Buenos Aires is an amazing city. People are very friendly and helpful. Internet access is readily available and cheap. There are also ATMs on every block. Kind of reminds me of NYC, though - quite dirty. The thing I have not seen yet is a Starbucks or McDonald´s :)- The bus ride to La Plata was nice, gave a more thorough overview of the cities - more garbage and lack of money. We passed a very bad accident on the road, too - the entire rear axle was dismembered from the car. It was on the opposite side of the road. The vehicle looked really bad, but I didn´t see any blood. Looking at that car, though, it could not have been good. Also, I thought it wonderfully odd that horses were out along the expressway. I noticed most of them were tied but not all of them. Made me smile.
Orientation was good. I actually have a program classmate from Michigan; she goes to school in San Diego - and I sat next to her classmate from that SD school on the plane, he is down here for an externship unrelated to our program. Also, I have a program classmate from MN - I went to school in DC with one of her classmates. Small world (sometimes).
Oh, and we almost got tangled up in a gang war while out on a little walking tour! It was just the stray dogs in the park, though. ;) On that tour our guide explained to us that La Plata is actually laid out just like Indianapolis / DC / San Fran (I think SF was the other he said). The designers made it super easy with numbered avenues and numbered calles (streets) in the perpendicular. Then there are numbered diagonals through the square. And there is no 52. I don´t know why, there just isn´t.
Dinner here doesn´t start until at the earliest 8pm. Having not gotten around to eating lunch yesterday, I was pretty hungry by then! The food was very very good. And cheap! Yay for the exchange rate (which is basically 3 pesos to a dollar).
Okay, I´m going to eat breakfast and head to class...
p.s. My Brasilian visa is ready for pick up on Monday. It will be nice to have that in hand.
