Going to School

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The internet has been a little sketchy at my house so I havent been able to write about school down here. (oh and by the way im writing this from a spanish keyboard that doesnt seem to have an apostrophe, i also cant figure out the @ symbol so ive just been copying and pasting it).

monday was the first day of school and susana and i{s first subte experience. its a 10-15 min walk from our house to the subte stop and its pretty easy. the first day we took the D line all the way to 9 de Julio but we didnt switch lines and walked around 10 blocks from the subte station to school. after lots of walking, lots of subte and arriving 30 mins late for susanas class we decided there had to be a better way.

my school is in some kind of english school in recoleta, a really nice area near plaze de san martin. its on the second floor and has 2 classrooms, a lounge with computers, and and office i arrived early with susanna but i had to take a spanish placement test at 1015. i took the test and was place in avanzado (advanced!). we didnt have class that day so after the placement test i went with some students to lunch and had some pizza. i also went on a walking tour of recoleta while susana was in class. i havent fallen in love with the city yet but the area around the school was so beautiful and it made me so happy to be here. after lunch i have class at 430 until 545. im taking argentine literature on mondays and wednesdays and i think im really going to enjoy it.

by the time we got to the subte it was unbearable. everyone is squished on like sardines and its ridiculously hot. we decided to take the C line to the D line though which took less time. also we got off the subte and starting walking an entire subte stop in the wrong direction and had to completely backtrack plus walk the 15 mins home. it was crazy because there were so man people in the streets and i was trying to keep an eye on my bag and where i was going. i dont think the subte is for me, plus we have quite the walk to the subte stop from our house and we found out there is a bus stop a few blocks from our house that goes straight to plaza de san martin.

so we decided that we needed sube cards because the change situation is so difficult here. it would cost be about 1,25 pesos to take the bus but you have to have exact change. however i havent had 25 centavos the entire time ive been here. people will literally give you more money in change than you need so that they can hold on to centavos. apparently the coin itself is worth more than its value. anyway, we set out with our roommate Dani to the post office tuesday morning to get our subte cards. when we arrived there were lots of people waiting and i was worried we would be there for hours and i would miss my class but it actually moved pretty quickly and i had no problem asking for the card and filling out the form in spanish.

after the post office we took the subte to school and arrived with plenty of time. we did go the wrong way on the C line but i quickly realized and we got off and started going in the other direction. Tuesdays are my long days. i have a back to back class from 12-245. because i dont really have time to get lunch, susana went and got me a salad that i ate during our break. the break was really lax and pretty long though so i think ill have time to get lunch with other students in the future because susana doesnt have class. i have another class right after called Gay Buenos Aires until 415 which i think will be very interesting and we have several field trips im excited about. afterwards i went on the walking tour again with susana and im glad i did because i forgot my camera the last time and this time we went down florida st. and inside a beautiful mall.

when we got back from the tour one of the program directors dropped us off at our subte line and we headed home. we tried to charge our sube cards at the station but both that we went to said "no hay carga" meaning for some reason they couldnt charge it there. when we got off the subte we went the wrong way again and were really frustrated by the time we got home. but, we finally got to meet delia, our host mom. shes a really nice woman and i really like my house.

this morning we took the subte again because we still dont have change and we still havent been able to charge our sube cards. thankfully we saw people in front charging the cards and were able to charge ours and use it on the subte. everything was successful and here we are. i have spanish in 30 mins and have to go downstairs and buy my books. but tonight we have a movie and empanda night at one of the residencias so im pretty excited to have something to look forward to.

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