First two weeks

Hola a todos!

It's been over two weeks now since I got to Buenos Aires, and things are going pretty well. I'm still living with the family, and life here is very comfortable, but in just a couple of days I'm moving to an apartment in the same neighborhood, Palermo. My "host family" has been a great support, but it's also going to be nice to live on my own.

My room for these first two weeks.

My current home street (it has 13 lanes in one direction!).

Palermo is one of the best and safest neighborhoods in Bs As to live in, since there are a lot of restaurants, cafés and bars which means there are a lot of people even at night. Almost all of the other exchange students in my Spanish class live here too.

A beautiful park in Palermo. My new apartment will be in one of those buildings that are closest to the park.

Parque 3 de febrero in Palermo, amazing place to go for a walk or a jog

The Spanish class started on July 1st, and we have classes Monday to Thursday at 13.00-16.00. We are just 9 people in the class, and we are separated into two groups: A2 with 3 people and B1 with 6 people (my group). The other people in the class are from Sweden, Holland and Belgium, and we have already spent a lot of time together and we get along well :) Last weekend we were on a trip together, which I will tell about in the next post.

Some of los intercambios posing outside the zoo in Palermo on our Sunday walk. Here are (starting from the left) Chantal from Holland, Filippa and Axel from Sweden and Vincent and Misja from Holland.

My Spanish is improving, I'm able to manage in everyday situations such as in a supermarket, café, restaurant, pharmacy, ticket office etc (with a few "¿perdón?" of course), and hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll be able to follow my classes too. I'm already quite used to the local accent, with the "sh" sound for every "ll" and "y" (example: yo me llamo => "sho me shhamo"), and the use of "vos" instead of "tú", but it's going to take some more time before I use it fluently myself.

A cool painting from Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA) that we visited with my host mom and her friend.

Self portrait by Frida Kahlo.

The weather has been quite sunny, 10-15°C, but yesterday it rained and today was freezing cold. So it varies quite a lot. But at least there seems to be many sunny days even in winter, which makes us North Europeans happy.

The "obelisco" at Plaza de la República, located at the end of the same street as ITBA, my university.

So that was all for now, will keep writing when I have more time (and something new to write about).

¡Saludos de acá, chau!