Just when you thought it was over!

So. I left Paraguay on Thursday as planned. It was pretty traumatic. We all held ourselves together in a fake kind of way right up until I got on the bus to Buenos Aires and was looking out the window at Enrique and Mirna. Enrique put the hood of the sweatshirt I´d given him for his birthday up and started sobbing--which means I let the sobs go myself. Mirna is usually so stiff-upper-lip (she is 7 years older than me, too) but even she had to break down and hug poor sniffly Enrique. So we wave and wave until we are out of sight, and at the embarrasement of all the people around me in the bus I continued to cry noisily until we passed the bridge into Argentina. There was no going back!

I got to BA (Buenos Aires) Friday around 11am. I thought the adventure was over; I was saying goodbye to the world of weird and thought I would be now back in a world more familiar to my instincts. But no! Suddenly, little old ladies and small children were more frightened by my winking atthem than pleased. No body turned around in the street to have a second look at me. Every time I talked to fill in time gaps people gave me a look that said, "Too much information..." And most of all, NO ONE COULD UNDERSTAND WHAT I WAS SAYING!! I could understand me, and I could understand them, yet I could see on their faces that they were struggling to comprehend my words. It started when grabbed a taxi from the station to where I was staying. The driver immediately asked if I was Paraguayan. After some quick calculations I determined that I MUST have gotten a Paraguayan accent because he had no other reason or way of knowing where I was coming from! And he was only the first of many. The worst is when people say, "What a shame to hear an Paraguayan accent from such a pretty girl." (AS you can imagine, Paraguayans are little more than unwanted immigarnts to the Argentines.) I´ve been listening to myself talk ever since, and I still can´t here what is distinctly Paraguayan about my Spanish. Oh well.
Anyway, I arrived uneventfully in the house I´m staying at. I opted for a family home that lets rooms to students and tourists on the long term. I am really happy with it! I feel like Im in the lap of luxury after being in Paraguay; HOT HOT showers, central heat, all the kitchen utensils you could ask for, 4 supermarkets, 10 bus lines and 2 metro stops within 2 blocks of here.
The house is huge; I see and hear other people around but can´t quite figure out where they sleep at night or when they are actually in or out of the house. It has 6 stories! On the ground floor the parents run a store (this is nice because they are out of the hosue and yet "around" all day). The next level is the living room, this computer, a phone, and the kitchen. Then there is my bedroom, two others, and a bathroom we share. Next is a kind of a loft between two actual floors, and it is a bedroom. The next floor up has two more bedrooms, a bathroom, and the laundry room. Finally up on top of the roof is where you hang clothes to dry and they also have a barbe cue for summer. Of course, each story has a balcony to the street as well. That said, it´s not like a mansion, nor is the family rich. They are definitely middle class, and that is probably why I am so comfortable here. It is cheaper than a hostel or hotel, and it has all the comforts of home. I even have my own shelf in the fridge and I can cook here, which makes eating a lot cheaper than it would be in restaurants all the time. Monday I got busy making homemade bread, carrot cake, and toasted granola--now I really feel at home! It took a day for my hosts to warm up to me. Understandably, they´ve seen a lot of people come and go, and my Paraguayan-acquired weird accent and overfriendliness probably threw them as well.. But once I made it clear I would be happy to have a bit of a relationship with them, hear about their lives and talk about mine, share the food I´ve made, etc, they more than opened up and have been very accomodating and helpful to me in every way. They especially seemed to like that I spent a day at home baking.

Oh right, the rest of BA! Well basically I have been trying to take it just a little at a time and not burn myself out on long days tramping around the city. So far, I have visited the Casa Rosada (like the White House) and the surrounding plazas and governments buildings, the Obelisk and 9 de Julio (the widest street in the world), the Congress and surrounding area, the botanical garden, the city park, the Evita Peron museum, an artesan museum, plus many insundry plazas, famous streets, and special spots in town. I´ve also spent a bit of downtime siting in the parks and plazas reading or just watching the people go by. Sometimes I just wander around a particular area, checking out the city life and what there is to be seen. I´ve gone to several supermarkets to try to get a feel for food availability and prices. I´ve also gone to a couple restaurants that my guidebooks recommended. However, not as many as I´d hoped, since prices seem to have gone up significantly since the guide book was written and since I was in Cordoba, Argentina in 2005. The locals tell me food prices have practically doubled since 2005, and even right now you can´t get sugar, even in the supermarkets! Apparently all the sugar factories in the country are on strike.

Lastly, I have been pleasantly surprised by the weather. After being consistendly frozen out in Paraguay, I was less than enthused about heading even closer to the south pole. Its amazing, however, what running between one headed space and the next does for you. It´s been in the 50´s a 60´s the whole time I´ve been here, just like in Paraguay. However, since the house is heated, the buses and metro are headed, and just about every other structure you go into is heated, your body has a chance to recollect heat every once in a while and I never feel uncomfortable wearing just a sweater, scarf, and gloves. Not to mention that the Argentines are no early birds likely to catch a frosty settling of dew! Breakfast is 9-10am, lunch 2-3, dinner after 9 no exceptions! As my host told me, they don´t get up before 3pm on Sundays. I can´t say I´d adapted to this (I kind of like having the morning to myself) but I do try not to get up before 7, since even the supermarkets don´t open before 8.30m.

Well that´s it for now people. Buenos Aires: one more little stepping stone on my path to reverse culture shock, USA. Enjoy the photos!