Traveling Twins

HOLA - This morning we woke up ate some cereal, took the SUBE to school and went to class! We are becoming pros at this, its starting to seem normal! I have a different teacher on Tuesdays and Thursdays than I do on MWF, so it was a nice change today! People are still moving around classes in order to find the right level so today was pretty hectic! We just ate a granola bar for lunch during our break because thats pretty much all there is time for! Crazy crazy schedule and crazy crazy eating and sleeping habits here in Argentina. After class we grabbed a coffee/wine with Sebastián, Michael, and Madeline and went to yet another "orientation" at ISA. This one was focused on living with a host family. The most interesting thing during this long, drawn out meeting was that living rooms are not used in Argentina like we use them at home. They are for special occasions and special guests only! Considering these apartments/houses are very small, taking away the living room really...

DING! DING! DING! Primero dia de clase! Today we woke up with our nice little breakfast layed out! Madison has the SUBE wired so we hopped on and were at the Universidad Belgrano in no time! We met up with our friends and headed up to orientation! The elevators only stop on floors 6, 12, and 17… so walking it was, up to the 3 rd floor! We had our quick orientation at the school, received another safety lecture, were placed in our language levels, and were off to class. Mads and I are in different levels, so different classes. My class is about 10 people, all from different parts the United States, 5 of my classmates are part of the ISA program that Mads and I are here with so it was nice to have some familiar faces and meet some new ones too! We found out were going to be in class from 10am TO 3pm!!!!!!!!!! Sooooooo LONG compared to our 50 minute Spanish classes at USC. After class we went to lunch with some friends from ISA. We started with a large group and realized in order to n...

#1 Rule in Buenos Aires: Don't help anyone... Rule #2: No one is going to help you! Hola! We woke up to cereal and tea on the kitchen table! Marité prepared a quick breakfast for us to eat last night as she slept in this morning because it is her Sunday! **From now on whenever I say we or us I am referring to the group of 20 Study Abroad Students Tay and I are here with!** Taylor and I managed to make the 40 minute commute into Belgrano (where our University and Study Abroad office is located) all on our own! First time on the SUBE without our mom, Marité! We spent our entire morning in a safety orientation at the ISA office. Guillermo, the head coordinator, tried to scare us as much as he possibly could. He told us countless stories of the schemers here in the city. Groups of thieves join together to devise complicated plans to rob pedestrians. They especially target foreigners as we are "easy, and carry more money". We were warned countless times to not speak Engl...

Oh what a day… got on our plane at 10pm in Atlanta where we said bye to our fam at home and 10 hours later hello to our new fam! Our house mom picked us up from our university (University de Belgrano). She’s a cute, little lady around 60 years old and 5 feet tall! She embraced Madison and I with hugs and kisses (abrazos y besos) (which is the only way they greet here as we learned fast). We hopped in a taxi and all of us spoke in our Spanglish to try and get to know one another. Marite, our house mom, has 4 children, 3 girls, 1 boy, the eldest being 37 and the youngest 30! She told us she was a widow and gets lonely so loves having abroad students stay in her home! Her sons and daughter all live on their own, no farther than three blocks down the road! She gave us a tour of her cute apartment on the ground floor complete with 4 tiny bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, and two patios… oh and a dog! As she showed us the two rooms we would be staying in… she asked if we ...