The arrival

After a long day of airport personnel telling us that our ticket payments hadn't gone through, waiting in long lines, not getting my luggage, and having to pay over a hundred bucks to enter the country, we reached our destination: Buenos Aires!


The neighborhood Juli and I are both located in is called Recoleta. Her apartment is a block away from the famous cemetery that contains the famous Eva "Evita" Peron.

Where to begin?

My suitcase was delivered to me this morning, I called my host mom last night and this morning to set up a short visit. Juli and I had breakfast in a small restaurant/bar/grill across the street from her apartment.

Best croissants of my life.

The majority of today was spent getting things set up: finding and connecting to a wifi network, setting the time, getting groceries, etc.

We also got to meet up with Mercedes "Mechu" and Julio, my host parents. They are really nice, gave us a map and some coins if we needed to take the bus, and advice on some things to do.

Everybody here has dogs, and Juli and I saw about 4 different owners who looked exactly like their pets.

There was a sort of strike today for the buses; literally over 2000 people were riding their bikes in a lane, stopping bus traffic. They were whistling, yelling, honking horns, and one guy was actually playing a drum while biking. We didn't really figure out specifically why the strike occurred, but it was cool to see (for pictures.....facebook!)

It's summer here with a temp of like 70ish degrees during the day and a nice summer, breezy night.

I bought Pizza-flavored Pringles at the market in honor of my two brothers and my cousin. Juli criticized me for buying them, as they were kind of spendy, and not healthy. Despite this, she was the one to start the Pop in which the fun did not stop (she ate the first couple of Pringles).

The market was cool. With two floors, and an stairless escalator to push your cart up from one to another. They had a bunch of fresh, tasty food, and it didn't help that I was hungry. What seemed to quench my appetite was seeing the cow brains sitting in the Styrofoam packages with a thin plastic lining around them (again - facebook).

Well, those and the bagged severed pigheads.


I had the best shake tonight at the restaurant that Juli and I ate at. It was called "Tutti Frutti" and it had banana, milk, and a few other fruits. I literally laughed because it was so good.

Anyways, first thoughts of Buenos Aires are - big, nice, antique-ish (lots of old buildings, but they look really cool), elegant, lively, and surprising.


Thanks for reading this entry, I'll keep you posted.



p.s. I start orientation for my classes this week, so things will slow a little bit with blog entries. Hopefully, I will still be able to upload pics and such during this potentially busy time. Rest assured that we are having a wonderful time in this humongous city and that we are quickly adjusting and adventuring :-P


Yours,

R.A.P.

The restaurant Juli and I ate at