Week 1..and a Half

Wow--can't believe I haven't updated this since I first got here! How lazy am I? Much has happened and I have many oberservations to report. Better do so before I forget them all! My housemate here is updating his blog daily and putting up pictures and all kind of stuff...and here I am, realizing that now that I am in Aregentina, the blogger website comes all up in Spanish (which I have only studied for a week now) so I can't really read the instructions to upload photos or anything. So there will probably be no pictures until Shannon arrives and shows me what the hell I am supposed to do.......!

Last time we tuned in...I moved to the hostel. Interesting. Everyone there was 18 and travelling together as a group. What I found bizarre is that they never left. They spent all their time on the internet, or whatching TV, or whatever, but not going out and seeing the city. Granted it was raining for those two days, but not like a downpour or anything. Anyway, we will chalk it up to one of those things I will never understand, of which there are many in my life. The hostal experience was interesting to have, but not a place I care to have to stay at long term, like I guess many people do.

I am here now at the clubhouse and have been here a little over a week. I moved in last Saturday and then began Spanish classes on Monday. There are two guys living here with me, one is a guy from Tampa, Florida, who is also working here as an intern, and the other is a guy from Germany (whom I have only seen once so far as he went to Mendoza for the holiday weekend) who is studying abroad from a university in Berlin. They are both very nice, and Roger and I have been out several times over the past week--he arrived last Monday--for dinner and just to check out the neighborhood etc. We are currently without hot water at the clubhouse and have been that way since Thursday. Jen, the club manager, was out yesterday to try and see if she could get the pilot light to ignite as we could not, and has said she will need to contact the gas guy, so hopefully a hot shower will be back in my life again soon. They do some fun things for the club memebers here: last weekend we had a movie regarding the Malvinas war, as this is the 25th anniversay, and we also had a thai cooking class that I have attended. They have a Spanish conversation class on Tuesdays and Poker on Wednesdays.

I started my Spanish classes last Monday--5 hours a day for 4 days because of the holidays! It was intense, and I am not sure how much I have retained. I can recognize and understand a lot of words, etc. but am in no way ready feelink like I can put any sort of sentances together! In fact, but Thursday I was starting to feel like I was going backward instead of forward, but assume that is probably natural. The classes are good--we have two instructors and they each do half of the day and it is nice because they have different styles and you get used to hearing how different people speak, so I am happy with that. Our first week there were 6 of us--all English speakers. We have 2 guys and 1 woman from England, a guy from New Zealand, and a guy from Las Vages. Two of the guys are not continuing as they are taking off to travel, but I think the rest of us are going on. Apparently we will have different teachers next week as it varies as to how many students are in the class, etc. We will also probably have new people start--those with a little Spanish skills that don't need to start from the very beginning. We went from 2:45 to 8:30 last week and will do 2 to 6:30 from here on out, 5 days a week. My plan is to be there for the next 3 weeks and hopefully by then be able to say something! :)

I have done a lot of walking around BA and it is really a fun city. I have met a number of people who came for a little while and have ended up staying, so it is very interesting to meet people and find out what brought them here, where they are going afterwards, etc. Yesterday I went to the fine arts museum (Museo Nacional Bella Artes) which was lovely and free! They have a very nice collection of standard European art that is set up well, and a large Argentine art area. There is a Latin American art museum that I am looking forward to visitng. Today I am going out with some friends to check out the big San Telmo street fair (which is amazing-I walked around a bit at it last weekend) that they have on Sundays, and then perhaps we will go to the famous Recoleta Cemetario which is where Eva Peron and some other famous Argentines are buried. Roger and I went to a big dance club last week and that was a good time. We had to wait in line--something I never do for clubs!--but only for a few minutes. The cover charge was 20 pesos (about $7) and you are given a coupon for a free drink. It seems standard here that if you pay a cover charge it usually includes a drink.

So for now, I am off to get dressed and ready to go out, but will post later on regarding some of the more interesting observations I have had regarding Argentine life, culture, and food!