first post in argentina!

Hola everyone! well, it´s been a great first 24 hours of being in buenos aires!! i am at a hotel for the first 2 nights, so i move into the apartment with the 4 other girls tomorrow afternoon. the 5 of us are the hotel right now and we are right in the center of downtown. we watched the soccer game yesterday morning on this huge screen that they set up right in the middle of avenida 9 de julio, the widest road in the world (16 lanes wide!!) and everyone was out. no one was working, everyone was watching. and at the end of the game i have never seen so many men cry! it was really sad, this country loves their soccer!
I am using the computer at the hotel because the wireless internet isn´t really working on my laptop but the keyboards are different here. this city is great, i haven´t even seen half of it yet, but what i have so far i absolutely love. the subte, their subway system, is really easy to use and convenient for getting from our apartment to school. they eat a smaller lunch here, just a sandwhich or something light and then a snack around 5 or so and that at 10 or even later is dinner. we were starving so ate at 9 last night, we´ll get use to it soon enough. it´s really important to always be aware of your surroundings here, they do have an issue with pickpocketing so it´s important to always keep an eye on your bag and have it directly in front of you. our guide yesterday from expanish, which is the company we are taking our pre-semester spanish course with, gave us tips about putting money in gum containers or somewhere else other than a wallet just in case we ever are in a situation where someone asks to see our wallet, we have other money other places. you don´t feel unsafe walking around, but it´s still good as a precaution.
everyone kept yelling at us yesterday thinking we are germans, but i think that´s because of the soccer game. in a way it is kind of nice to know that not everyone thinks we are stupid americans, haha. our guide, lorena, said that i could pass for an argentine, so that´s good. i´ve been able to use my spanish a lot so far and understand way more than i thought i did. i guess studying abroad last summer really helped, plus nannying this summer and speaking spanish to the little boy.
even though it is winter here, its unusually warm right now. jeans and a light shirt is all you need outside. the sun sets pretty early, by 6 but i guess that is because it is winter and i´m used to the summer right now.
the food! the food is similar to spain but also italian but at the same time has it´s uniqueness to buenos aires. i haven´t tried the steak yet. we had dinner last night and i had a milanesa con pollo, which was chicken fingers with ham and cheese on top and papas fritas on the side. papas fritas, french friends cut a little thicker, are served with everything here. and dad, if you´re reading this, they DO have bagels here! they drink mate, which is a tea with hot milk drink that they usually serve out of a gourd, but i haven´t tried that yet either. they eat lots of bread, sweet bread is a popular breakfast. the beer, Quilmes is pretty good. I had some malbec, their red wine at dinner and it is strong but also quite good. they eat lots of fruit, apples, bananas, peaches, oranges, kiwi but vegetables not so much. we ordered a side of broccoli last night and it was covered in cheese. their favorite sweet is dulce de leche, it is a milk and caramel thick gooey spread that is put inside of a pastry or a cookie. things are much cheaper here, our dinner last night for 5 plus alcohol and they gave us complimentary champagne, too cost in american dollars 90 bucks. and it was a nice place, too.
well, we are about to go to the san telmo fair which is open on the weekends and sells a lot of antiques and unique things. i´ll write again soon. i am loving it here so far and i can´t believe i get to be here until december!! lots of love!