Blogs from Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina, South America - page 14

Like every day, today started cold and dark, with corn flakes and tea. Class was again about 4 hours, and we talk, as usual, almost exclusively in Spanish. We covered "si" clauses ('if' phrases - they're actually kind of annoying because the tenses are very specific that you can use...if I'd had that, I would have done that, etc.), which is good because I'm bad at them. We also discussed the future tense and, of course, general talk. For lunch, we went and found a local restaurant that consisted of an almost-outdoor grill and about 6 tables. Of which we took 4. I ordered morci. As those of you who followed me last year know, I very much enjoy going to restaurants in other countries and ordering foods which I don't recognize or know the names ... read more

Well, we are in Buenos Aires to take classes. I suppose, unfortunately, that will require some classroom time. One benefit of winter is that I don't feel as guilty about it: last year I kept dreaming of being outside and enjoying the weather while I could when we were in meetings and lectures, but here I find myself yearning to be out and about less. Of course, we do also have less daylight and less heat, so there's that. My Spanish class does seem as though it will be fun and interesting, though. There's four of us: me, a pair of girls similarly skilled at Spanish, and another guy whose parents are Colombian but who speaks English at home. It's hard to place his skill in comparison, but I definitely think all four of us are ... read more

Lesson one: red eye flights without a time change are worse than redeye flights without a time change. Mostly because you have a much longer time of trying to sleep on an airplane, which, at least for those of us with absurdly long legs, is not high on our list of pleasures.Lesson two: expect nothing. I've already been surprised about 14 times by something I wasn't expecting from a city like Buenos Aires. At this point, it might be more efficient to expect surprises. Whether it's the lack of skyscrapers (the tallest building comes in about 5 meters shy of the tallest in Boston -- a city about 1/5 the size of ... read more

Took a bus tour today around Buenos Aires. I really enjoyed it. The city centre (or downtown, as my friend calls it) is very different from the Buenos Aires that I've seen in the past few days. One thing I've learnt from today was that BA has great architectures. The buildings are made from the French era and whatnot, reminding me of upperclass areas in developed countries. Trees line every street in the city, giving shade to the streets and its passer-bys. Sitting on the rooftop of the bus, the streets look very picturesque. We passed by various monuments and key buildings of the city. As BA is a huge city, I thought the bus was a good way to see the city. The only downside is that you only have 5 seconds or less to ... read more

Nick: As wonderfully refreshing as the near-freezing beers routinely served up in Brazil are, it is certainly not a country in which it one can easily lay hands on a good glass of wine. Consequently, after the best part of two weeks in the country we did find ourselves hankering for our preferred tipple; what good fortune, then, that we should now find ourselves in Argentina, the land of Malbec! We arrived into the country via Buenos Aires international airport late on Thursday evening. Finding a taxi service and paying our fare up front was straightforward enough, but we somehow contrived to spend a hot and bothering fifteen minutes or so locating the car and driver! In fairness, we were not helped by the frenetic nature of the airport, which was a fairly busy and cramped ... read more