This is the apartment I live in. Like I described it in the last post, its very nice and furnished with a lot of antiques. At first, it seemed too nice, and I didn't feel very comfortable sitting on the furniture or walking through the house with my shoes on. After about a week, it really warmed up to me, and I realized Maria Silvia did not have a "don't touch anything" neuroticy or policies for walking around with shoes on. Its a plus that a maid comes about 4 times a week and keeps the place super clean for us.
So as you can see from this photo, it is winter here! I was definitely unprepared for exactly how cold it would be here. It is the beginning of Spring now, but still a little cold and pretty wet from winter. Our first week here was filled with a lot of sunshine, but this was not the case the second week! Due to the extreme change in weather, a new diet of TONS of meat (which I am no long accostomed to in San Diego), a higher amount of pollution compared to California, a bunch of vaccinations (basically small amounts of Yellow Fever, Typhoid Fever and Hepatitis A & B were injected into me), and, of course, experiencing a new and intense night life, I became super sick last week! I started to feel it the second with a little congestion, a stronger desire to sleep (constantly), and a little soar throat. These little symptoms blew up last Monday when I woke up with a fever! I became severely congested, my throat swelled and I was constantly tired and weak. After missing two days of class, I decided it would be best to go tothe hospital. I wasn't the only one who got sick, pretty much everyone experienced some sort of flu and about five of us had to go and get some sort of anitbiotic! Public transportations, kissing people on the cheek hello and being around a ton of sick people were probably leading factors! After a week of taking antibiotics, I finally felt back to normal. What a bummer to spend a whole week doing nothing but resting!
Recoleta: The barrio that I live in. Its really beautiful and pretty cosy compared to some of the others in Buenos Aires. Some streets are busy with cars, but its mostly filled with cafes, little shops and its close to some of the other interesting neighborhoods like Palermo, where you can find hip resturants and clubs, and Once, filled with culture and cheap stores. There are a bunch of nice parks within the tree hugged streets, and its going to be beautiful in just a few weeks when spring brings the life to all of the trees and plants all around Recoleta. The architecture is beautiful, too. Lots of Victorian style buildings. That extravagant building above is one of the most beauitful buildings I have seen in Recoleta. It is actually not a palace, museum or university like I thought, but rather just the local water building where the water is brought in, filtered and sent into the water lines!
One interesting downside is the dog crap. There are so many dog owners here, and the sidewalks are filled with their bowel remains! All of the sidewalks are tile, and they are slippery as it is, but its worse when you have to constanly dodge littles brown surprises. People do not even blink an eye, look around to make sure no one is looking, or try to cover up the fact that they are not going to pick up the dog crap. The dog goes, then people move on! Every morning people scrub the sidewalks in front of stores, cafes, and apartment buildings, which makes the tiles hard to walk on when you went to bed at 5 and are walking to your 8 AM obligation. A lot of richer people live in Recoleta, too, and hire dog walkers. They walk up to 20 dogs at a time. I see these crazy bunches of dogs walking around all of the time!
The whole group in el Microcentro.
La Florida street, full of business people and shoppers.
One of the banks that was rioted in 2001. It used to be the Boston Bank, owned by U.S. companies. There were many U.S. banking corporations set up down here in the 1980s, and during the 2001 peso crisis, where thousands of peoples savings and checking accounts were emptied out and paid to the government because of a economic crisis, people everywhere in Argentina went broke over night and lost retirement savings, investment stocks and money to provide their family by. Riots and protests lasted months, in the mean time, the president resigned and within less than a month, 6 different presidents were sworn in and resigned. It was a dark period for Argentina, as the Argentine peso went from being of equal value with the US dollar to being significantly lower. Today, the ratio is about AR$3 to US$1. There is still a lot of anger towards U.S. banking corporations that were wreckless with Argentine money and didn't have better security over their funds.
Near Plaza de Mayo, this is El Catedral, a massive and gorgeous cathedral right in the cities 
center. It also houses tombs for great religious and political figures from Argentine history. The inside provides a very sacred and holy feeling. With its enormous scale and gorgeous architecture, I felt transported back to the amazing and beautiful churches and cathedrals found all over Europe.
La Boca and San Telmo: Two other amazing neighborhoods. Away from the tall buildings and conjested urban areas of the rest of the city, these areas are filled with real Porteños and amazing culture. By night they are pretty rough, and tourists especially are not recommended to be 
here after 5. Before that, however, its filled with ferias (little fairs and flea markets). The people are very kind, and its great place to practice spanish! I was looking at one man's stand table and looked up and saw my blonde hair and jumped up, "Rubio, puedo ayudarme con traduciendo esto?" He handed me this little bottle from his table of random stuff for sale. It was cedarwood oil. We spent twenty minutes trying to communicate to one another, and I had no idea how to say cedar, wood, or oil. Finally, using t he spanish I do know, I expressed what it was, and he taught me "cedro, madera y aceite," the spanish words for what I didn't know. There was great light this day, which lit up all of the trees and stands of hand made crafts. It 
also illuminated the derelict and run down, but charming architecture of the parks in these areas. It was sad to see so many homeless, and shocking to see so many homeless sit right aside those from higher classes. We met these cute kids that were so interested in out camera, our clothes, our blonde hair and had never heard of California before. They asked if it was in Mexico. I felt a little sad and wished I could have communicated with them a little better. They held out their hands after the photos, so we emtied our loose changed into the little dirt stained hands.
Sundays in Argentina are way different than the States. People relax. EVERYTHING is closed. Grocery stores, most cafes and restaurants, lavanterias (where you get your clothes washed- there are no do-it-yourself laundromats but rather these lavanterias where people wash, fold and remove stains for you for around only AR$12-$15, about US$5), banks, everything. The streets are a lot more mellow and clear of people. Its very different. Last week I went to the Plaza Francia where another awesome, and huge, feria happens every Sunday. There were also random performances, like this awesome Capoeira (a brazilian dance-like martial art where people battle to drums and chanting, throwing out kicks and flips without actually hurting one another. Its was designed by african slaves in Brazil a few hundred years ago to disguise training and fighting for a dance ritual.). It was pretty rad, and right behind it, as you can in the second picture up top there, there were acrobats suspended from trees and rope walking right next door. What I learned about Argentine people today is how much they love to sit and chill. Everyone I saw today was calm, nice and drinking Mate out of their Mate gourds. I love Sundays, we need to have a day long Siesta like this in the States.
The rest of my time is taken up by Salsa classes, school and way too much homework, awesome 
new friendships with very interesting people in my study abroad group, and meeting new Argentine friends! I am actually stoked to have some good friends here that I have know in San Diego prior to the trip, such as Beau, Jessie, and Ryan. But there are 
about 25 other new faces that I have been getting to know that totally rock! I am so happy with being here, and so happy I am not sick anymore to actually enjoy it.
New Porteñian friends. My host brother is all the way to the left, and some of his amigos.
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