New friends and the Argentine "sh"

Argentina is hot. The term “sweating buckets” has a whole new meaning to me. Today it was 90˚ before 9 a.m. and hit 94 around 3. Lovely.

First, here is a map where I will be marking Important Places during my stay here. Right now it has my apartment and the building where we're having Orientation. It's a gorgeous old Parisian-style mansion that IFSA rented for the next two weeks.

Today was día tres de orientation. I’ve managed to make a few friends. In fact, today I had coffee with the sister of a girl I knew at Grinnell! She’s [meadeemm]’s sister, if any Grinnellians are reading. I’ve been hanging out mostly with two girls who live near me here in Barrio Palermo. Emily is from NYC and Kristen is from Chicago (shocking that I made friends with fellow city girls, I know). We’ve been walking to orientation together in the mornings, which means meeting at 8:15 and walking for 45 minutes. Nothing like starting the day out sweaty!

On our way home we’ve been exploring. Yesterday we ate empanadas and discovered a movie theatre right between where we all live. Today we went to Parque Las Heras (on the map, a few blocks east of my apartment). I love that you can’t walk three blocks without hitting a park in Palermo. This is one of the medium-sized ones and it was full of people sunbathing, sitting on benches, and playing fútbol. Both yesterday and today I got home around 9 p.m. This is early enough for me to walk in broad daylight and to have almost an hour to shower and get situated before dinner. Porteños (inhabitants of BA—the city was originally called Puerto Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre) operate on a very late schedule.

I am already understanding Spanish (here they call it castellano) better than I was three days ago. What is difficult here is the speed and accent with which people speak. The accent is something else. The “y” sound is pronounced “sh,” a fact that is forcing me to ask for very simple phrases to be repeated multiple times before I have any idea what I’m being told.

For example, take the phrase “Ya llegó Lina en la calle Callao” (Lina already arrived at Callao Street). In countries that speak normal Spanish, this would be pronounced, “Yah yeh-GO Lina en la CAH-yeh cah-YAO.” Here it is pronounced, “Shah sheh-GO Lina en la CAH-sheh cah-SHAO.” Cashe cashao is enough to make me think I am not actually in a Spanish-speaking country. It also keeps making me laugh (say it out loud!).

Here is the beginning of a running list of things I love about BA (when I figure out how, I’ll put it on the side):
-All the trees
-People keep telling me my Spanish is perfect (a blatant lie)
-In restaurants, water costs more than wine
-Porteños are very friendly (despite popular belief!)
-Empanadas del orno (baked)
-You can get ANYTHING delivered—empanadas, ice cream, shots of espresso in glass cups, condoms (I’m not kidding)….
-If I ever feel lonely, I can walk down to el obelisco and pretend I’m at home

As always, I appreciate all your comments and e-mails! ¡Besos!