First Day in Buenos Aires

Arrived in BsAs, took a cab to the place I'm staying. Although the place itself is pretty simple (e.g. no a/c, shared bathroom, fairly small), it's in a great neighborhood, near parks and the zoo and the Subte (subway). But the biggest advantage of living here is my housemate for the month, Hugo.

Since the primary reason I'm here is to learn Spanish, I chose to live with a Spanish professor. There were many options on the BsAs craigstlist for shared housing, sometimes with families, usually with other people. Young people. People fresh out of college who advertise "Owner does not live here!" (transation: party all the time). While it was tempting to live with a younger crowd and participate more in parties and nightlife and such, I suspect my Spanish conversation may improve somewhat, but it'd be difficult to improve my grammar, since generally friends and housemates doesn't correct your grammar, even if you ask them to.

Hugo is not like that. He corrects my grammar, a lot, because he's a teacher and that's really what I'm here for. I also taking private lessons with him, more formally, a few times a week, but really it's an ongoing process.

So, day one we hit the ground running, with some friends of Hugo's in town visiting a homeopathic doctor for a tune-up. Hugo's into the holistic living and apparently is a big fan of this type of medicine.

So we walked around the neighborhood, picked up some empenadas and went home for lunch. Hugo's a big fan of a little wine spritzer with lunch, then treats his siesta time as religiously as his medidation time. I'm gonna like it here.