Thursday, June 19, 2008

A little walking, a pinch of speaking Spanish, and a torrential downpour

It's the end of my second day here and I am definitely starting to get the hang of life here in Argentina. Life is definitely on a different schedule, espeically with regards to food. They think it's the weirdest thing ever that dinner in America is around 5-6 pm. Here is a typical food schedule for Argentinians:

Breakfast around 10
Lunch around 2
Tea around 4-5 (yes you eat food during tea)
Dinner around 11

They all wonder what I do between 5pm and bedtime with regards to food, and I actually question that very thing...this schedule seems to make more sense to me, in terms of breaking up the major meals. I definitely still snack, though, of course. There's a store for food about a block from this house which is great.

I won't bore you with the specifics, but most of this day involved walking. and walking. and walking. I went with Christy al Centro (downtown) in order to walk around, but basically it was raining way, way too hard. It rained all day. We just walked around for a bit and gave up. This is one of the only pictures that I took from that little adventure, of a gigantic clock near the main train station - I'll take more when there is sun.






After getting lost going home (i walked around for probably a good 45 minutes before finding the house), I was invited to go to a bar for dinner with Tomás (the 20 year old grandson that lives here) and his friends. So, we went to a bar in downtown Buenos Aires in order to eat, and I had so, so much fun. It was a little intimidating going to a noisy place with several people who speak Spanish quickly and try and hold a conversation, but eventually I got into the flow of it and really, really enjoyed myself. We stayed there for several hours talking about this and that, with me helping a couple of Tomás' friends with English and talking about sports and music and movies and the like. I really am feeling better about my Spanish-speaking abilities. Most people I have talked to say I speak very well for only being here two days, which is good for my confidence. It's tough to speak another language when you don't have confidence, and it's definitely nice to have native Spanish speakers affirming me when I speak.

I'll finish this off with a couple pictures from inside my house here, of my bedroom and the kitchen we have here:


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

how cold is the winter there?

It's noon and already 101 degrees here and it's supposed to go up to the high of 104. I'm betting it'll be hotter...