Finally Here!

My first dinner in Buenos Aires...meat!

These are views from my balcony at my apartment, during the day, sunset and night time

This is the university where we are studying.

This is the pink house (their version of the white house), and a picture of a pedestrian street

Images of La boca: the river, one of a bridge over the river raising, and a neighborhood that is pretty typical of the slums, and also of our site.

I have been in Argentina for about a week now, and I am just getting around to getting my blog going. I have been very busy, and enjoying Buenos Aires very much so far. The language is the biggest barrier right now, but each day I am remembering more and more, and I have been able to get by pretty well so far.

The first night here we had dinner all together (there are 10 of us from asu down here) at a parrilla. These are everywhere down here, and basically are a grill that serves mainly beef. The people here, we are told, eat their own body weight in beef each year. Needless to say this was the first of many beef dinners. I am still trying to learn what each cut of beef is in Spanish, and i have had some interesting trial and error dinners.

Over the weekend we relaxed, and walked around the city. Sunday we went to an open market, however, I do not have pictures because I wasn't sure how safe the neighborhood was. Next time i will be sure to take pictures. It was a fun experience, there was a full band (piano, violins, accordions, even a singer) performing in the middle of the street. They were very good, and some locals even began to dance the tango. There was quite a range of items to buy from antiques, to tshirts, to absolute junk. I will definitely be returning again.

Monday was a holiday here so we began classes on Tuesday. Instead of a regular class we had a city tour arranged for us, with an archaeologist as our guide. It was a really great experience, and our tour guide and our teachers were all so knowledgeable of the city, culture, and architecture. We travelled through all the neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, everywhere from the richest streets to the slums of La Boca. La Boca is an area that consists of lots of poor families that were heavily hit by their economic crash in 2001. It was a sad to see families living in such bad living conditions. This area, and the neighborhood of the slums also happens to be the our site for our studio project. When we make our visit to the site next Friday we will have to be accompanied by police to assure our safety. I am sure I will have more to write after that visit next week.

I hope everyone is well in the states, and hope to talk to everyone soon. I have finally got all my Internet problems working, and have skype (and my webcam working) so feel free to give me a call if you have skype too

Scar