School in Buenos Aires (August 20-September 2)

The past couple weeks I've stayed here in Buenos Aires, settling into a schedule with classes and doing various things about the city. I'm in class about 16 hours a week, and when I start my internship (which will hopefully be with Help Argentina) that will be another eight hours. Homework has been taking up a pretty decent amount of my time (the two direct enrollment classes have a lot of reading, which takes me about 3 times longer that reading normally does since it's in Spanish), but it's so far been interesting stuff. Here's a few highlights:

August is the International Tango Fair in Buenos Aires, and all of the events are free so we decided to go see a show. The show was at this cool old theater called Teatro 25 de Mayo, and we got there early in the morning to wait in line for tickets. We went back that night for the show, which was absolutely incredible. Tango is a really beautiful dance, and these were some of the best dancers in the world. I definitely plan on trying to see more tango before I leave. After the show, we went to a delicious dinner at a Peruvian restaurant, and then to an Argentine ice cream shop (Argentine ice cream is the best I've ever had).

Today, I had a free afternoon so I went to see some museums. First, I went to the Evita Peron museum. It was full of movies, information and various artifacts- such as many of her outfits. It was a really cool experience- Evita is still a very popular figure here (her face is used in a similar way to Che's) and it was an eye-opening experience to see how they portray her. The museum was definitely bordering on propaganda in terms of glorifying Evita- there was no mention of any flaws or failures. After the Evita museum, I walked through some of Palermo's beautiful parks to the Latin American Mueseum of Art in Buenos Aires (MALBA). It's a cool modern building with a great collection of art, including some really big names like Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Xul Solar, David Siquieros and Wilfredo Lam.

I've joined a soccer club through my study abroad program. We meet once a week for games, a group of American students and different Argentine people. Afterwards, we hang out and drink a few beers. In a few weeks, we're going to go to an Argentine soccer game, which should be very fun in an absolutely crazy kind of way.

The night life here has continued to be incredible. We've continued to find different bars, restaurants and clubs that are all very fun. The entire country seems to be on a different schedule. The other night we were walking home at about 3:00 am and saw about 20 middle aged business people having a meeting in a restaurant. It's not unusual to see full families, including kids as young as two or three years old, walking around at 1 in the morning. It's definitely a city that never sleeps.

Classes are going great. I really love my politics class. The UBA building it's in is pretty crazy in terms of socialist grafittis- there's a huge sign in front of one of my classrooms that says "Yankee get out of South America," which is a bit intimidating. We're now studying history so that we have a background of Latin American political history before we start with current political events. History class is really interesting too. We're now studying the Mexican Revolution, which I've already studied, but studying it in a completely different way than I learned it in the US. Here, the class is much more focused on the mobilization of the masses and the difference economic relationships between classes (not exactly surprising). I'm slowly starting to absorb more and more of the Spanish. For my service learning class, I had an interview with Help Argentina on Monday and I should hopefully hear back from them soon.

Other fun things- ordering in ice cream and empanadas to the apartment, finding good cafes to study with a cafe con leche, and finally getting my student visa!

I hope everyone's well and please send emails updating me on how you all are!

Love, Melanie

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