I have successfully survived (and enjoyed!) my first weekend here!

I still, however, haven't figured out when people in this city sleep. The basic pattern is for people to go out starting sometime around or after midnight, stay at a bar for a few hours, and head to a boliche (essentially a dance club). The night ends around 6 am if it even ends at all. Apparently everyone is really upset about a new law here where bars stop serving drinks at 5 am, but I am having trouble thinking of any situation where I could possibly be upset about that. I made it through the first step here, but by ~3 am, I was very ready to go to sleep. Hopefully I will get to experience a boliche this coming weekend. I was kind of embarassed by sleeping in so late after having stayed up, so I asked my host mom what time people my age generally wake up here. Her response: "No existe. Ellos comen su almuerzo para el desayuno." (It doesn't exist. They eat their lunch for breakfast.)

I also had a really interesting conversation with her about the appearance of the city. She said that Buenos Aires is always trying to look like a different city. Recoleta and the surrounding area is trying to look like Paris, the area around the Plaza de Mayo in the city center is trying to look like Madrid, and the newly developed district of Puerto Madero by the waterfront is trying to look like Barcelona (it even has a bridge designed by Santiago Calatrava, a really prominent architect from Cataluña). The neighborhood of Palermo SoHo is where much of the city's night life takes place, and nearby Palermo Hollywood was apparently renamed after TV producers started to move to the area. Despite all of this immitation, I would argue that this feels like a pretty "authentic" city with an extremely distinct culture.

On Saturday afternoon, I went with a group of students to the neighborhood of San Telmo. This area is just south of the city center and has a lot of the more colonial architecture, although it felt a lot different than what I think of as colonial architecture. One of the Spanish professors descriped this area as "un barrio muy bohémia" (a very bohemian neighborhood), and I definitely got that sense walking around. I ate dinner at a very typical parilla (I think the best way to translate this would be steakhouse, but it is much less formal) and was able to enjoy some olive oil-drenched ñoqis (gnocci) while my friends chowed down on steaks that would cost a lot more than $9 in the United States.

One major difference between restaurants in the US and Argentina is that there is a charge for any beverage. Even though the water is drinkable here in Buenos Aires, restaurants will not serve tap water and will charge for bottled water. You also have to specify "agua" or "agua con gas" (sparkling water) pretty much everywhere.

That's it for now, but I promise to post some pictures of my apartment, my neighborhood, and my walk in San Telmo very soon!

Jacob