Buenos días familia y amigos!
The couple days have been a whirlwind! I was a bit of a rough start on Monday. There were so many people at our orientation, and it was overwhelming trying to meet people. And it also turned out that my roommate do not get along too well. Luckily, she has friends in Buenos Aires and spends most of her time with them, and even sleeps there sometimes. Anyway, it was an early night and I was determined to make Tuesday better!
Tuesday was the day everyone took a spanish placement test, but I still haven't heard how I did on it. Later that day I walked around the city and had lunch at a pizzeria with my friends Amy (who I went Rockbridge with funnily enough) and Jose. Also, that day was El Dia de Los Amigos (friends day), which is a big Argentine holiday. So I went out and celebrated with some other friends from the university, which was a lot of fun. Argentine lifestyle is quite different from what I'm used to. They don't eat dinner until 11pm or so, and no one goes to any bars or clubs until around 2am or so. So that's been an interesting transition!
Wednesday I took the bus and the Subte (subway) for the first times, and they both turned out to be pretty easy. Although on the bus you have to have coins, and coins are extremely hard to come by in this city, so my host mom has been giving all her coins for the bus. That afternoon Amy and I took the subte and explored Palermo neighborhood, which was amazing! We walked past the Zoo, and also found gardens that were modeled after the French Gardens. They were so beautiful, and had some really beautiful statues in them. I'll post pictures soon!
I can tell that this is going to be an amazing, and also a bit of a difficult experience. But I always love a challenge!! Anyway, today there's some big festival that's a week long, so I'll have to update you all about that later, and of course post pictures! It's really nice to finally feel comfortable, even if not exactly at home, here.