Im having no trouble at all getting used to living in this city. Im getting spoiled by the nice weather, good shopping, empanadas, and being able to buy soda and candy any time I want at a the kiosks that are at just about every corner. Im drinking more coca-cola here than any other time of my life. So far the biggest challenges has been getting from place to place using the public transportation and doing a lot a walking. Neither of which are difficult. The subway system here is extremely easy to understand. The bus system is a little more complicated, but since the busses dont have set times there is no need to worry about being late and missing the bus.
I stated orientation for my exchange program last week, and I'm already a bit tired of it. So far about 50% of the information is definately common sense and the people that run the orientation speak really slow so everyone can understand. I start to go nuts after the first hour. I have learned a lot about the city, the demographics, the architechture, some history. I've also met a lot of cool people in my program. A lot of them have done a lot of traveling so its fun to compare stories. One of them was in Santa Cruz, Bolivia a couple weeks before I was there. The downside of making friends with the other northamericans is that we speak english with eachother and I feel like im losing time to practice Spanish. I also don't like being in a big group of foreigners because everyone immediately knows that we are foreign and we get treated like idiots.
This weekend was the best weekend I've had here. Friday I went to Erika's apartment where Erika, on of here friends and I shared some wine and then we met up with some friends we made in Punta del Este and went to a bar and then a club. Saturday one of Erika's friends invited us to a party all the way in the barrio floresta, which is in the south of the city. We took the subway, a bus, and two taxis to get there. The south is a bit different from the north. During orientation they told us that the south is more dangerous and that we shouldn't go. To me it seems less rich, but not quite the danger they made it out to be. The party was a great time, it was in a backyard of a house with bar and a grill. The people were all really friendly and it turns out that quite a few live in the provincia of buenos aires and not capital federal. I've come to realize that meeting new people is one of best parts about traveling.
