This is our dinner at Las Cholas. So much carne!!!!

Sorry I haven’t written in a while, I have been so busy with orientation stuff and choosing out classes that I barely have any down time! This weekend I had a little bit of time so my friend Lauren and I went to La Recoleta Cemetery for a couple hours. The cemetery is one of the largest attractions in Buenos Aires. Here lie the tombs and bodies of the rich, powerful and famous of Buenos Aires. Even though it sounds creepy it’s extremely beautiful and oddly calming. Outside of the cemetery there was a small group playing the violin and the cello whose melodic sound floated through the quiet cemetery. We found the tomb of Evita basically by following the crowd. Apparently those of the upper-class were extremely upset when she was buried here due to her low class status. After we spent some time at the cemetery we walked through the neighborhood of Recoleta, which is one of the more upscale neighborhoods in Buenos Aires. It was extremely cold that day so we were overjoyed when we found a cute café with all types of tea. For dinner Lauren, Cate and I went to a parrilla (steak joint) that had been suggested to us by many called Las Cholas in a neighborhood close to ours called Las Canitas. Although we had to wait for about an hour to get a table, we were able to wander around and check out the cute and quaint neighborhood. Norma had told us what to order so we had the provoleta as an appetizer, which is basically just fried cheese and absolutely delicious. We also shared the parriada completa, which basically has a little bit of everything. And when I say everything, I mean every part of the cow haha. It came out on a sizzling plate and was loaded with prime rib, flank steak, chicken, chorizo, blood sausage, liver, intestines, everything! On top of that they serve it with french fries. Even though we tried almost everything between three of us we barely made it through one third of it! All together it cost us around 40 pesos each which is about $10! It was a great, very Argentine dinner!

On Sunday I mostly stayed around the house due to the horrible, rainy weather. Since then I have been preparing for signing up for classes and for actually taking classes! While I’m nervous for classes to begin I’m anxious for orientation to end, which has become extremely repetitive and boring. I’m still unsure what classes I’m going to take and where I am going to take them but within the next few days I will have signed up for all my classes that I may be taking (which right now is around 14!) and then next week I have a period of what they like to call “shopping” in which I go to all my classes to figure out which ones I like, which ones I don’t, which ones I won’t be able to understand the professor, etc. Lately in orientation we have been talking a lot of Argentine politics which has been extremely interesting. Basically what I picked up on is that no one likes Christina Kirchner. At all. Besides that there is a huge range of political ideologies in Argentina, all the way from socialism to extreme conservatism.

Just a quick story that I thought was funny, a friend and I were walking to the subte (subway) when we heard a marching band playing and saw a large crowd on the street. In the middle were people dancing holding blue and white umbrellas singing some song that every seemed to know. As I have heard, Argentines have a lot of national pride. After explaining this to my friend, he proceeded to ask someone “what are you celebrating” he answered, “we are celebrating nothing!”. Anyways, I’ll write more soon! xoxo

Long Post!

k here comes a long one since I haven't written very much since I've gotten here. Right now we are doing orientation for my program so I have to take the bus (el colectivo) every morning which takes about 40 minutes. For orientation we talk about things like the weird type of spanish that argentines speak, the city and where we will take classes. It's extremely long and often times boring but I guess it's all information that we need to know. Then I squeeze onto the ridiculously packed subway (subte) which is always closing on people because it's too full. The past couple of days I've been watching a telenovela with Norma that is of course extremely dramatic and ridiculous. Everything here is so cheap that I have been eating extremely well, I just want to try everything!

The city itself is absolutely amazing, I love it! Never before have I seen a more compacted and packed city. There are so many people everywhere I go but everyone mostly keeps to themselves. On every block there's a couple restaurants that have coffee and food like medialunas (like crossaints) and empanadas. It has been rather cold in the morning and at night lately but during the day it has been nice and sunny. There are a ton of trees everywhere and parks in all the neighborhoods. However, there is a ton of pollution from the amount of buses and cars in the city and sometimes when I have been walking around for a while I have trouble breathing. It's not like the fresh air of Seattle! My neighborhood is called Belgrano, towards the northern part of the city. It's mostly a residential area off of a man street that has a ton of stores. Even though there are parts of the city that are much more beautiful I still love it!

Last night was the first night that I went out because I have been a little jetlagged and am always tired from doing orientation stuff all day. Me and a few of my friends went to a little bar to meet up with a guy, Pablo who lives here in BA who I became friends with through Susy. We hung out there for a while and I met Pablo and all of his friends. They all speak pretty good english but me and my friends were trying to practice our spanish so we all spoke a lot of spanglish. They are all students that live in BA and all of them were extremely nice and reminded me a lot of my friends from home. We then went to a huge nightclub that had hundreds of people waiting to get in. Somehow Pablo convinced the bouncers to let us in after bribing them a bit hah. This place was the most crowded place I have ever seen, there wasn't even room to dance! Even though it was quite a sight it was a little overwhelming for my first night out so we didn't stay long. They couldn't believe we were leaving so early because here everyone stays out until 7 in the morning!

Anyways, sorry for the long message but basically I absolutely love it here! more later xooxoxxo

I arrived in Buenos Aires yesterday morning completely exhausted and worn out from traveling. I was nervous to meet my host mom, but she is absolutely amazing. Her name is Norma and she is extremely warm, helpful and relaxed. She keeps telling me that it's totally fine with her if I go out until eight in the morning! She lives with her boyfriend Charlie as well and has two daughters neither of whom live with her. Yesterday I slept for about five hours and then just chatted with Norma and ate dinner. Today was my first day of orientation which was good but also extremely long. I watched my first telenovela here with Norma which of course was extremely dramatic and ridiculous. Norma cooks a lot vegetables so I am still yet to eat a steak but that is at the top of my list! That's all for now! Ciao!

xoxo

Adios Seattle, hola Buenos Aires

Hello all! I am currently at the airport in Houston trying the pass the time of my six hour layover. I almost missed my flight to Houston but I'm now on my way! Despite my rough start to my trip I am extremely excited to arrive in Argentina! I just wanted to say goodbye to everyone, I hope you all have a good rest of the summer! I'll try to post often and post pictures as well!

love
air

HIII!!

hi :)