. Sebastien lives in my house; Malena does not. She lives nearby. We took a taxi to the house, about 30 blocks from the hotel.

The house is very large. The “living” is a huge tall room with almost nothing in it. It has the record player and a piano of some sort… and a couple of chairs on the other side of the room near the stairs to my room. My room is sort of a walled in loft. It’s almost as large as my room in Alaska is, but the ceiling is a bit lower. I have a twin sized bed that turns out to be quite comfortable. I have a loveseat, an electric heater, a closet that I can’t use yet because it needs to be fixed, a night table, a lamp, a large glass and wooden coffee table, a desk and chair, and a cell phone that the last student left for me. It’s very cute. I’ll take pictures eventually. I’ve sadly been being lazy in my picture taking. Anyway. There is a bathroom on the main floor, under my room and next to the bedrooms of Vero, a female roommate that I passed on the stairs but haven’t seen any of since, and Sebastien. Across the living room and though a door is the heated kitchen with the same tall ceiling as the living room. It is modest in it’s accommodations compared to American kitchens but it reminds me of our kitchen in Talkeetna, except it’s bigger. Up the narrow stairs next to the kitchen is Nati’s room. She is another female roommate, a vegetarian, very petite and cute but relaxed. Past her room is the door to the roof of the building which is large and has a great view. I hear we BBQ up there in the warmer season.

Back in the kitchen Malena made tea and toast (not in a toaster, on the stove) on which we put either cream cheese or dulce de leche (basically caramel spread). It was very good. We talked for a while about the rules of the house and other things before Malena went to her own house and I was left with Sebastien and Nati. Nati went to do homework and Sebastien turned on the soccer game. Tyler is going to be so jealous of all the soccer I’m going to see. It was fun, but Boca, the Argentine national team, lost. Eventually, around 9:30 Sebastien made dinner: spinach and cheese ravioli in pasta sauce. It was very good. After that, though it was only 11 pm we went to bed.

I’m very pleased with my host “family?” They are all about my age, or within 10 years of me anyway. And Malena and Sebastien speak English… so when I have that blank “I don’t understand what you are saying” look on my face, something that is happening a lot, they say it in English. Probably not the absolute best thing for my Spanish, but certainly good for understanding, shared learning, and the building of friendships, something I am in need of greatly at the moment. The third day was very exciting.

Dia Dos

After getting about 5 hours of sleep I awoke to the persistent sound of the door buzzer and loud knocking. My first roommate arrived at about 9:30. Since we were staying in a hotel for the first night, we all had 4 or 5 people to a room. After Mary arrived I went back to sleep for and hour or so before hunger finally enticed me to find food. I didn't know if Andrew would be up yet or what. So I hung out for a while to see if he was going to come down and see if I wanted breakfast... and about 12 I got sick of waiting and went of to find him. He was sitting in his room, with his roommate, nursing his hangover and watching tv, and having already gotten breakfast kept watching tv. Men... again... eh. So I went out on my own to find a "supermercado" or a grocery. At this point... after my failure of a dinner the night before I hadn't eaten very much and I was starting to feel like I might pass out. I found one easily at the direction of the man at the desk and proceeded to find: a cereal and yogurt combo, a large can of peaches, a huge bottle of water, a loaf of bread, some raisins, walnuts, and cashews, the last three for some make shift gorp (trailmix) so I wouldn't be in danger of starving again. It was an interesting breakfast. And I had some jam from Katiana's mother to put on the bread. By this time my two other roommates had arrived: Christina and Lauren.

I spent the rest of the day surfing the web or sleeping on my bed. We were all a little bored, but too tired to walk around, and our TV didn't work. Lauren went out to buy the new Harry Potter and read about 300 pages in the first 3 hours. Finally at 8 we all went down to the lobby, some 110 American college students poised to be set loose on the poor city. Just kidding. We were bussed to a huge buffet restaurant for dinner. This place was amazing! It had EVERYTHING! And all the food was so pretty... I don't think I'll even try to describe it, and I don't think you could imagine anyway. It was crazy. And it was packed. But the food was delicious. Buy the time we were done, about 11. I was really sleepy. When we got back to the hotel we tried to watch Empire Records... but we were too tired and went to sleep at about 12. I know some of the others in the group went out... but I was not interested. Besides, the wake up call was at 7 am then next morning.

Dia Uno

Yesterday, around 8:30 in the morning, Buenos Aires time, I found myself in a different country for the first time in my life. Well, technically I went with my family to Baja when I was 10 but that doesn't really count. Anyway, the flight from Dallas/Ft. Worth was painless. I managed to sleep a good portion of the 10 hour flight and listen to some music along the way. Also in the last hour of the flight, they played an episode of Cheers and that was exciting. When we got off the plane, all the non residencias (citizens of Argentina) got to stand in a long time to get our passports checked, but after that we easily got our bags, painlessly went through customs, and found our way out of the airport. Oops, I neglected to mention Andrew. Andrew is one of the young men in the CIEE Buenos Aires program with me and we happened to be on the same flight down. I met him in Denver and we hung out in the airport in Dallas. Anyway, he's done a little more conversing in Spanish than I and doesn't have to deal with my particular shyness so he got us a cab from the airport to the hotel and we were on our way. We were staying in the same hotel so the shared traveling was particularly convenient. Our cab driver was very nice and interested in us. At this point everyone speaks Spanish so my conversation is not the highest quality but I am ever so slowly getting better. The man at the front desk of the hotel was a little hard to understand because he was speaking so quickly but we got to our rooms fine. All the people at the hotel have been very nice and accommodating. By this time it is about 10 am and I am getting hungry. Andrew and I go out to walk around the city and find a Cafe to eat breakfast at. Turns out the average Argentine breakfast consists of a croissant or two, a small but high quality café con leche (coffee and milk), and a small glass of room temperature sparkling water. I was starving so we made ourselves obvious Americans and ordered an omelet and a calzone. But, they wouldn't serve them to us because there were only two of us and each of those is only made for two. So we just got the calzone. It was HUGE! We couldn't finish it, but fortunately we didn't make big jerks out of ourselves and ask for a carry out box. We were pleased though, that we had accomplished the food thing and were ready to take on the city. We spent the rest of the day wondering and looking for electricity transformers so we could plug in our electronics. We wandered into about 4 different random electronics stores and tried to explain what we were looking for... slowly we figured out what it was called and finally one of the ladies wrote down directions to a place she knew had them and told us to ask for Juan Carlos, because "he speak English". We found him and he spoke a little English and we spoke a little Spanish and ended us with exactly what we needed. I had accomplished my one goal for the day in less than 3 hours. It was very exciting. We returned to the hotel... after getting only a little lost, and I plugged in my computer and proceeded to call my mother as well as Royce, both of whom where surprised to hear from me so soon. I was pleased with myself.

For the rest of the day we walked down to the river and back before looking for something to eat... it's about 7 pm now... but no place is open for dinner yet because no one eat before 8:30 and the normal time is 10:30. I'm really hungry. 10:30 is my bed time. So we went into another cafe and had some croissants and an amazing 1/2 bottle of wine. I can't remember what it was called. I'll have to look it up. Then I went to take a shower so I wouldn't look in such a sad state walking around stylish Buenos Aries at night. During this time Andrew found another guy in the program staying at the hotel: Cotton. He of course changed the dynamic of the group and the guys spent the rest of the night making fun of me. yay. But what can you do. Men... anyway we finally got dinner at a restaurant. I ordered a salad that actually turned out to be 5 slices of tomato with mozzarella slices on top drenched in olive oil and garnished with fresh basil. It was not the most sustenance I'd had in my life but hey. Then we walked around looking for bars/clubs to hang out at and ended up at this great place with lots of local and 1 free beer upon entry. Unfortunately, I don't like beer. Oh well. But the music was loud and it was really crowded. They played a lot of older American songs like Madonna and REM as well as some modern stuff like Gwen Steffani and The Black Eyed Peas. It was hilarious. They were mixed in with some songs in Spanish... but most were these kinds of songs. And everyone sang along. They probably didn't know what they were saying... but they loved it. We met a group of girls who were very nice and talked to us and danced with us. It was great! It was very fun! We finally stumbled back to our hotel rooms sometime after 4 am. An early bedtime around here, but I was so tired. It was a great first day. I'm very encouraged!