New friends!

I can't even begin to explain how wonderful my weekend was! Thursday night I went to a milonga with my program to take another tango class and I am officially hooked!! There were tons of people and I was able to learn with various dance partners, some old, some young, some American, some French! Haha! Then, on friday I had a nice relaxing day, free of a schedule! Andrea and I went to the gym, which was weird, but nice. I feel like other than walking around a ton, I haven't been super active yet. It felt good to work out! Then, we spent the afternoon in a café, where I worked on my student teaching application. That night we went to a tango dinner show and it was simply amazing. The food was wonderful and the dancers were even better. By far the best I have seen in Buenos Aires.

Me and Andrea

On Saturday, I went to a local street market in Palermo Viejo and shopped around. After Lindsey, Aan, Sam (friends from Georgetown in my program), and I went to la Casa Rosada. It is the office where the President Cristina Kirchner works and where all of the important press conferences are held. It was kind of strange how easy it was to go in and walk around. We went on a tour for free after only waiting 30 minutes! Compared to government buildings in the US, I thought that was amazing! The building was gorgeous; I believe the tour guide said it was built around 1580! At night with all the pink lights shining on it, I felt like I was in Disney world! Haha!

Today was by far one of the best days I have had in Buenos Aires so far! First, I woke up late and met up with a group of girls from the states in my program in the Plaza de Mayo. From there, we walked down the San Telmo street market, which has blocks and blocks of vendors. There was everything from maté, to puppets, to jewelry, to leather boots, to art work, and more! I ate a delicious lunch of fried eggs over easy with french fries! Haha! In Argentina it is very uncommon to eat eggs at breakfast, so I have been craving fried eggs :) I ended up buying a key hook that looks like a house in La Boca (the really colorful part of town) and a maté and bombilla for maté tea!

Maté y bombilla

From there, I went to a church service in that part of town with two friends from my program (Tara and Amber). After, while getting coffee in the back, a group of girls introduced themselves to us! They are all students currently in Buenos Aires. Two, Andrea and Estefania, are from Colombia and one, Juliana, is from Brazil!! I also met Julian, Estefania's boyfriend and his friends! They were so friendly and walked home with me! It turns out two of them live 5 blocks from me and, in a city as huge as Buenos Aires, that was a crazy coincidence. We made plans to hang out soon; they want to help me with my Spanish and I am going to help them improve their already wonderful English. Estefania said "We can only speak in Spanish!," so I can improve. She studied abroad in Canada, so she wants to help me while I'm in a Spanish speaking country! It truly was a gift from the Lord meeting some nice girls to hang out with. I have been hoping to meet some people outside of my program and God provided just that :)

 After church, my host parents and I went over to my host aunt's house for dinner. There we spent time with Carmencita (my host sister), Jack, and Pier (my host cousins)! They are all so full of joy and so talkative. I love spending time with them. All three of them and Graciella (my host aunt) all speak french, as well as Spanish. At one point during dinner, Pier turned to me and said something... I had NO IDEA what he said. I was extremely confused and then Jack said " ¡Hey Pier, español!" He accidentally asked me in French!! Hahaha! It was such a wonderful day finished off with a joy-filled evening. More fun stories soon to come! Oh and I officially start classes August 8th at both FLASCO and UBA! Yay!

Besos,

Abbey