Lecciones

I can't believe I've only been here a week! I have already learned un montón:

• When in public (in a store, at a bus stop, etc.) a single utterance can immediately shatter the illusion that I am a local. Murmuring an improperly accented "permiso" as I try to move past someone in the subte will turn heads.
• However, a veces the foreignness evident in my friends' and my speech prompts kind strangers to take pity on us and respond helpfully to our (endearing?) cluelessness. Tonight a woman and her daughter accompanied us to the correct bus stop several blocks away!
• When in doubt, take a taxi.
• Although my host family sets the table with napkins each night, they seem to think I'm weird for actually using mine...
• You can take public transportation for 10 minutes in any direction and you'll feel like you're in a completely different city. (There are 48 barrios in Buenos Aires! See a few below.)
• Dulce de leche is a heavenly treat.
• I am not cut out for the nightlife here. (I prefer to be in bed, on my 2nd or 3rd episode of Spanish Grey's Anatomy, by the time people are beginning to bar-hop around midnight.)
• The swankier the café, the smaller the mug of coffee.
• Where there are medialunas and/or empanadas, there is happiness.
• Don't take the subte at rush hour unless you loathe personal space. 
• Unfortunately, just because there's no Spanish translation for "awkward" doesn't mean things don't get awkward. 

And classes haven't even started yet! Here's to lessons learned and more to come!

San Telmo 

La Recoleta Cemetery

The tomb of Evita Perón (in Recoleta). We happened to visit on the anniversary of her death!

Puerto Madero (photo by Caroline Zee!) 

Plaza de Mayo