UBA...

Aug 14^th

Today, I went to class at the UCA. I made some friends in my class which was a nice way to start the day. I may practice English with one of the girls and exchange languages. I headed back over to my neighborhood to go to my first class at the UBA (the public school). There are not many words to describe the UBA. It is an experience just walking into the building. There are no bare walls, only signs and political statements. It is a bit overwhelming, and I will try to get a picture of it (but this will require sneaking in when no one is around as to not get mean looks from the politically active argentines.) The class started pretty much on time, but there were only about 20 people there. The syllabus appears very interesting, lots of reading, and discussion. I don’t know if this is the format that caters to international students. The title of the class is Young Urban Tribes—rough translation and focuses on different groups of young people in Argentina and their habits and such. Now I need to choose between this class and the psychology class at the UCA. They are totally different so I will have my work cut out for me. I left class, and grabbed a sandwich and headed back over to FLACSO to try and look for hostels. I registered to vote abroad (again so much for trying to be proactive and ahead of the game). I then went to meet a friend from UO who was finishing up her trip in South America. We walked and chatted and then got mcflurrys and sat under the huge obelisk (the picture I posted in the beginning). It was nice to chat with her and catch up a bit. After that back to FLACSO, to actually book a hostel. We are staying in the town of Puerto Iguazu (basically a tourist town for those who want to view the falls). And now I am just waiting. Our bus leaves at 9.30 and will get into Puerto Iguazu at 1.30pm tomorrow. J. I am so excited to go on an adventure and see Iguazu! I will be getting home on Tuesday morning so you wont here from me until sometime after then.

A note about public transportation here: Everyone takes it. The rich, the poor, the old, the young, today I even saw a mail man on the bus. Maybe this is part of the big city culture, but in Portland and in Eugene you can put the people who take the bus in several different categories. Here I think it would be impossible.

Aug 13^th

Headed over to FLACSO to meet my travel companion and get bus tickets. Unfortunately, she hasn’t got her schedule yet so we couldn’t get them. I came home feeling a bit under accomplished since I hadn’t done anything for the trip. I caught up on some correspondence and chatted on skype with a friend. I ventured out for a late lunch and then came back to quiz my host dad about the bus system. Finally, I got the call from my travel companion to venture over and get tickets. This was an ordeal. I first started walking to the station, when I was half way there she called and said that she found a way to buy them online. I then changed my direction and headed towards the school to go online and buy the tickets. She then called and said it didn’t work. By this time I thought I was walking back toward the school but I was walking away from it. I changed my direction and we met in the middle and headed over to the station via subte. This was an adventure in itself. We chatted with an older man on the subte about argentina, and when we finally got to the station we ended up in the train station, not the omni bus station. Inside the omni bus station there are over 100 ticket booth, I felt like we walked blocks and blocks, asking if they had any tickets left for tomorrow. We went through 3 companies and then got to the one that I had some left. We bought our tickets, and I took out my money to pay. My travel partner only had 30 pesos. I spotted her the money for the ticket, but I wont lie I was a bit worried when I handed her over the ticket. I offered to keep it for her since she has had a bad track record of being on top of things. But we got out tickets! I rode the bus home smiling. When I was walking home I met another FLACSito and she showed me where the UBA was and where my class was. I will tell you more about the UBA in the next entry. I had to cut out of chatting with the family early to go to bed since I had to get up super early for class the next day.