Protests And Swine Flu

So after about a week here, I feel like I know the city better and am starting to figure things out more. The language isn't as overwhelming, it's still tough but I feel like I am getting used to needing it for everything... there are a lot of locals that know some English so that helps the struggle.

We had a tour of the city from the University, we went to some main sight-seeing points of the city that my family had already shown me and then we went to Boca (a barrio that is painted all different colors and is where the soccer team Boca plays). Boca was very touristy with show tango dance halls all over. I went to the 2 main art museums this week, National Muesum of Fine Arts and Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires. They were impressive. After class one day we went to a sushi restaurant (not the local flavor but it was brought out on wooden sculptures of boats and bridges.

The night life is so late, it's hard to get in the rhythm of the different sleeping and eating times. We went to this bar called 'Jobs' a few nights ago; it was huge and warehouse style and full of games: board games to rent, archery, video games, pool, Foosball, arcade games. And last night we went to a milonga, which is a tango bar; it was very elegant, sophisticated and formal.

The swine flu hasn't been too big of a deal until today. Last week we had to have masks in our hand when we got off the plane. My whole week here I have seen maybe one out of every 300-500 people wearing a mask while walking on the street. Our classes are meeting in a new building starting Monday because of the government shutting down schools early. Since our class is only 17 people split into 3 groups we can continue with the small numbers but some of our field trips to the theatre and cinema will probably be cancelled. Other government funded schools ended early for an extended winter break. We were told to avoid large crowds and enclosed public places...but the swine don't scare me too much.

Today during class, right outside the window there was a massive protest to the Honduras Embassy. There were drums, signs, masses of people and the police weren't doing anything to stop it. I had never seen that before.

Next weekend I am probably going to do my first traveling: either Mendoza (wine country) or Puerto Madryn to go whale-watching (it is baby whale season until September). We shall see.

Love.