Ahh finally!!!

ahhh oh my god...where do I start???? I am in BA finally after a over 24 hours of travel, broken airplanes and no one to pick me up in Buenos Aires. I guess the adventure started when I got off the plane in BA and couldn't find anyone from COPA (my program) to pick me up...so I called them and they told me to take a taxi but make sure it was a Radio Taxi or else I could get kidnapped. I was really excited. So then this really nice guy from Canada/Uruguay (weird I know) took me under his wing and helped me get on a bus to where I needed to go. The south part of the city is extremely poor and I thought that I would be living in one of the tall high rises with no walls no windows, etc. That was the first time I felt like crying. But we kept going and going and finally got to what I would imagine a European city looks like. I got to COPA at 10 am with all my shit and didn't leave there until 7 pm to go to my host family's home.
My host mom is Amanda and she has 3 sons, 2 who live at home lucky for me! Her sons are Juan and Pedro...Juan is 23, has a mullet but is totally cute (like every single man in this entire city except the really young and really old ones of course). Pedro is 22, he studies medicine at UBA (Universidad de Buenos Aires) and is a member of an acrobats club (more om this in a second). Juan sleeps mostly during the day when he is not working. He says that he doesn't feel well so that Amanda will bring him all his meals in bed. Then at around 11 or 12 at night he feels better and goes out until 4 or 5 am. No wonder he needs to sleep all the time.
Yesterday was my first full day here-- we had a tour scheduled with COPA at 9 am at the Plaza de Mayo, where the Casa Rosada (like our white house) and most other government-related buildings are located. It is called "El Centro" of the city. Its so amazing, that is where all the protests occur and where Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo unite every Thursday to protest the loss of their children in the 70s during La Guerra Sucia. We had a tour of the surrounding barrios (neighborhoods sort of) called San Telmo and Monsteraat. All the streets there are cobblestone and its really cute and old. On one street alone there is over hundreds of years of different architectural styles of buildings.. its really cool. Our tour guide spoke really fast and the accent here is really different, so I didn't get all the information but I got some of it haha. After the tours we went back to COPA for more orientation about classes and things like that. The day was really long but we have tiempo libre (free time) for about 4 hours every day in small spurts so that's when we can walk around and buy all the stuff we need to, like cell phones, adapters, food, anything we need.
I got home around 7 and we had dinner here about 930 I think. Juan had a friend over and the three of them gave me a lesson is Argentine slang and all the swear words that I need to know, apparently. It was pretty interesting haha. Amanda was laughing the whole time, yelling "Basta!" (Enough!) but they boys don't care... they are sooo spoiled. They get whatever they want. Pedro speaks some English, he's actually pretty good, but neither Amanda nor Juan speak any English. Its best that way - I am learning so much from them. So last night after dinner we decided we would go out that night - there was another American girl here who was volunteering, but she left today :( She ha been here only a month but wanted to do it up big for her last night. So of course I wanted to go with them (Eve I took your advice...never say no!!) We went to Rachel's friend's apartment in Belgrano I think it was, it was really cute. We had some red wine from Mendoza that turned out teeth and mouths purple and then we took the colectivo (bus) to a boliche (club) called Museo. It was $a30 (30 pesos) to get in but that got us a slip for a free drink... are you ready...Speed and Vodka was the drink. I freaked out of course when I heard the name but I realized soon that Speed is just RedBull. It was good, and I needed it since it was midnight and we wouldn't come home again until like 4 am, which is an early night here by the way.
Inside the place is TOTALLY packed and its bigger than any club I've ever been to. It had 3 stories. We our drinks, went to the bathroom, inhaled wayyy to much second hand smoke and started to dance. The music: they play ABBA, Madonna, Cher, J.Lo (old school style), "My Humps," "Could this be love?" umm what else, Bon Jovi...Lots of old stuff that of course we know all the words to. The funny thing is is that they locals know ALL the words too and they have no idea what they mean. Its great. So when people tell you that Argentine men are aggressive and passionate, they are RIGHT....If you give ONE guy a smile or just look at him wrong he will not leave you alone. That's what happened to me with some old guy with an afro but my friends took care of it. I think they said I was married- they don't care if you say you have a boyfriend. They just want to MSN messenger with you and take you to a telo, which is...get ready..a TWO HOUR hotel where you can go to you-know-what. So trashy! But apparently its not at all..most of the guys our age live with their families and they can't exactly bring girls to the house at 4 am to hookup. A lot of the guys would come up to me and whisper in my here "te amo" or "rubia rubia!!!" (blonde hair...). It was weird but funny..its hard not to be flattered by the marriage proposals but you have to be really careful. Its really amazing though and I can't wait to make some friends. So when the place started to wind down around 3ish and the people were ready to move on to bigger and better things, me and Rachel and Juan and Pedro and a girl for Pedro came back to our house and hung out for a while. Amanda always sleeps in the apartment below us with her novio Julio so we have the place to ourselves at night. Pedro started doing some crazy handstands and acrobatic stuff on the floor and Juan and Rachel were making out on the couch. I figured since it was only my second night I didn't need to be with anyone. I hung out with them for a while and then went to bed.
I woke up with a bit of a headache and ate breakfast with Amanda - some granola, a piece a fruit, and that's it. They don't to breakfast here like we do, at least from what I have seen. They really just have something light... i miss half day!!! for dinner we have had chicken because on my housing form I said I didn't like red meat very much, but we had some last night with pasta and it was really good.
I just had dinner with my host mom (so sorry if I repeat things...dinner was like an hour..) but she asked me who I was going to vote for and we talked about the current politics in Argentina.. there have been a ton of protests/manifestaciones against the grain tax and lots more about money and taking it from the rich to the poor, I don't really know. I try to read La Nación, a newspaper here, but I don't get a lot of it. I don't know anyone's names or anything like that.
Its kind of lonely between the hours of like 6 and 10 or whenever we go out...Juan always sleeps and Pedro is really busy, Amanda goes to Julios around 9 every night and I don't have a lot to do (yet!). I have to register for my classes tomorrow... classes start around 11 de agosto. I have to take 4 classes to satisfy Emory and I have to take 15 credits to satisfy COPA. Each university's classes count for different credit hours at Emory... so I will probably take one class at UBA and 3 at the private catholic university, in literature or human rights or women's studies, things like that.
I have a big day tomorrow with lots of stuff, getting my student visa tomorrow... but saturday and sunday are free days.. finally!! so i am going to buy some leather boots (they have sooo much amazing leather and fur here!) and shop and look around and maybe get to know the other parts of the city a bit.
The directors of the program gave us maps of the most dangerous places and such, places we should never go.. parks are really dangerous at night, but that is just like in any city. Except here supposedly they kidnap people, I don't know, I think they were just trying to scare us but I wont take any chances. I walk around a lot alone during the day but at night I usually take cabs. There are a lot of stray and strange animals, and some people who walk around with like 15 dogs on leashes, its so strange. But as a result there is a lot of dog poo and I stepped in my first one today, yay! Luckily i was wearing bad shoes...last night when we were out I wore flats and they are now destroyed..between cobblestone streets and the dirtiest floor filled with glass and food and cigarettes, they are so gross. (Emory kids: way worse than maggie's hair/smell the morning after!).
Well I think that is all for now....I miss all of you and I love you!!!!
ciao