Mi casa!

Un beso (a kiss) to you from Argentina!

It's been a long day, almost so long that I forgot what I did this morning. But I guess I'll start with last night. We went out to an awesome restaurant called Prosciutto. We dinned on the tercer piso (3rd floor) with the rest of the students in the CIEE program as well as the program staff. We had a pretty typical Argentine dinner consisting of carne (steak) and puré (mashed potatoes). For dessert, I had some sort of flan-like dessert & Bot indulged in raspberry helado (ice cream). After returning from dinner, I worked a bit on a Spanish 'exam' that the program is requiring us to finish and then went to bed around 1:30am.

On to today! Today was, I guess, our first official day of Orientation. We started off the day with a light breakfast, with coffee of course! After breakfast we headed over to the CIEE offices (a few blocks away from the hotel) and got an introduction to the program and formal introduction to all the staff. We also got a quick introduction to how Argentines greet each other. In Argentina, like most other Latin American countries, a kiss on the cheek is the only acceptable form of greeting one another. (a handshake is pretty much considered rude) So, in the small auditorium of CIEE, we kissed each other...we passed a kiss from the front of the auditorium all the way to the back, going from one person to another. It was a fun and light-hearted way to start the day. (Side note: Caro, one of the staffers, made a joke that I thought was funny and clever, she told us that in Argentina, the greeting is ONLY ONE kiss, because Argentines don't have any time for more than that-since they're always so busy).

After the introduction, we had to take a written exam so the staffers could get an idea of where we are in our Spanish. I'm fairly certain that I will place in the most basic Spanish level, which is fine with me! Shortly after the exam, Bot and I walked all around the city looking for a bank to take out money from the ATM. We tried to do it yesterday, but the ATM we used rejected our tarjetas (cards). Luckily, we found a bank that accepts our TD Bank cards! Yay

Anyway, to speed things up, afterwards, we had orientation workshops for Housing/Insurance and Transportation/Security. Both were very helpful, although I'm still pretty nervous to use the public transportation here, but I suppose it's very similar to that of NYC!

Finally, I got to meet my host mom! Rosana, is probably in her 60s, with 3 grown children. She lives alone in an apartment in Palermo, which is still part of the Ciudad de Buneos Aires, but is quite a few blocks away from our CIEE offices. Palermo has a very good reputation for being safe and wealthy. One of Rosana's friends is a taxi driver, so he picked us up from the hotel and brought us back to the apartment. I have my own room, which is actually bigger than I expected it to be and I am finally settled in. My closet is two GINORMOUS mirrored sliding doors that stretch from ceiling to floor and I have an ethernet cord, which was quite surprising since our CIEE staff told us not to except internet in our houses.

Rosana and I chatted a bit about ourselves before I got settled in. I ran into a problem with my converter, which didn't fit my Mac charger, so we took a quick stroll out to a store to buy me the right one! Rosana's two daughters came over for dinner tonight, Lily and Marcella, along with Lilly's husband, Ricky. My Spanish is still very basic, so I had some trouble understanding things (especially when they talk fast) and I find myself using the phrase 'esta bien' (it's good/okay) and 'si' (yes) very often because I am so overwhelmed with the constant Spanish. Dinner went well; pollo (chicken), puré (mashed potatoes) and ensalada (salad) with white wine! (Yes mom, I had wine with my dinner tonight). After dinner we had some fruit for dessert while watching a Spanish game show; Minuto para ganar (A minute to win) where the contestant had to do random tasks in order to win 1 million pesos.

Lilly, Ricky & Marcella left a little while ago, and I'm just taking a quick breather before I have to finish my Spanish 'exam'. Prayers are welcomed, especially tomorrow as I have to take my oral language test. But we will also be taking a walking tour of Buenos Aires & more orientation workshops! Then we have un día libre (free day) on Sunday and Monday! Well amigos y amigas, ciao ciao for now (Yes, they say ciao here due to the Italian influence-shout out to my Italian bffs: Lyss, Getz & Drey).

Un beso,
-C