The First Week of School!

Hello family and friends! Sorry I haven't updated my blog this week, but school has been keeping me pretty busy.  I started classes this past Monday and my schedule is Mon-Thurs from 12-5:45 pm.  So tomorrow I don't have class, YAY! Anyways, my first class is from 12- 2:30 and is called "Culture and Civilization of Argentina." It is a really interesting class and we are doing a lot of cool field trips for it, too! For instance, we're going to a tango class next week (hopefully I don't embarrass myself too much haha). My other class is from 3:00 until 5:45 and it is called "International Marketing." In addition to our final exam for that class, we also have to come up with our own international marketing plan for a product, but since there are only 3 of us total in the class we get to work on it together. Today we are having class at a local Starbucks and are going to analyze their global market scheme and such- should be fun! This weekend is going to be crazy busy between trips to a leather factory, the Tigre Delta, and a local fair, but I am excited for the opportunity to take lots of pictures! In case I don't update my blog until next week, I hope everyone has a happy 4th! Miss you all!

Sunday at the Tracks

¡Hola amigos! Today we went to the Hipodromo de Palermo, which is a horse race track near our residencia.  I didn’t bet on any races, but unfortunately the people who did bet didn’t win anything. At least it was a nice day though because even though it was cold it was still really sunny.  While we were at the Hiprodromo they were also playing a local soccer game on the televisions inside because the game was a HUGE deal to people here (soccer is like religion to Argentines).  In fact, I got an email from the U.S. Embassy warning me not to go near the stadium where the game would be held because it was pretty much guaranteed that there would be riots.  This is because basically one of the teams, River Plate, needed to win today or they would drop to a lower division league and in the end they tied with the other team and thus dropped down a division.  The fans went crazy and were crying, hopping over the fence onto the field, and throwing things at the team that won.  Security ended up having to spray the fans with a giant water hose to get them to stop, but even that didn’t stop some of the crazier fans.  I haven’t heard anything yet, but there is a high chance that some fans were injured or killed in the riots.  There is even a high risk that some of the losing team’s players will be targeted.  So moral of the story: you don’t mess around when it comes to Argentina fútbol.

Residencia Elditas! My home for the next month!

The First Few Days!

Hello again everyone! Sorry for not writing anything new the past few days...things have just been crazy busy! So, where to start?...I guess I will begin with my airport experience.  I left Cincinnati at about 5:00 pm and had a layover in Atlanta where I met three other kids from my program! On the plane ride down to Buenos Aires I sat next to a man named Franc who was born in Slovenia, but now travels back and forth between San Francisco and Argentina. He was a very nice guy, but he basically told me his whole life story and while it was very interesting, it was also very hard to understand him because he didn’t annunciate anything he said. On top of that, I got really tired and wanted to go to sleep, but how do you tell an old man that you don’t want to listen about his life anymore? Eventually he let me go to sleep, but I probably only got about 10 minutes of sleep just because I could not get comfortable at all. At one point I actually pulled out the tray table in front of me and put my pillow on that! Needless to say it was pretty uncomfortable…Finally the morning came around though and Franc resumed his conversation with me in which he informed me that one of his ex-girlfriend’s last name was Voss and her family was apparently very rich.

Before I knew it though we had landed in Buenos Aires (we landed at 7:30 am, Buenos Aires time) and it was time to go through customs. I was really nervous since it was my first time going through customs, but everything luckily went very smoothly.  After that we collected our luggage (everything was there, thank goodness!) and we met with our program coordinator.  From there we went to the next terminal and waited for the rest of the CEA kids to arrive.  Finally around noon we were transported to our respective dorms and residencias (dorms) and were allowed to get settled in.  That night Elda, who runs the residencia I live in, made us empanadas (a very popular Argentina dish), homemade gnocchi, and for dessert we had bananas with dulce con leche on top.  It was a verrrrrry long day and I have never slept better than I did that night… 

The next day we had orientation and a bus tour of Buenos Aires.  The weather could not have been better that day; it was 60 and sunny, like a perfect fall day back home. During the bus tour we saw most of the city including Plaza de Mayo, the Obelisco, and we stopped at Boca, which is the Italian part of the city and it is full of tons of beautiful, colorful houses. Overall it was the perfect day in Buenos Aires! That night we went out to a local bar, but didn’t stay too long because it was a very cold night and we were all pretty tired.  Today we explored Palermo, the town my residencia is in, and just relaxed in the lounge. So all in all it has been a very busy, but very fun first few days! Sorry this entry is so lengthy, I will be sure to write entries more frequently so that they aren’t as long as this one! Also, I will be posting some pictures soon so keep an eye out for those!