Buenos Aires is something else.

  Buenos Aires, Capital Federal District, Argentina
Monday, September 1, 2008

So last night I left Detroit for Buenos Aires, Argentina.  I met Jillian from Oregon at the Houston airport, and we had the same flight to Buenos Aires.  On the plane to Buenos Aires, I met Collin from San Francisco and Sarah from Washington.  The flight from Houston to Buenos Aires (BA) was a little over ten hours.  I had a window seat on the Detroit-Houston flight, by the way, and a vacant seat next to me (which NEVER happens-- I always sit next to someone very interesting and end up talking the whole trip).  On the Houston-BA flight, I had an aisle seat and ALSO ended up with a vacant seat next to me. 
We arrived in BA this morning at about 10:00 AM.  We all grabbed our bags;  Collin took off for Rosario (where our program actually is) and I took off for the bus station with Jillian from Oregon, Sarah from Washington, and we met up with Olivia from Alaska at the bus station.   We took a taxi to our hostel, the Ostinatto Hostel

our hostel, the Ostinatto

, and checked in.  Ignacio is the young man who checked us in-- very nice guy and everyone who works here speaks broken English (which, in combination with our broken Spanish, works out very nicely!).  Our room was 201, on the second floor (which, by the way, is ACTUALLY an American 3rd floor).  So I took my 20-pound backpack, my 30-pound carry-on, and my 50-pound checked bag and headed up the 2 1/2-foot-wide spiral marble staircase (spiral so that it winds around the "lift"-- the elevator that DOESN'T work)  and head up 3 narrow flights of stairs with my 100 lbs. of luggage.  I'm glad I didn't take 2 checked bags. 

We left our bags in our room (a shared room with 4 other British girls who don't talk to us) and headed out on the town.  The old architecture (I'd say 1800s, maybe early 1900s) is pretty cool, and reminiscent of a European city.  Most people say this is the "Paris" of South America. You see for yourself. 

paris jr.

  Maybe.  

Paris, or so they say.

I'm not sure.  It was really cloudy today.  And the city smells bad everywhere.  And it's noisy and dirty.  The people are weird so far, and no one has been very nice.  Except for our hostel, the only other nice people we've seen have been at a hostel nearby (where other students from our program are staying) and the Italian restaurant we ate at today. I had Capressa, which was a tomato-basil-cheddar salad.  It's normally made with mozzarella (which I LOOOVE) but it was some kind of Kraft stuff.  I ate the tomato and basil.  

What's cool is that you can drink the water here.  Apparently it's only in Buenos Aires, but it's nice not to have to worry about brushing your teeth or opening your mouth when you're taking a shower (which I have yet to do... it'll be a great day when I get to). 

The bathrooms at our hostel are all right.  There are 2 toilets and 2 showers and 3 sinks on each floor.  There is a kitchen and a "rec room" where there should be free tango lessons held for the guests here.  However.... there was no electricity today until 3:00 in the whole hostel.  Then there was electricity in the lobby and bathrooms at 3:00.  But there's still no electricity in the tango lesson hall, nor in our room.  Buenos Aires gets very dark, very early.  It's their winter right now... about 60 degrees outside, max.  And almost no sun.  I'm kind of excited to leave Buenos Aires and get to Rosario.  Tomorrow we leave at about noon.  There's free breakfast here, I think-- which we'll probably partake in.  Good night, Buenos Aires.