Cemeterio Recoleta

Up until yesterday afternoon, we hadn't done much exploring except for the few blocks around our house. We've had...traveling sickness. So any potential excursions were on a strict time schedule and we couldn't move too far away from the bathroom. Not to mention dehydration and only eating bread and water for 2 days. Easter dinner was bread from the panaderia with butter and jam. If you're a glass-half-full-type, you could say it brought us to a new level of intimacy AND we lost a few pounds. There was one moment of hilarity that came from this, though, and that was at the pharmacia. We, of course, forgot the Spanish word for lower intestinal tract problems, so we had to resort to describing it (ha!). At this point, all 3 people in line behind us were in on the conversation trying to help pinpoint the word we wanted to use before the pharmacist figured it out.

So yesterday we felt human and ventured out to the famous cemetery in Recoleta, the barrio we live in right now.

Sidebar, here's a map of Buenos Aires with Recoleta highlighted just to give you an idea of where we are in relation to the rest of the city.

The major "downtown" barrios are Belgrano,  Palermo, Villa Crespo, Congreso, Recoleta, Almagro, Retiro, Montserrat, Puerto Madero, and San Telmo. Boca is also in there but we've been told it's dangerous, a little dirty, and kind of sucks in general.

Anyways, we walked down to the cemetery (not before walking the wrong way for, oh, 10 blocks), which is near a big plaza with a park. This cemetery is HUGE, and it's also where much of Argentina's famous people are buried, including Eva Perone and Alberto Lavalle. There really isn't any room in there for new graves, but families who want to make some money or can't afford their grave at Recoleta anymore can sell their plots easily starting around $20,000. These pictures don't really do it justice, everything was absolutely beautiful.

There's skeletons in there! Or vampires or zombies.

Evita's grave

We also started school today! Class started at 9:30am, and we left at 5pm. I know what you're thinking...short day, right? Surpisingly, the day actually moved rather quickly. There's only 3 students in the class, Jesse, me and another girl living at the Road House. At the beginning of class, I was fidgeting with my pen because I'm really great at sitting still for long periods of time. Being the pillar of grace that I am, I managed to fling my pen cap down my shirt. BUT, (Mom you'll be proud) I resisted the urge to fish it out, which may have been pretty noticeable with only 3 people in the class, until the break. As if we weren't overwhelmed enough as it is living in a foreign country, in a house with 25 people we don't know, taking a course that crams several months worth of knowledge into 1 month...our teacher informed us that WE the students will start teaching English on Thursday. Yes, this Thursday. Using our own original lesson plans. So much for going to a tango club to celebrate freedom from our upset tummies this week. 

We are very excited, though, and it will be nice to have a routine going. It's all going to be worth it when we get that TEFL/TESOL certificate.

Like I said, we don't have a bunch of stories or pictures from our crazy first weekend as Porteno's (people who live in B.A.), but there will be more to come!