Hydration comes at a price.

Hola mis amigos!

It's been a while, but nothing has been worth blogging about just quite yet. Until today.

Today marks my very first day at my "pasantía" and it could not have gone better. Jordan was nice enough to play "mom" for the day and take me to work. Or so she thought. As she dropped me off across town and we said our goodbyes, I pleasantly approached the door of my new office. However, like many of my past adventures here, something went wrong. I was, of course, in the wrong building. After a few words with the portero, I finally realized the mistake and booked it to the following block.

My first day could not have gone better. Eduardo, my supervisor, took me under his wing and agreed to speak "muy despacio." I took a tour of the office, met the team, found my desk and chatted some more with Eduardo. I will be working every week day for the rest of the summer, but it will fly by knowing I have such a helpful group of co-workers.

Following my first day, I attempted the colectivos for the first time all by myself! I quickly found the 130 bus and hopped right on board. I found myself hanging on for dear life (and I found a lady hanging on to me, as well) as the bus took off without even closing the doors. We flew down Libertador and before I knew it, I was home. In one piece, once again!

There should be more to come as the internship goes on, but for now I plan on posting some lessons that I learned in my short time here. Here's a few, for starters:

1) Dinner is cheap, but you better hope you don't want to wash it down with an ice cold soda or water. Drinks here can cost you a pretty penny, often less or just as much as "vino" or a "cerveza."

2) Argentine's use a lot of different vocabulary words and also pronounce their "double l's" differently. (For example, llamo would be Jha-mo). Not to mention, they have a completely new and different verb use of their own: the "vos" form.

3) I actually DO like green olives afterall--we will see if this continues in the states.

4) Skeleton keys look way cooler than they actually are. I learned this after attempting to open my apartment door for 30 minutes one night.

5) False money is everywhere. This was discovered the hard way when I came across it for the first time as I tried to buy a ticket to see “El Plan B” (The Back-Up Plan) on a rainy afternoon. Turns out I had fake money. Scary thought: even ATM’s can spit that stuff out...

6) Coins are hard to come by. The secret is to buy a delicious “café” from my school’s vending machine. It is always willing to spit out change :)

7) Coffee, drinks and food are always enjoyed sitting down. Food is sacred here and waiting for precise preparation is a must. Patience is most definitely a key asset.

8) On the subject of dinner, no one eats dinner earlier than 10 pm, which usually makes for late nights here.

9) Stray dogs are everywhere. Dogwalkers are also a very important job. Thanks to one of my geeky tourist books, I learned that it is illegal to walk 15 dogs at a time, but 14 is okay. Well, I have DEFINITELY seen dogwalkers getting pulled by a solid 14 dogs since being here...

10) Facebook is way more fun in Spanish.

Until next time....Besos!