This morning I had to make my way to the University where I will be studying. Luciano gave me awesome directions so I didn’t have any problems finding it. I finally got to meet the other students who are in my program. We went for a sort of “orientation tour” of the city with our program director Claudia. We walked past most of the most photographed touristy sites in the city. Including: el palacio de justico, la plaza de mayo, el avenida de 9 de julio, el obelisco y la catedral nacional con la tumba de San Martín.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_de_Mayo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_de_Julio_Avenue
Our walk eventually led us to San Telmo. Here we wandered through a weekend craft fair. Eventually we ended up at a restaurant full of locals. A lot of the other students ordered one of the T-bones that Argentina is so well known for. I might have joined them, if my host family hadn’t let me in on a piece of national history the night before. Today was a National Holiday. It celebrates Argentina’s equivalent of our declaration of independence. Since it was a holiday locro was available. I ordered this since I can get a steak any day. It was pretty good! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locro
After lunch Claudia left us to return home. A couple of us split off from the rest of the group and spent the rest of the day wandering the city. After wandering along the edge of La boca and a couple of other fairs we ended up at the Recoleta Cemetery. This cemetery is the resting place of Evita and many very important figures in Argentina’s history. All of the tombs are above ground with ornate statues. The whole place looks like a little city, and our tour guide even referred to it as la ciudad de los muertos. As soon as we located the entrance we saw a tour starting and jumped right in. We were really lucky as this was the last tour of the day and tours are only given on Sundays. Our tour guide was awesome and although his history of Argentina was intended for those already really familiar with the revolutionary war his stories had enough jokes and great extra stories to hold my interest for the whole 2 hour tour. In between the selected tombs on the tour, I had to fill some of the other students in on the stories and the basic history.
After the tour we rode the subway back to Belgrano and I made my way home. I made a couple of wrong turns since I was trying not to look at my map. (You are extraordinarily safe walking alone as long as you look like you know where you are going!) In the end, I only ended up walking a couple of blocks out of the way. Unfortunately, today ended my lucky streak. I am referring to the fact that I had yet to step in dog poop. It is all over the city and it is a miracle that it hadn’t happened already.
I got over the dog poop fast since tonight for supper Luciano served us this awesome cheese pizza!
The weather was gorgeous today! However, it is so humid here. I’m going to have to figure out something different to do with my hair. Everyday it is just a huge frizz ball before I even leave! Although it was 60 degrees and humid here, everybody was wearing big jackets. Most of the day I walked around in just a t-shirt, and added only my jean jacket when the slight breeze caused a chill. All day long everybody was commenting on how I must be so cold! The tour guide at the cemetery even made notice of it.
Tomorrow morning I go to the University to take my placement exam. Afterwards, my roommates and I going to try to find a nice place to have some lunch. The rest of the day after that is ours to spend wandering again!
