El primer dia! (The first day)

I really had no idea what to expect of Buenos Aires. I mean you hear about it from people or see pictures but its nothing like being here and experiencing it for yourself first hand.

I jotted this down yesterday when I was waiting at the airport for a couple of hours before meeting up with the rest of my group.

After about a 20 hour journey I finally arrived! I walked out of security and was bombarded with signs for different tour groups, then I remembered that it was only 9am and my group wasn’t meeting until 12. So I continued on. A minute later I spoke my first words of spanish in this county. “Donde esta el bano?” I asked one of the workers in the airport. It felt so cool/weird speaking spanish for real. All the times before it had just been practice at school or with eliana in preparation for the trip but here I was actually having to rely on my knowledge of the language (which isn’t very much) to get around. So now I have about 2 more hours to hang out at the airport and people watch. A few things I observed already is that people seem so laid back and happy here, granted it is summer time. And the majority of the people at the airport are big families, almost no business men in suits like in the states. Everyone is just kind of standing around, taking pictures, hugging one another, in no rush at all. How great. I’m glad I’m here :)

It is now the evening of my second night and I already feel like I've been here for a week. After we met up with part of the group and our coordinator we took a mini bus to the hotel we are staying at in downtown Buenos Aires. There we met up with the rest of our group (we are only 12 people for now, and 19 once the actual semester starts in march) and had lunch. After lunch we were so eager to get out and explore the city so we decided that before our orientation started at 4 we would do just that. We walked for a while, some of the kids in our group holding maps trying to direct us around. Eventually we just found a really cool bar where we decided to stop at and most people got their first beer. Pictures of the bar can be found on facebook. Anyway we then headed back for a 3 hour long orientation mostly about safety in the city. It was actually really helpful because even though Buenos Aires is generally pretty safe there are still a lot of pickpocketters (sp?) and people who will rob you at anytime. Lesson learned: If you're planning to go out only travel around with some cash, a cell phone, and a photocopy of your passport. And only take Radio Taxi which is a taxi service that you call right before you want to be picked up. I guess that also means that I won't be wearing my Israeli Magnolia watch for the semester.

Orientation finally ended and it was time to go to an API sponsored dinner! I could probably write an essay about this restaurant but I will hold myself back. In short 5 course meal, different kinds of breads and a cheese spread, a salad bar consisting of every vegetable, bean, lentil, salad mixture you can imagine, followed by epanadas, then our main course I got a delicious white fish that I still do not know the name of because they didn't know how to say it english, with fries. And then dessert! There were 3 choices: Dulce de Leche icecream, Dulce del Leche pancake (this is just a crepe with the dulce de leche inside), or a fruit salad. 2 of my friends and I decided we would each get a different one and share them all. Great decision, they were all amazing especially the icecream that blew us away. The restaurant was really awesome too. It was underground, still pretty fancy with pop art paintings all around. Again check fb for pics (they'll be coming soon).

Day #2 I will hopefully get to writing about tomorrow. Its now time for dinner and then our first free night in the city!