Life with Gladys Fernandez

I am now living with Gladys in her apartment. The apartment is really big and has a lot of rooms. I have my own room, which is nice, but it's kinda unimpressive. I will probably have pics of it up when I join a photo club. At least I am able to steal the wireless connection from the girl downstairs and can use the Internet.

This weekend was the first I got to spend with my new host mom. The first night I was here we went to her sister's (Anahi) apartment where she lives with her two sons. That night we were celebrating Anahi's host son's (Cliff) birthday. He's from my program also and I can't say that I was disapointed to find out his Spanish is worse than mine. When I first moved in I was feeling a bit uncomfortable, but during the dinner I was feeling more at ease. Yesterday (Sunday) Gladys, Anahi, Juan (Anahi's eldest son), Cliff, and I went to their house in the country. It's a small house, but there's a pool outside and a beautiful garden. They also have 6 dogs that all jumped up on me as soon as I arrived on the property (remind me not to wear my good clothes there again). In addition to the dogs they have cats, hens, roosters, and ducks. I was standing like a foot away from a rooster! I'm experiencing a lot of new things here in Buenos Aires. The day was spent peacefully reading in the sun. I think it's in the 70s here, but I'm not too sure because I don't know the conversion from Celcius. Me and Cliff attempted to use our horrible Spanish to talk to our family and I had to keep from laughing at how pathetic we were. The good thing is when you're with the family you have to use Spanish so I will hopefully be improving soon.

This weekend was my most recent adventure in Buenos Aires and I'll be sure to write about the other ones I'll have. I miss you guys a lot- good luck with midterms (I can't believe I haven't even started classes yet) and have fun on Spring Break!

I'm here!

Ok guys, I don't have a lot of time to write this blog, but I'll fit in all I can till the next one. I have been here for about three days now and it's quite an experience. The transition is a bit overwhelming (esp. the Spanish, and yes my Spanish is terrible). I'm staying at a hotel till I move in with my host mom, Gladys Fernandez tomorrow. She seems like a really nice woman and lives in apartment in the central part of the city by herself. How kick ass is that? The downtown area is pretty cool and I've already been to an outdoor shopping area (though I didn't buy anything). Can we say 3-1 exchange rate is the shit? I've mostly been getting to know people here in the program and everyone's pretty cool. I've gone out to eat and went to a bar called the Shamrock the first night I was here. I thought it was interesting that the first bar I was going to in BsAs was a psudo-Irish pub. The only thing Irish about the place was they served Guinness. It was pretty much decorated like a modern cave and had techno music playing (that's big here). I was not too successful at understanding anyone who spoke Spanish since I suck at it and the music was loud, but what the hey.

I took the bus here for the first time yesterday as well as the subway. Buses (bondis) are pretty much the way to get around here since they have about a million that go all around the city. The subway (subte) is not as helpful because the five lines only go to and from the central part of the city. Since I will be living pretty much in the central part of the city, I think I can use the subte more than some. The first bus ride was an assigned trip I took with my group to Universidad Catolica (UCA) which is one of the universities CIEE is affiliated with. It seems like a really nice school and it's right by the river. The other school, Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) is apparently not as nice. The people who were assigned to go there said it looks like a high school with spray paint all over it, and guess where the social science classes are... great. Anyways I have to continue with my orientation today so I will update everyone later. If anyone wants to e-mail me, my address is jeslevine@gmail.com. Please keep in touch!

Besos,
Jessica

This is a test trial to see if this blog thing works. I'm about to leave the country in approximately 7 hours so I need to continue preparing. I'll keep you updated ppls.