A month's reflection

I can’t believe its already been one month. I mean, I guess I can believe it since it feels like I know the city so well. But still! Me and my friend were actually talking about this the other day, how if someone asked us now where a street is, pretty good chance we could tell them where it is and if not could find it easily on a map. Its just weird to think about the first day of orientation which really wasn’t very long ago and our first afternoon when we all left the hotel together and went wandering aimlessly with our maps. ha.

So this has been a bit of a rollercoaster week, emotions-wise. Monday something really unfortunate happened to me. In the back of my head, I figured it eventually would but not like this. I got robbed. I was out at La Bomba which is supposed to be this awesome drumming circle where everyone dances around while listening to the drumming band perform. I took out my phone from my bag for 2 seconds because Eliana had texted me that she had gotten there so I was going to go to the entrance and meet her. Right after we met up, we decided to get in line for a drink. We realized that there were actually 2 lines, one to buy a ticket for a drink, and one to get the drink. Since we were already in the 2nd line I told her I would just get in the other line quickly and buy the ticket. Anyway I opened up my purse to get my money out....this whole thing from the time I split up with my friends at the concert to now maybe had been 5 minutes, and then I realized my phone was gone. Those damn robbers. At least I had my money zipped up in a smaller pocket and my camera was in a case that didn’t really look like a camera case so they didn’t take any of that stuff. Honestly though I have no idea how they managed to open up my purse with out me feeling it. But I guess they are experts because later that night they robbed Eliana’s friend’s camera. Big downer on the night.

So Monday night I got home with no phone, and of course the internet was down in the apartment all week. The claro (cell phone company) systems apparently were also down for a day so it didn’t end up being until thursday that I got a sim card for a spare phone that I happened to have brought to Argentina. So for a few days I was in a little bubble kind of like the bubble Oren and I were in this summer when we were in Canada and couldn’t really use our phones or have time for internet. But then it was cool because we had each other and were on vacation anyway. But this time I was in the bubble alone, and after a little while when you don’t really have a way to get in touch with anyone, its kind of a really big problem.

On wednesday however (as many of you know, I’m not the most content with my host family) I went to visit another host fam that I absolutely loved. Well, its not exactly a family. It’s a 28 year old girl who is jewish and lives on her own. She seems great though and I think we will get along just fine. Her apartment, which is very nice, is probably also only a 10 minute walk from my school! Couldn’t have asked for anything better.

Thursday was my final in Espanol, which went pretty well. And that night we celebrated at our friend Jenny’s apartment. Her roommate is from Brazil so he had a bunch of his friends over as well. I don’t think I had ever heard portugese spoken in person before but after listening to some conversation it sounded just like a mix between Spanish and Dutch. On Friday, the 5 of 6 new students in our program arrived in Buenos Aires. In the evening the people in our group who hadn’t left yet for the week and traveled somewhere (because its our spring break) all joined them for dinner at the place where we had gone to on our first night. Dinner was fantastic, as expected. This time I got what my friend had ordered last time, the spinach raviolis in rosa sauce with dulce de leche ice cream for dessert. I was pretty exhausted after dinner and so were most of the other kids who had just flown in so I had an early night for once and actually caught up on sleep. On saturday it was beautiful out so I decided to hit up Florida street which is probably the most touristy street here but definitely cool to see. There were literally leather shops everywhere on this street so I decided to do some searching for a leather bag, and finally right before I was about to leave I walked into one more store and found the perfect leather bag. Its great when that kind of stuff happens, its like its meant to be.


So I’m glad whoever is reading this that you’ve been enjoying hearing about my eventful days but here’s something you might like even more. Its the start to my list of most interesting things about Buenos Aires. I’ve been making this list mostly in my head for the past month but I’m going to try and name some of it now and will continue with it through out my blog entries.

1) Dog wallkers: Everyday I see at least 3 or 4 of these. They usually have anywhere between 5-12 dogs, who are so well behaved and walk in such an orderly fashion. It amazes me.

2) Jobs and the gap between the rich and the poor: As I’ve been told by many people who live here the gap between the 2 is really big. Therefore, there are all these jobs for poorer people that you probably wouldn’t see in the states. Too name a few, a door man whos job consists of opening the door for you when you walk into the apartment and says hola. Then there are the people whos jobs are literally to sort the trash. I’m not really sure why they’re sorting it because from what I’ve heard there is no recycling here, but eitherway, don’t mistaken them for homeless people.

Besos a todos,
Karen