I passed my last weekend of real vacation shopping in Alto Palermo (theres a mall there), and going out at night first to a Bar called la Roca and then to Plaza Serrano in Palermo. La Roca was cool because it was far from any tourist neighborhod and there was a cover band for popular Argentinian Rock music that everyone was singing along to except me. I definately will go back to Plaza Serrano some night, it kinda reminded me of state street, but with more people, more bars, and nice weather.
Sunday night I finally talked to my host "family" to set a time to move in. My program has not given me any details about anything except my phone number and address so i just had to wing it. I moved in 12pm on Monday. My apartment is in huge and consists of an older women, her husband, two other exchange students (from a different program), and a cat. We are on the 18th floor and have a balcony with an amazing view of the city It feels so amazing to have my own place to stay here and meals cooked for me after living out of a suitcase and eating whatever I can scrouge up for almost two months.
In the afternoon I had a program meeting pretty far from the apartment. The meeting lasted maybe 15 minutes and accomplished nothing, which was a little frustrating since getting to and from the program office from here is not a short trip. Erika's apartment is in walking distance so I visited her and went with her to run some errands. From there I took the subway home, the first time I've taken in alone. It turns out it is neither scary, dangerous, nor complicated.
Ive got a busier day of orientation tomorrow, we are spending 2 hours learning how to use the public transportation guide (Guia T). I think Erika gave me a pretty good lesson already and her's lasted 5 minutes, so I'm interested to see what they have to say.
