I have been in Argentina now for four days. Buenos Aires is where I am studying at la University de Belgrano. The city is HUGE! I haven't even begun to see everything. I'm staying with a host family that lives a little outside of the province in Vicente Lopez. I live with an older couple Christina and Carlos. They are both very sweet, but Carlos has quite an attitude. He is a jokester. I live about two blocks from El río de la Plata. It is the combination of the Uruguay river and the Paraná river. It looks more like a lake than a river. I ran there Saturday and yesterday morning.

There were three girls already living with Christina and Carlos when I arrived. One left the next day, one is leaving soon and another leaves in a month. Then I may be alone, but I hope another student moves in because at night it can be a bit dangerous to walk in the dark alone.

Saturday the son of my host parents turned 28 so he had a party at the house. It turned out to be huge with a dance party in the living room. The men here can be VERY pushy. At first it's flattering, but then it just gets annoying. It was a lot of fun though to talk to Argentines my age and a little older.

Sunday I went to Retiro which is deeper into the city. I visited their "white house" which is actually pink. It's so much different than in the united states. You only have to go through a metal detector and then you can just walk in and take pictures. Then I walked through the streets of San Telmo. Every Sunday there is a huge market that runs for a few miles. There are tons of antiques and homemade crafts and there are people playing music and singing. It was simply amazing. I bought three scarves for 25 pesos which is about $6.62. Not too bad. Things seem cheeper than I thought and wine and beer are only like $3. Also food in restaurants is a lot cheeper than Europe.

Today after I had a placement examen at the university we walked around Belgrano with my CEA group. I then went to a cafe with some friends. On my way home with my friend Marie we took the wrong train and got lost. We had to ask for directions several times. It took us probably an extra hour, but we eventually found our way home. It was a little scary because it was already dark. It's so weird how quickly it gets dark here because it is there winter months. And today it was pretty chilly.

Tomorrow I start class : /

Ciao (that's what they say here because of there large Italian influence)