An Anniversary and a Bicentennial

Well, another week has passed, and even though it wasn't quite as exciting as the trip to Iguazu Falls, its worth a post.

Just as I was settling back into my house, unpacking, catching up on my blog and pictures, my host mother knocked on my door and whisked me away to our "aunt's" house. Last Sunday, while I was in Iguazu, was "Dia del Nino" (Children's Day). Yes father, they celebrate children's day here too! Since it was in the middle of the long weekend my family decided to celebrate Monday evening with another large family dinner.

I'm not quite sure what "Dia del Nino" normally consists of, other than giving presents to the children in your family and discounts at every pastry shop across the city, but for us it just meant a relaxing evening of dinner and board games. My 10 year old cousin had decorated her house with signs proclaiming it "Dia del Nino" and since she's the youngest she was allowed to pick the games for the night. We started off nice and easy with Jenga -- not going to lie, playing a 10 year old in Jenga is not all that challenging. But then after dinner we moved on to Trivial Pursuit. As if Trivial Pursuit wouldn't be challenging enough in Spanish, it was also the South America edition. At least I provided a lot of amusement for my family as I lost, finishing way behind the 10 year old.

After a nice close to an amazing weekend I was back in school-mode for a short, 3 day week (wouldn't want me to be working too hard).

On Wednesday afternoon a friend and I decided to check out the Cemetery de Chacarita (similar to Recoleta in design, but its filled with all Argentines, not only the rich and famous). It was built following a great flu epidemic to house the victims, but its now famous for housing the tango singer Carlos Gardel.

After finishing up another week of school, I tried to take full opportunity of my 3-day weekend. On Friday I had some administrative things to get done - like spending 2 hours at the migrations office to get my official residency forms! (Turns out before I just had temporary residency, but now I'm official) Then a friend and I headed downtown to check out the events for the 190 year anniversary of our university, Universidad de Buenos Aires.

The events were housed in a state-run high school that served as the original building for the university (if only the current building was as nice!). The building had been converted into essentially a museum of the history and founding of the university, with classrooms housing free lectures open to the public on a variety of topics. I was particularly proud when I was able to have a conversation with two women wandering around the exhibits about the difference between American Universities and UBA - they even complimented my Spanish :).

Then on Saturday I broke out of the Buenos Aires bubble by traveling to a barrio outside of the "capital federal," or the city proper. For my service learning class I'll be working with an organization called "Un Techo Para Mi Pais" which is very similar to Habitat for Humanity. Saturday was my first real introduction to the organization - I traveled with a group of about 15 Argentines to a barrio where they have constructed houses to throw a "Dia del Nino" party for the kids in the barrio. We spent the afternoon dancing to reggae, handing out candies and presents, and playing tag with about 60 kids. It was nice to get outside of the city and spend the day with Argentines. I'll be spending many more Saturdays over the semester going out to these barrios learning about the families and helping assign houses to families.

Sunday closed off another great, although more relaxing, weekend. We started the day off right by making the trek up to Palermo for some real, American brunch! The standard breakfast here is crackers with cheese spread and marmelade, or if you need a big breakfast a croissant glazed with sugar (called a "medialuna," or half-moon). I'm one of the lucky few who's host family buys me Frosted Flakes to eat in the morning, but a real breakfast was still desperately needed. The restaurant mainly serves as a popular bar, but its owner is from Vancouver, so he also does brunch on the weekends. We partaked in dulce de leche filled Belgian Waffles and a "Cali Coast" omelette with home fries - absolutely divine!

Then we headed back down to the main part of the city to do some of the more touristy things on our list of must-see things in the city. First stop was the Casa Rosada (the principal government office where the President works), which is completely open to the public on the weekends - if only the White House were the same. We got a tour of the building, which included going out onto the balcony where Eva Peron delivered her most famous speech.

Directly behind the Casa Rosada is the museum for the bicentennial which was this past year. It is underground and built in what was previously a Spanish fort, so they maintained some of the original brick floor which you can walk over on glass platforms. The museum is a general overview of Argentine history (conveniently sensationalized on television screens for us gringas) and has other historical artifacts like one of Eva Peron's gowns.

And now I'm settled back into a week of classes, but I will update again soon!

Iguazu Falls!

Sorry that its been over a week since my last post, but thats because I was off for four days in the incredible Iguazu Falls!! So here goes a long recap of the weekend:

Iguazu Falls is located in one of the most northern points in Argentina, bordering Brazil and Paraguay, and is said to rival Victoria and Niagra Falls as one of the greatest waterfalls in the world. So naturally, when we had our first "feriado" (holiday) this Monday we decided to make the 18 hour journey northward. I traveled up with 3 other girls from our program and we squeezed in everything we could in our weekend.

I know some of you were shocked when I told you that it would be a 18-hour overnight bus ride up to the falls - 18 hours stuck on a bus sounds like some form of torture. But in reality, I would take an overnight bus over a long plane flight any day! We were greeted with comfy seats that reclined almost 180 degrees, 3 movies throughout the ride (all in English), dinner, breakfast, and free wine.

We arrived in Puerto Iguazu (the little town 30 minutes outside of the national park) on Friday afternoon and decided to spend the day exploring the town and its surroundings.

I don't quite remember the process of picking out a hostel last week - I typed in "Hostel Iguazu Falls" in google and the first one to pop up was, of course, "Hostel Iguazu Falls". Somehow I decided that it would be fine to choose this one without figuring out where it was or if there better ones in town. It must have been fate, because we ended up in what appeared to be the nicest hostel in town! 1 block from the bus terminal, neighboring an ice cream shop, and in the middle of the little town. We even ended up having our own room for the 4 of us overlooking the courtyard and pool area, which played American pop and hip hop music 24 hours.

We took the opportunity to meet other students and travelers from around the world. We even befriended an Austrian working in Brazil who might come down to visit us in Buenos Aires before he heads back home!

Later in the day we took a short trek over to "Tres Fronteras" (three borders) which is a spot in the river where the borders of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil all touch. Each country has its own obelisk painted in the colors of its flag right along the river.

Saturday morning we took a short bus ride over to the national park right at 8 am when it opened so we could have a full day in the park. After a short snafoo in which we tried convince two park rangers to let us in for the resident price (they wouldn't let us because we didn't have our residency paperwork with us), we headed into the park. The morning was greeted with a little bit of disappointment - the area called "Garganta del Diablo" (the Devil's Throat), was closed because of a high river level. Also, this meant that the boat rides that take you underneath the falls were also closed because it was impossible to navigate them up the river.

But all was not lost, as the "Garganta" is just one small part of the falls. Our first stop was a walk along the upper circuit. Here the pedestrian walkways go right alone the very edge of the top of each waterfalls. Probably not the best for someone afraid of heights because you can lean over the edge and look all the way down. This is the classic view of the falls - a span of about 10 monstrous waterfalls in a half-circle pouring into a barely visible river below.

From there we journeyed down to the lower circuit, which takes you about halfway down the waterfalls and allows you to walk right next to them, causing you to get drenched. I should note here that we thought we were clever by wearing shorts into the park, despite the 60 degree weather out. We didn't want our jeans to get soaking wet and then be freezing all day long! But this did also mean we experienced a rather high number of confused and concerned looks all day long. This wasn't helped at all when we decided to go as far out as the walkway would take us (the remainder was blocked off because of the unusually large amount of water) - right up against one of the waterfalls. No one else wanted to go out that far because it meant getting soaked, and I'm not going to lie, it was freezing outside. But we ran out and came back looking like wet rats. There were definitely quite a few mothers in the park concerned for us.

Dripping wet we decided to head back to the central part of the park to enjoy lunch. On our way we stumbled upon the Sheraton, the one hotel located inside the park. They also have a pool area looking out on the mist from "Garganta del Diablo" that was empty because of the weather. We decided to take advantage of the abundant chaise lounges to dry off under the sun. After warming up a bit we headed off for our final activity of the day.

All the crowds swarm to the huge waterfalls, so in the late afternoon we headed out on a 3.6 mile hike to a much smaller, secluded waterfall where you can swim in the warmer months. From above the waterfall there was also a beautiful panoramic view of the Brazilian border.

Feeling as though we had literally stepped foot on every inch of the park we could, we headed out Saturday evening back to Puerto Iguazu and to our hostel for a relaxing evening. We treated ourselves to Argentinian steaks and called it an early night.

Sunday we took off our our second adventure - rappelling and zip lining! We drove out to another part of the forest that is protected by the Argentine military. First up was a repel down a 20 foot cliff. Then was a brief walk through the forest to our first zip lining platform. From there we zip lined 800 meters across the forest! There was only a little bit of screaming from my travel companions (one had to assure the guide that she had sky dove before as she looked petrified while rappelling). It was a perfect close to an exhilarating weekend.

The drive back from the forest took us through some of the more rural towns, where we got to stop to look at a small artisan fair and a local cemetery. It was nice to be out of the city and see another face of Argentina. We even befriended our tour guide who shared his mate with us on the ride back! (Note: sharing your mate with someone implies trust, so we get extremely excited when any Argentine offers us their mate -- seems like I might need a post about mate).

After an exhausting two and a half days we said goodbye to Puerto Iguazu and loaded up for another 18 hour trip back home.

Sunday: Presidential Primary Edition

Today was a balmy 62 and sunny - the perfect day for a presidential primary! And not just any primary, the first ever presidential primary!

My host mom took me with her to the polls this afternoon to vote. Polling locations are divided by house and by last name, so different members of the family can vote in different locations (as is the case in my house). Everyone has a specific table within the school they go to where their ID booklet is stamped to make sure they voted (voting is obligatory) and then one at a time they go into a classroom to do their voting. There are pieces of paper, by party, where one side is the presidential candidate and the other is all their nominees for the remaining positions. With your own envelope, you either put in the paper for one party, or you can tear off one half of the paper and combine it with the other half from a different party.

Then we took a walk through the park where she told me a bit more about the election. I always forget how recent much of Argentine history is - for example, my host mom voted for the first time when she was 29, because before that was the military dictatorship and the "Dirty War" (but its never called the "Dirty War" here, but rather state terrorism, which does make more sense). She told me stories about the first election, how people celebrated throughout the streets. Its nice to be in a place where people appreciate democracy and their right to vote.

Tonight was another family dinner, but was special because we were watching the election results. Before dinner each member of the family put down their predictions for vote percentages for the 6 major presidential candidates. Note: Any candidate that doesn't receive 400,000 vote in this round will not participate in the October general election, so its more of a run-off system. Then we watched the results roll in over pastries.

The last I checked Cristina Kirchner (the current president) had 48 percent of the vote, with the next closest having only 13 percent. I'm still trying to figure out why this primary system is beneficial as there are still 6 candidates left for October and Kirchner looks like she has a pretty solid lead...Oh well, we'll see what happens in the next two months.

Tomorrow marks the start of the second week of school. Wish me luck!

Clearly it was a busy week for cultural differences!

16. Leash laws. Maybe its just that the United States is rather berserk about their leash laws for dogs, but I've been surprised by the number of dogs that I've seen running around on the sidewalks (with an owner) without their leashes.

17. And the downside to relaxed dog laws. There is no law in the books in Buenos Aires that you have to clean up after your dog in public places. This means that you must be vigilant while walking down a sidewalk to avoid any pleasant surprises.

18. Psychiatrists. The number of psychiatrists in Buenos Aires is often the subject of jokes, but here its very common for nearly everyone to regularly go to a psychiatrist. Having dinner with my host sister and 5 of her friends, the conversation quickly turned to them talking about each of their psychiatrists - they all had one, and they all go regularly.

Another addition to the list: back to school edition. While I knew about the major differences in the education system (or somewhat) before getting here, like grading scales, there are obviously so many minor differences that I was unaware of until Monday.

11. Smoking. Only recently Argentina banned smoking in public buildings (a change that I'm quite a fan of), but this apparently does not apply to school buildings. Smoking appears to be completely acceptable through the "Facultad" (the shorthand for the building housing my falcultad of political science). Some even smoke within classrooms, although I've fortunately not seen this yet.

13. No silence. Now this was certainly one that I took for granted before coming to Argentina. We all have those kids in our class who whisper obnoxiously during class, or in big lecture halls we've all been guilty of talking to our friends sitting next to us. But there seems to be a different norm here - talking, quite audibly, among your friends in a class of 20 doesn't appear to raise any eyebrows. On the first day I was absolutely shocked! Girls were giggling and chattering away and the professor didn't even look their way. I'd also like to add that this doesn't help out the awkward exchange student straining for every word the professor mumbles.

14. Same goes for cell phones. I've sent texts during large lectures, of course, but never during a 30 person class, and always discreetly. As with the talking, there doesn't seem to be quite as strong of a norm here about texting. It appears to be perfectly acceptable to hold your cell phone out in front of you and compose long messages.

15. No textbooks! This is my favorite cultural difference in terms of school. Books in Argentina are considered very expensive (where aren't they?), so instead, each professor develops a sort of reading packet that they then send off to a specific photocopy kiosk. You simply walk up, tell them your professors name, and there they have all your readings conveniently compiled (with a syllabus and reading guide in front) for roughly 5 US dollars! Now this I could get used to.

Sisters and Sunshine

Well, I've officially finished up my first week of classes here in Buenos Aires! And so far, so good.

I think I'm pretty well settled on taking Argentine History and Latin American Politics at UBA. I got to talk to our lecture professor for Argentine History Thursday morning and she was just as nice as my recitation professor. The other student in the class we had talked to on Tuesday agreed to help us out if we ever have any questions and then he and the professors proceeded to have a conversation about Baywatch once I told them I was from California (this is the go-to reference to California down here, sigh).

I had a day off from classes on Wednesday, so I spent a relaxing day with some friends. First we went to the cultural center associated with UBA where we can take one class for free (paid for by our program). There is such an impressive variety of classes open to anyone and everyone in Buenos Aires - from graphic design, literature, dance, yoga, and acrobatics! We went to sign up for an introductory painting and drawing class (I know that some of you are now probably laughing to yourselves - but why not try out something completely different!?). Well, unfortunately, none of you are going to be able to see my masterpieces since the class was full!

We decided to drown our sorrow in a movie and ice cream. Wednesdays are known for having the cheapest movie tickets in the city, not that they aren't already much cheaper than in the States, so we went to see Midnight in Paris (the new Woody Allen movie) and then hit up Volta, which is a local ice cream chain that has been voted the best ice cream in the world.

Friday was a bit of a slow start to the weekend (every weekend is a 3-day weekend here! I feel like I'm in the Business School). There was a severe weather warning, with hail, thunder and lightening, and buckets of rain. But it was a good time to get some errands done, so not all was lost.

Friday night I did finally get to meet my host sister though! She arrived late that evening, which led to a stream of family members and friends pouring into the house to give her a warm welcome. She is very welcoming and friendly and we finally got to have a brief conversation this morning. Its going to be great to have her as a sister since she's in the same "carrera" in UBA that my classes are in (Ciencia Politica), so she's taken similar courses in the past.

Today was one of the first nice days - starting to look a bit more like spring - so we decided to go to the Japanese Gardens. They're located in Plaza Italia which is one of the nicest parts of the city, in my opinion - lots of open green space, plus the zoo and the gardens. We started out with some Japanese food (sushi, yum!) and then spent the afternoon wandering around the gardens.

Tomorrow is election day and I think my family is going to take me with them to vote! I'll be sure to keep you updated on how the elections go, or what I understand about them.

Back to School

Classes! Monday was our first official day of school (although some people had classes at UCA, the private University last week). Despite an unhealthy amount of anxiety, I would say that so far its going really well!

Monday went about as smoothly as possible.

On Sunday a friend and I mapped out how to get to our UBA classes and walked over to the building so that we were ready Monday morning (the same routine as freshman year at Georgetown). The day before classes started the building looked eerily deserted, but is much better now that its filled with people.

Each specific department of UBA has its own building (all spread throughout the city), so all of my classes are in one of the two Social Science buildings. Since the Political Science classes are all held in the building it is PACKED with campaign posters and volunteers. I wanted to take a picture of the stairwell and halls because its amazing, but thought that might look a little weird...maybe later in the semester. The main floor has tables set up with every political party and volunteers there to answer your questions. There isn't any white space in the stairwell or halls but instead huge, colorful posters. This is accompanied by students who briefly interrupt classes every 20 minutes or so to pass out pamphlets and talk about their candidates. What I would give to live in a country that is so politically engaged!

Despite every thing else about UBA being difficult, they make it very easy to find your classes the first day with giant bulletin boards of classroom numbers on the ground floor. I had no trouble finding my two Monday classes: Argentine History and Latin American Politics.

First us was Argentine History. It was the "practica" which is the equivalent of a recitation for us. I was pleasantly surprised when I met another exchange student from Minnesota outside of the classroom - made me much less nervous for my first Argentine class! The professor was extremely nice and very easy to understand. She had us introduce ourselves to the class since we were exchange students and after class she said that we could email her if we ever have a problem understanding something.

I even talked to one student in my class! (Our program staff really wanted us to talk to an Argentine in our classes...). He had studied in Minnesota for a year and was really friendly. Then while waiting for my second class I had a long conversation about the upcoming election with a girl going into a different class. Maybe I can make porteno friends after all!

After class I headed over to the "fotocopieria" (photocopy store). Instead of buying textbooks or even downloading articles from online, classes here develop reading packets that they then give to local photocopy stores (or in the case of UBA, there's a store run by students). You just have to tell them your professor's name and they give you a packet of readings! Its also a lot cheaper than buying a book or even printing it yourself. All of my readings for the first 4 weeks of class were 5 US dollars!

Then in the evening I had Latin American Politics. This class is about half exchange students, which I'm not wild about, but at least their from the US, Denmark, and Germany, so there's a bit of variety. The professor was also easy to understand and the class seems like it will be interesting.

Even though Monday was a complete success, Tuesday had a few more bumps in the road.

I knew that it was going to be a somewhat rough day when while walking to my bus stop a woman dumped water off of her balcony onto my head.

My first class was with my program and went very well. It was my Seminar on Service Learning. We're visiting the organizations that we might want to work with for the semester this week and next and then will decide by the end of next week. The classroom aspect of the course also seems interesting since we'll be learning a bit about social policy and social history of Buenos Aires.

After that class I headed back to UBA. I gave myself a little bit of time to find the classrooms for my two classes today. After scouring the bulletin board I absolutely could not find my first class. I asked a student there for help and when he couldn't find it either he motioned to the computer and the student portal, but I had no idea what I was doing (much to his surprise). So he sent me off to the Department of Students which then sent me off to the Department of Profesors, who told me that the class was in the Sociology department, which is housed in a different building (even though the other sections of the same class were in the Political Science department). Fortunately for me, all sociology courses have been postponed to next week so I didn't have to sprint across the city to get there.

I used my newly free 2 hours to check out the student-run cafe in the building, which boasts 75 cent coffee!

Then I had my Social Policy course. I got to class 5 minutes early. The rest of the 30-ish person class rolled in 15 minutes late and all sat on the other side of the classroom since they all knew each other. The course is a part of the "Trabajo Social" or Social Work major, that I'm guessing is really small and so all the students in the major know each other. This meant that there was a lot of chit-chat during lecture, making it very difficult to understand the professor. Oh, and the fact that he mumbled and had his hand covering his mouth the whole time didn't help. Basically, I only got about half of what he said and received odd looks by the whole clique of the class the entire time. Needless to say, probably not staying in that course.

Tomorrow I don't have any classes so I'll be going to meet with two of the organizations that I might do projects with for my service learning seminar!

The Official End of Summer Vacation

I know you've all been dyyying to hear how my first 2 days of classes went, but you'll have to hold on for a few minutes because I have to discuss the weekend.

Saturday was a relaxing day - we took the trek up to Belgrano, another barrio on the northern side of the city for the day. All together, it took 50 minutes on the bus to get up to the neighborhood, a distance that portenos consider relatively short. I'm still getting used to the idea that you have to leave an hour to get from one point in downtown to another. And this is only within the eastern part of the city - getting to the western edge would take over an hour!

We were headed up to Belgrano for Chinatown (Barrio de China), but more importantly, peanut butter. We stopped first for some chinese food, a welcome change from the daily routine of ham and cheese sandwiches. Belgrano's Chinatown consists of 3 blocks of grocery stores with 2 chinese restaurants - the one we chose was the "Dragon Porteno" because who could resist a name like that? Afterwards we headed out to one of the famous chines grocery stores, always packed because they are the only ones in the city that sell peanut butter. Most downtown grocery stores stick to a variety of crackers, one of the main food groups in Argentina. I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled upon dried fruit and nuts (I think everyone knows my obsession).

Afterwards we wandered around the outdoor Feria de Belgrano before heading home. That night we celebrated the birthday of a girl in the program by hitting up our first boliche (club). It was very similar to a club in the US...except the key difference that when we left at 4:30 am it was still packed with hundreds of people. Yes, hundreds.

Sunday morning I woke up forgetting that Sunday is the day for family, as in many countries. So we headed out for my host grandparent's house for a marathon family lunch. I guess this would be a good time to tell you a bit more about my family.

I have a host grandmother and grandfather, both of whom are from Spain, which means that their relatively difficult to understand. But my grandfather still insists on the "rule of 2" for food. I also have 2 host aunts and 3 host cousins. Two of my cousins are 10 and 13 years old, and absolutely adorable. They love to chatter away and ask a million different questions. The 10 year old was rocking a Miley Cyrus pin (or Miley Cyroos here) and explaining to me the subtle differences between Miley and Hannah Montana. She also explained to me that she used to have a lot of boyfriends, but now she doesn't have any because boys are annoying. Wise child.

Then I have two older host sisters, 27 and 29, who don't live in the house but come over about once a week for meals. At home I live with my mom, whom I've already told many stories about, my 24 year old brother and my 19 year old sister. My host sister gets back from a trip to Spain and London on Friday and I'm excited to meet her since we both (now) go to the same University and are studying the same thing! My host brother is extremely nice and helpful, and an excellent cook. Its nice to have more people and noise around the house and he's always playing his guitar and singing.

After a relaxing weekend I was ready to start school Monday morning...

San Antonio de Areco

As a final activity before the start of courses, our program took us out to San Antonio de Areca, which is a ranch in the countryside 2 hours outside of Buenos Aires. They're known for their gauchos, or Argentine cowboys.

After 2 weeks of figuring out subways and buses it was nice to escape the city for some fresh air and quiet. The ranch was complete with giant slabs of carne cooking on an open firepit, corrals with dozens of horses, and newborn puppies running around.

We started out the day by riding horses, which I enjoyed despite my fear of horseback riding (which originated when I was thrown off my horse while learning how to cantor when I was about 10 years old).

Then began the feast of empanadas, choripan (chorizo sandwiches), carne and pollo served by gauchos (of course), and dulce de leche crepes. Argentines know how to eat.

After lunch we had a demonstration of traditional folk dancing (the same style as at the Ballet Folklorico) and then our gaucho show!

Gaucho is the name for traditional cowboys in Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. You'd recognize them by their pants and ponchos -- waiters at steak restaurants will often dress up as gauchos. Well, we watched a demonstration of actual gauchos on their horses. The first test was to spear a tiny wooden stick through a metal loop, while galloping at full speed. Then they threw spears at a strawman and several of them performed gymnastics-esque tricks on their horses. The show ended with what seemed to be a traditional routine to show the closeness of the gaucho and his horse (I can't even begin to describe it!). For example, after the horse had flipped over on its back, the gaucho did a handstand on the horse's belly!

And now after a day of fresh air and good food, its back to the city. This is our last free weekend before classes start on Monday, so I'll be sure to keep you updated before then!

Besos!

Week 2

Sorry for the delay between posts! Its been a busy week...

It finally happened: I caught my first cold here. I was surprised that I hadn't already been sick, given the sudden change to cold winter, the new surroundings, and the stress of moving to a foreign country. I've been stocking up on vitamin c (which everyone knows is my favorite anyway) and I'm slowly but surely recovering.

But on a more exciting note, I finished up all of my appointments with migrations and I'm officially a temporary resident with a student visa!

I've also registered for all of my classes, and shopping period begins on Monday. Kind of terrified for the start of classes, but excited as well. I'm enrolled in lotsss of different classes, but my tentative schedule of what I think I'll end up taking is:

Workshop on Argentine Fiction (my mandatory Spanish class through our program - this one is set in stone.)

Seminar on Service Learning (also through the program, this is a 1 hour class each week on social policy in Argentina and then 3-4 hours a week working with an organization on a specific project. Next week we get to begin to visit the organizations to decide which ones we want to work with.)

Latin American Politics (at UBA, the public school)

Argentine History (also at UBA)

I'll be sure to keep you updated on how each one goes and what I end up settling on.

I also had my first laundromat experience here in Buenos Aires, and let me tell you, I might immigrate just for this! 10 meters directly in front of my door is our laundromat, and for 12 pesos (3 dollars) you drop off all your laundry in the morning and pick it up in the evening clean and folded. I could get used to that after years of dragging laundry bags down to sketchy basements and waiting for laundry machines.

We also spent an afternoon in La Boca, the neighborhood famous for the creation of the tango. I think its safe to say that La Boca is what most people think of when they hear Buenos Aires - the colorful houses, the sidewalk cafes overflowing with carne, and the street tango. It is also, however, the poorest barrio in Buenos Aires, and can be very dangerous for tourists (good thing we're now residents who speak Spanish and know what we're doing).

When we were there we had the added bonus of watching the filming of a Portuguese Telenovela! The main street was partially closed to film one scene, which was sufficiently over-dramatic.

On Thursday our program staff decided it would be a good idea for us to prove to them how good we are at navigating the city, so they sent us off on a scavenger hunt. The only problem was that the 3 stops we had were on opposite sides of the center of the city. It took us 3 hours to make it to only the first two!

But this was somewhat made up for because we saw two landmarks I had yet to visit in the city. The first was the Cementario Chacarita, where many stars of the tango are buried. Its similar to Recoleta (which I mentioned in a previous post), but is much larger and not quite as ornate. There we visited the tomb of Carlos Gardel, the most famous tango singer. Then we headed out for what my host sister calls the "asno de arte" (the ass of art) - a giant metal flower which opens up during the day and closes at night.

Today, Friday, was our first excursion with our program, and I think I'll devote an entire post to the day since it will get too long!