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!
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