More from Buenos Aires (August 5-12)

Things are still going great here in Buenos Aires. I still haven't started classes (everything got moved back as a precaution with the swine flu outbreak), so I've gotten a good chance to do a little exploring around the city. Here's a summary of what I've been up to...

I've been trying to go out to a little bit more authentic of places at night. It's very easy to fall into a pattern of going all to the more touristy clubs, which is fun but not what I came to Buenos Aires to do. My favorite was an Afro-pub called Akwaba, where we saw an Uruguayan trio play Afro-Cuban music. The place was small and poorly lit, and absolutely packed with people dancing salsa. I'm continually amazed at how well normal people can dance here (especially considering my own dancing skills). I did, however, dance a bit, and had a great time. Once classes start and I get into more of a schedule, I'm going to start taking salsa and/or tango lessons.

We've also been doing the actual registration for classes this week. The way my program's set up, we can take classes at three places: FLACSO (the program's headquarters, where the classes are taught in Spanish but are all foreign students), UCA (the private, Catholic University of Buenos Aires) and UBA (the public university of Buenos Aires). After much consideration and Spanish pre-testing, I've decided to take an Argentine fiction class at FLACSO and two classes at UBA- Latin American Politics and the Social History of Latin America. UBA is a free university of 300,000 students, almost all of whom are Argentine. It's supposed to be pretty wild- the class sizes are huge, the facilities are awful, and in some class rooms the students have to sit on the floor. However, UBA is also the most prestigious university in the country, has the best professors and the most intelligent students, so I decided to try my luck. For my fourth class, I'm taking a service learning seminar at FLACSO. Sometime during the next week, I'll select a non-profit organization to volunteer at about 5 hours a week in coordination with a once a week class at FLACSO.

In terms of extra-curriculars, I just joined the football interest club through FLACSO. With the group, I'm going to go to different Argentine soccer games. Also, starting next week, we will meet twice a week to play soccer ourselves. The group consists of all kids from my program but is run by Argentine students, so we will be playing every week with Argentines. It promises to be a fun but humbling and humiliating experience (the 8 year olds I see playing in the park are probably better than me).

This past weekend, our program took a trip to a small gaucho town about 2 hours outside of Buenos Aires called San Antonia de Acero. It was very fun and relaxing- we saw a gaucho show, went horseback riding, had a dance lesson, and ate an absolutely incredible amount of delicious beef. Although I am in love with Buenos Aires, it's very nice to know that there are such nice places so close if I ever need to get out of the city for a day or two.

I've also celebrated a few birthdays this weekend. A girl who stayed with my host mom about a year ago came back to visit and Saturday was her birthday, so we had a big birthday party. We filled the bathtub with ice and bottles of red wine, and spent the night dancing. It was a blast and a great opportunity to spend time with some more Argentines. On Sunday, my friend from Georgetown Jake's host family celebrated Jake's birthday with an asada (barbeque) at their house. We started eating at 2:00 pm and didn't get up from the table until 8:00 pm- Argentines really know how to enjoy each other's company.

With another friend from Georgetown (Raphy) who came to visit this weekend, I saw some of the prettiest parts of Buenos Aires. We walked along Puerto Madero at night, and saw the enormous bridge illuminated and reflecting on the water. We also went to La Boca for lunch, and saw a tango show as well as the beautifully colorful walls and houses.

I'm off to Iguazu Falls for a trip tomorrow, get back on Monday and start classes on Tuesday. I'm having a truly fabulous time, and am already starting to worry that I won't have time to do all the things I want to do here. I hope you all are very well, and I send all my love. Melanie

PICTURES FROM THIS WEEK