The past few days have been pretty busy with orientation (which is really exhausting), but I have gotten a chance to explore a little bit of the city, especially Recoleta (the neighborhood around the school where orientation is being held. It is really beautiful, makes me feel like I am actually in Europe and not South America, and seems to be pretty pricey relative to the rest of the city. I will post some pictures of that soon.

We are beginning to think about selecting classes, which will be pretty difficult since everything is subject to change and we might show up to class only to realize that we can't understand the professor and need to switch to a different class. This is pretty frustrating for someone who needs to get a lot of specific credits here! To complicate things more, we are able to take classes at Universidad de Buenos Aires, Universidad Torcuato di Tella, Universidad de Salvador, Universidad Católica Argentina, and classes offered by the IFSA Butler program. These classes are located all over the city, and it could take as much as an hour to travel between two locations. We also have had a few hours each day of Spanish instruction and were taught today how to use "vos". For those of you who have taken Spanish before, vos replaces tú as the informal version of the singular second person. Instead of saying "¿De dónde eres?" (Where are you from?), someone from Buenos Aires would say "De dónde sos?". Most forms aren't that different, but it was a little confusing at first.

The other kids from this program and I have been eating in cafés a lot during the day. Most of these are about the same size as American coffee shops, but they all have sit-down service with waiters and heavier food than a Starbucks or something similar. These are still less formal than most actual restaurants, though, and it seems like people don't really eat large meals here--the most I have seen is breakfast or a light lunch. A lot of them also close on the early side, which seems kind of strange for a city that stays up so late (most people don't eat dinner unitl at least 9:00 here).

Tonight I went to a synagogue in my neighborhood that the parents of one of Victoria's high school friends recommended, which ended up being pretty cool. The building was really unassuming on the outside (was unmarked, had no windows, etc.), but there was a lot of security outside. I was actually approached by a security guard on the opposite side of the street while looking at the building and had to ask him if that was the synagogue. Before leading me across the street and inside, I had to answer about 5 minutes of questions about what I was doing in Argentina, let him search my bag, and show him my drivers license and student id (though he originally wanted my passport). I was really shocked by how much security there was to get into this building. The service itself was interesting to see, and it felt a lot like I imagine Bnai Jeshurun was in the early 1990s--it is definitely easy to see how influenced that congregation is by the Argentine jewish community. The service pretty much followed a traditional liturgy but skipped around a fair amount with no announcement or change in the music (it was accompanied by a piano, guitar, and drums and led by two cantors and a rabbi). There was also a lot of responsive reading in Spanish, which was often acompanied by some really cheesy background music by an "organ" or "accordian" (aka the electric keyboard). Definitely an interesting and positive first impression of the Jewish community here in Buenos Aires.

Now I'm off to see the Buenos Aires nightlife for the first time--more to come soon!