And it's already the end of ma-jo

My body is finally adjusting to living in Argentina, now that I eat breakfast at 7 a.m., lunch at 3 p.m. and dinner at 10 p.m. Sleeping? Ha. Completing a 12-hour semester during the summer has its drawbacks, but is definitely worth it.

If you ever want to see me stressed, impatient and/or freaking out—wait for public transportation with me. Our bus did not show up to the stop for a good 15 minutes, and it took us 45 minutes to get to school. Arriving barely on time to Spanish, we learned about payadas, a South American tradition where men with guitars improvise rhyming songs in a call and answer style. Honestly, they just remind me of rap battles but more classy, competitive and in Spanish. How awesome!

Tuesdays are the day where I don't come home for 14 hours--leaving the house at 7 a.m. for class and getting back from work and a gender seminar course around 9 p.m. I'm loving Entercomm more and more each day, as I get to know my coworkers, complete projects and feel satisfied after every English-Spanish translation. Today's work stories include...

• Clipping- I'm sure I'll start with this everyday, because it's not the most desirable job, but I once again find it fun and accomplishing to dig up the news on all of the clients. It's like an investigation game. See how much news you can find with our company's name that's in Spanish and published in Argentina--go!!
• Google Reader- I created a GoogleReader tablet for the additional bookmarks like blogs and websites specifically in Argentina that Google doesn't always recognize (like .ar pages) to search for company names. Thank goodness for this invention, it saves me about an hour of searching through websites.
• Translations- I started off by translating a British Telecom advertisement for World Environment Day on June 5 from Spanish to English. Next, I translated a five-page document with a lot of technological terms from NetApp and its new software security programs. When I'm doing this, I still do not believe it's real life. I feel like a Spanish teacher just told me to do this to practice...but it's not. It will actually help some Spanish speaker understand what the article means. Very satisfying.
• Lunch- I ate lunch with three of the women at Entercomm, my boss Brenda, a designer named Vanessa, and the secretary. We had a great conversation and they are always interested in learning about my endeavors in Argentina and the United States, Chicago and Mizzou are like. Sometimes I think they ask me questions just to help me improve my Spanish, which is very courteous. I realized the reason I understand the women from Argentina so much better than the men is because the men tend to mumble more; it's not even related to slowing down. Since the workplace in Argentina is a bit more relaxed (that's an understatement), Vanessa, Brenda and I went on a 15-minute walk around Puerto Madero after lunch to power up for the rest of the afternoon. Why am I living a dream?
• Brenda said she used my headers and copywriting for the construction group in California's new website and that they were what she needed!
• Spanish story of the day: Martín, one of the Entercomm employees, just got back from vacationing to London and Spain. He was making fun of some of the English words he learned, and the whole office got a kick out of the word mattress. I don't know why they thought it was so funny, but they checked with me to make sure he learned the right word. Colchón means mattress in Spanish, and they just all thought it was hilarious.

From work, I walked to the Mizzou office building (about 15 minutes down the same street, my pretty Puerto Madero walk along the water) for the first night of my Women & Gender Studies course with Carolina. The decision to take this course makes me so happy I chose to go to Mizzou, because it's just our teacher and three students. I like having the opportunity to take classes of a variety of sizes and especially in such a controversial topic to some, it's great that we can discuss and ask whatever we would like. The syllabus emphasizes gender roles in the media and in South America, touching on the US and Latin America as well. As a person who already respects feminist ideals, I'm really excited for our lessons and discussions!

T.G.I. Friday's- Buenos Aires

The Friday's is right next to the Mizzou office; it was only a matter of time until I tried it. Being starved after class, Elizabeth and I went in to see the menu. It happened to be Happy Hour (2 for 1 appetizers and drinks) so we got these beautiful mojitos! Yes, I can order drinks at a Friday's for once in my life. The service charge also included bread and a salsa-type sauce, how funny. Other than those two things, everything else was just about the same with the prices hiked up. My Sesame Jack Chicken Strips had the perfect JD glaze and tasted great as usual. The menu was a year or two behind, but even the uniforms were the same. Oh Friday's.

Mojitos and bread from Friday's- Buenos Aires

We took a new route to the Subte and walked past the Casa Rosada (pink house) on Plaza de Mayo! Look how beautiful it is at night.

Casa Rosada

Argentine Dialect

Although the Spanish accent here is incredibly different and even called castellano, emphasizing J-sounds instead of L's and Y's, I finally realized today how much it makes sense. A lot of the Y's specifically are included in Spanish words where Americans have Js. Look at these examples!

• Proyecto (Spanish) --> project (English) --> projecto (Castellano)
• Mayoría (Spanish) --> majority (English) --> majoría (Castellano)

Argentines are not just weird, they're in SOUTH AMERICA so they're picking up on American sounds rather than European sounds. I get it! Obviously the Y still applies to words like May * mayo (Spanish) --> majo (Castellano), * but it makes so much sense now.

Have a great first day of June!

First day of work/empezar la pasantía

I don’t drink coffee or tea, but did discover the first over-caffeinated morning beverage I like: mate. Mate is a popular South American drink served in calabaza like the one below, or a calabash gourd. In it, you place yerbas (a mixture of herbs) and periodically add hot water, drinking it out of the straw/bombilla. There are even different flavored herbs, such as pomelo (grapefruit)!

Mate

Everyone at Entercomm drinks it to get powered up in the morning, and they graciously shared it with me.

I took the bus to work at 7:15 a.m. to arrive early my first day, and proceeded into the 3^rd floor office at Puerto Madero to meet Brenda, my boss. As the regional officer for this office, she gave me a brief rundown on what the company does and who each of its clients were. They specialize in software companies throughout Latin America, but work with others as well—such as a construction website, a group in England and more.

Entercomm’s four big services are:

• Digital Marketing
• Image and Design
• Media and Content
• Corporate Events

I met each of the ~eight employees as they walked in, each who greeted me and everyone else in the room with a kiss on the cheek. I’m sure they were happy to see an intern because hey, I’m at their disposal for free labor! Sol, one of the copywriters, was ecstatic that I could do the translating. Two of the women worked on design, two were account executives, Brenda was the regional officer, and a secretary and manager of the location had offices downstairs. As you enter the office, the manager and secretary have their large desks and windows, and upstairs is a small room with eight computers and chairs lined on the two walls. It’s a lot more open and interactive than America’s cubicle environment, which I liked. Pablo who sat next to me played U2 and Beatles music all morning, so it was amusing to hear a porteño sing or hymn along in perfect English. Brenda and the rest of the employees passed projects onto me as I completed each one.

Some of my tasks for the day included:

• Copywriting headlines and subheaders for a new website they’re creating for a client in California
• “Clipping” –creating a document for each client of all of the news articles in which their name appears in the past 24 hours (or on a Monday, over the weekend). This involves a lot of intense Googling and searching on websites!
• Translated the copy for two advertisements, one English to Spanish and the other Spanish to English
• Researching video and information for slot machines from IGT, international game technology

I’ve never felt so accomplished about completing work as I did today, especially with instructions entirely in Spanish, or castellano (Spanish with an Argentine dialect). My Spanish probably improved a ton just today. I understood most of the instructions given to me, and the employees said I speak well, but I just need to work on keeping up with fast-paced conversation. The office ate lunch together around 3 p.m. (typical Argentina lunch), where I learned that it’s hard for me to pick up on what everything means unless I’m listening to my full potential—eye contact and everything. I couldn’t eat my lunch and understand every spoken word. My goal is to change this by the end of the summer. After 30 hours of work a week, I think this is achievable.

My walk to work is prettier than yours...ha

Challenges of the day

• My boss asked me: desayunaste? – Did you eat breakfast? --> But in castellano, it sounds like: Des-a-jun-as-te? --> It took me a good five minutes to understand what my coworker was saying, and then I did in fact tell her that I ate breakfast. Haha.
• In an effort to finally fix our router, the landlord came in and took it out today. We went to Freddo where we frequently use WiFi for free, and it didn't work =O. So now I'm sitting at an ice cream shop / heladería using its internet. So we had to buy ice cream. #darn
• Inspiration: This is a study I found on Mashable regarding social media distractions. Despite the fact that I'm working for free, it's what keeps me from checking any social media or email while I'm at my internship.

Greeks in Buenos Aires

After this morning's liturgy, the priest (Padre Ioannis) told me "no te vas!," or don't leave! Bishop Tirasios of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of South America was there, and he wanted me to meet him because he spoke English. It turns out, this same bishop came to my church five years ago and knows both my father and grandfather pretty well. His first cousin is a presvytera (priest's wife) in Joliet, outside of Chicago, and he attended seminary with another family friend. Small world, right?

Bishop Tirasios adopted me for the day, introducing me to just about everyone at the parish and telling them I was a journalism student and a priest's daughter from the Chicago area and that they should meet. A local nursing home for older Greeks happened to be having a Glendi (Greek dance) and luncheon fundraiser that afternoon, and Padre Ioannis and the Bishop insisted that I come. I rarely say no to Greek fellowship or free meals, so I figured I'd join them. The president of the organization that runs the nursing home and his wife drove me there, and the bishop's chauffeur drove me back. Spoiled much?

We arrived at the luncheon and because the Greek Orthodox population of Buenos Aires is not huge, the bishop is on a first-name basis with pretty much every family. The interesting thing about the population is that the majority of them are older immigrants from Greece to Argentina, and there is a huge generational gap in the parish. Bishop Tirasios explained the reason for this is inter-marriage, because when the children of these Greek immigrants grew up in Buenos Aires, they did not all marriage each other and continue breeding Greek children. Nobody can expect that in such a small population. He was pretty upset by this and said the non-Orthodox spouse has usually overridden the Greek Orthodox church, so then their kids grow up Catholic. I'd be curious to return to Buenos Aires in 10 to 20 years to see if a Greek population still exists, because the only way it would be possible is if more Greeks from anywhere in the world move here.

Greek band

I was seated at the clergy table with the directors of the organization and three priests. It's funny how far a family name can take you, because Bishop Demetri of the Chicago archdiocese did the same thing to me at lunch when he came to Columbia, Missouri. We had an excellent three-course meal with Greek dancing in between each course. Many of the parishioners offered me their addresses and phone numbers in case I need anything while I'm here, which was very hospitable. I'm sure being adopted by the bishop for the day, as he called me his "spiritual daughter," helped this matter, but it was still a nice gesture. Of the ~150 people at the luncheon, just about all of them spoke both Greek and Spanish. Therefore, we conversed in Spanish the entire afternoon, and when the bishop wanted to tell me something he didn't want others to hear, he spoke in English.

Greek dancers

I'm glad I stuck through this experience and learned a lot about both the universities around Buenos Aires and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese's presence in Buenos Aires simultaneously! I haven't Greek-danced since St. Luke's and Sts. Peter & Paul's dinner dances, and it was fun to do so while communicating in Spanish. They even had a bouzoukia, a Greek band, and thankfully the emcee spoke in Spanish (instead of Greek) so I could understand what the fundraiser was for. We ate Greek salad and chorizos (sausage) and bread as appetizers, spanakopita and chicken and carne souvlaki for the main course, and a chocolate-dulce de leche cake with ice cream for dessert. YUM. The table probably went through five bottles of wine between seven people in the span of two hours; impressive Argentine-Greeks (and clergy)!

Real life begins tomorrow with my internship and classes starting, wish me luck!

Recoleta!

Supermercado

Stacey and I began the morning with a trip to Carrefour, the largest and most efficient supermercado we have found. I bought groceries for an entire week or two for only $20! By the end of a summer of paying for food, I think snacking will be removed or at least less common in my diet.

Exploring Recoleta

The other side of Recoleta, the neighborhood we live in, has a park called Plaza Francia and a lot of attractions, so we made those our Saturday activity. With 15,900 steps on my pedometer at the end, here are all the places we conquered:

Recoleta Cemetery

This cemetery is one of Argentina's biggest landmarks and where a lot of its most prominent residents are buried, and I did not understand until seeing it why it was such a big tourist attraction. The graves are all huge and above-ground, and many of these statues and gravesites are named after a family and its members are placed in the various drawers. Besides having Evita buried here, a lot of the famous members also have streets named after them, so I enjoyed seeing where these people were and reading about their history.

The entrance to the cemetery

The grave of Evita, Eva Perón, one of the most popular stops at the cemetery

What the inside of the boxes look like, with the coffin, artwork and more.

Living family members have keys to enter the gravesites and some of them even have a downstairs area. They will go in and put pictures and flowers in the room.

A typical passageway in the cemetery, with all of the standing tombstones.

Centro Cultural Recoleta and

El Museo de Bella Arte

Although we didn't take too much time in these places since I'm kind of art-ed out, we walked through these beautiful museums! This view below is of the market from the Centro Cultural, which is lined with yellow columns.

La Iglesia de Pilar

Upon arriving to the heart of Recoleta before the cemetery, you see this church. Named after Pilar, the interior was gorgeous!

Plaza Francia

This park is full of greenery and a statue, and is a great place to take walks! The market is right next to it on the weekends.

Rodocrosita and the market

Outside Plaza Francia on Saturdays from 9 am to 6 pm, vendors sell jewelry, mate cups, leather, purses and more. The official stone of Argentina, rodocrosita, is a beautiful pink color and I bought a necklace and chain for only $5! The prices at the market in pesos are the same as they would cost in US dollars!

• 

A rodocrosita ring

Statue of General Alvear

Law School at Universidad de Buenos Aires

We had no idea what this huge-columned building would be, originally assuming it looked like a museum. Stacey and I entered out of curiosity and it was Buenos Aires' law school, which definitely shows that Argentines value this degree. Other post-graduate degrees are available, but it specializes in law/derecho.

Stacey and I on the bridge that crosses Avenida de Libertador,

Law school on the right

La Floralis Generica

This reminds me of the bean at Millenium Park, and is located in United Nations Square in downtown Recoleta. Called "the flower," it was designed in 2000 and placed in the square in 2002 and opens up each morning at sunrise and closes at sunset. Stacey and I felt very accomplished as we found it after seeing it in so many photos on the internet!

Pobre Stacey!

Each one of my roommates came home individually after running errands, and Stacey had yet another unfortunate experience this evening (as if getting her wallet and credit cards stolen on the Subte was not enough). Our apartment has one key to enter our 5th floor room, and another to enter the building's one door. There is a doorman at all times on weekdays, and before 8 p.m., you can "buzz" anyone into the building by pushing a button. Since it was Saturday at 9 p.m., none of this existed. She put her front door key into the front door, and it got stuck in the lock, inhibiting anyone from entering or exiting the building. Ten people outside (no exaggeration) tried getting it out, and nothing could be done from the inside either. The locksmith came about 25 minutes later and everything got worked out, but only Stacey would have such an experience happen to her for doing the right thing. Here were some funny aspects of the story:

• Since we don't live in this apartment all year like most do, they were calling her the "extranjero" or outsider, which made it more normal for such an occurrence to happen
• Jordin came downstairs and screamed, OH MY GOSH! IS IT STUCK?! to a crowd of six Argentines who don't speak English. I couldn't even reply because I was crying of laughter, but 30 seconds later, one boy replied, "Sí." He probably had no idea what those words meant, but her expression made him understand.

This actually happened.

Other things Stacey has done correctly that have somehow ended badly:

• Received a $10 parking ticket for PAYING the meter
• Got rear-ended by a car when she was driving perfectly fine
• Gotten her wallet stolen on the Subway after finally figuring out the system
• Locked the whole apartment in or out for using the right key.

A Streetcar Named Desire/Un Tranvía Llamado Deseo

Buenos Aires's main street mimicking Broadway, Avenida de Corrientes, hosts a lot of plays and musicals throughout the year. As Elizabeth is a theater double-major, she reads up a lot on this information and Stacey and I joined her in seeing A Streetcar Named Desire in Spanish tonight at Teatro Apolo. I read this play and watched the movie junior year of high school, so I was aware of the setting and plot line. Seeing a performance in Spanish was a cool experience that I'm glad we participated in. You know the acting was good when I was able to understand the entire play without picking up on every word, and even with the faster dialect, I understood a majority of the lines! The musical Chicago is on Corrientes so who knows, maybe we'll see that next!

Avenida de Corrientes, the Broadway of Buenos Aires

"You can't assume anything...we're in South America."

This week we utilized the bus system (colectivos) for the first time, and applied our knowledge (or lack thereof) to take a colectivo to Avenida de Corrientes for the play tonight. We arrived promptly and right at the intersection where we needed to be, so we figured you would take the same bus number home. False assumption!! Rather than circling the city, this colectivo line goes in one direction only. Elizabeth, Stacey and I unfortunately ended up 45 minutes away from our house at 2 a.m. after the show because we took this bus line. The blonde hair and English was an excuse for such a wrongdoing, so the bus driver instructed us to where the same line in the opposite direction, back to our apartment, would leave and when. We FINALLY got home after an hour and a half commute!

Reason #52892347 why I hate Movistar--our phone provider:

The 30-minute phone card I activated on my cell phone is already done (figures, I'm the first one who needs more minutes on my phone), but this is odd because I RARELY if never use it. Each text message sent and received costs money (or time) from this 30 minute amount, but we don't know how much. So I activated a new card and Movistar sent me FOUR text messages to tell me that it worked. FOUR. For all I know, that could be four of my 30 minutes. Thanks Movistar!

Spain vs. Argentina

This morning we decided to try out the colectivos (buses) to get to school instead of the Subte. We ran onto bus 64 as it approached, which conveniently picks us up at the corner right next to our apartment. I'll be taking the colectivo to school Tuesdays and Thursdays as well as work at Entercomm, so I was glad to see how scenic the route was! It drives past Plaza de Mayo, one of the widest streets in the world, Avenida 9 de julio and a lot of gorgeous parks. Success!

In Spanish after tackling our literature, we discussed the differences between Spanish and Argentinean dialect. Our teacher Alejandro read a passage from don Quijote de la Mancha, and then played a video of a Spaniard doing the same. Some of the differences are as follows:

• Spaniards make a "th" sound in place of the letter C (Gracias is grathias)
• Argentineans make a "j" sound instead of the letter Y or L (ayer is ajer, me llamo is me Jamo)
• Spaniards combine their vowel sounds more
• The general intonation of words

We practiced our introductory presentations to bosses to give before beginning our internships on Monday, and I did some more research about my companies. Leaving to head home at 8 p.m. on a Friday kept the Subte very clean and spacey for the commute home, and I stopped for some empanadas for dinner. Stacey and I went on a walk around town as our evening activity, and just some usual productivity tasks. I'm excited for the weekend's agenda and we are starting to plan our trips throughout Argentina and Uruguay!

Social media news of the day that fascinates me, courtesy of Mashable

• 10 Facebook facts and what they say about us
• An infographic about Facebook profile pictures
• Beenverified.com introduced a new app called NumberGuru, that allows access to public records so you can look up an unlimited number of phone numbers! What did we do before caller ID?

Friends from other countries

Our attempt to meet Mizzou students for 25 de mayo failed, so we made some Puerto Rican friends and went to Kika in Palermo! Figure we should enjoy the vacation time before next week, when the 40 hours of work begin. We made friends not only from Puerto Rico and Argentina, but also Ireland, Holland and Australia! It's interesting how much more approachable everyone in Buenos Aires is compared to the US.

Celebrating the 25 de mayo...again

Maluca Belleza- a Brazilian dance club in Buenos Aires

It looked like they were doing Zumba but 100 times crazier!

After sleeping in until noon, we took a different Subte line to class today and got home in under an hour! Class was interesting because we read our first story of Argentinean literature, and I did the preliminary research about the war between the Spaniards and the Indians when the Spaniards came to establish Buenos Aires. There was a lot of fighting, and people were so famished that they began to drink blood and eat each other's bodies. I'm glad to be comprehending everything so far and learn more about Argentina as we continue reading.

On another note, we live less than two blocks away from both a McDonalds and a Burger King. You would think we would settle and occasionally get dinner there, but it's actually more expensive than most Argentinean restaurants. A hamburger is 8 pesos at minimum ($2); so much for the dollar menu. We had to go to McDonalds today because they caught my eye with an advertisement similar to this:

How delicious does that look?! Milka is an incredibly tasty milk chocolate bar made by Kraft and not sold many places in the U.S. It's the chocolate to eat here, but rather expensive (at least $2 a bar). But this MILKA MCFLURRY has more Milka than a chocolate bar, and soft serve ice cream! It's almost as good as the ice cream from the heladerías (ice cream shops)! After an exhausting day, the four of us walked to McDonalds on a mission: to try the Milka McFlurry. So I haven't tried real fast food yet, but can attest to this tasting really good! Buenos Aires is so obsessed with the idea of delivery that even McDonalds and Burger King deliver. Can you imagine how much more obese the US would be if this were the case?

One more day of three hours of Spanish class, and then real life starts!

Who cares about Cinco de mayo when you have el VEINTICINCO (25) de mayo?!

Today is a big day in Argentina, the Revolución de Mayo. It commemorates the establishment of a government in Argentina in 1810, and thus, a preserved holiday in Buenos Aires. After last night's adventures, we were pretty tired, so it's been a lazy day.

I revamped both of my blogs, did some tarea (homework) for Spanish class and went on a walk with Stacey. For dinner, we really wanted to try the Chinese food here, and the delivery place was conveniently closed between 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. We called at 7:30 on the dot to place our order, and essentially, waited four hours (4:30-8:30) to eat this Chinese food. It was really good though!

Elizabeth got in contact with some other Mizzou students staying with host families in Buenos Aires, so we are going to meet them to celebrate el 25 de mayo! Yay!

Since we've been in most of the day, I've had time to search the internet.

DID YOU KNOW...

• Twitter acquired the TweetDeck?
• Two days worth of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute? (Source- my favorite, mashable.com)
• Buenos Aires has GROUPON!
• And, my least favorite, Hulu can only be streamed from the United States :(? So much for watching the past two weeks of Glee!

May 24: Always carry an umbrella

This morning began with our usual Subte ride to Puerto Madero for Stacey's appointment with Carolina about internships, and then off to Universidad Austral for class. And I learned my lesson: regardless of whether you have faith in the weather, always bring rainboots and always carry an umbrella. I have learned this many times before, like when I moved into Mark Twain freshman year and told my parents I wouldn't use rain gear. Now, I will.

After our three hour Spanish course doing a preterite/imperfect tense review and learning more about the vosotros form Argentina uses, we walked for 45 minutes in the rain back to the Subte station we are most comfortable with. We have until Monday to experiment with our favorite modes of transportation before everyone begins their internships. Our soaking wet experience walking on essentially, the road that leads to the highway in Puerto Madero soon led us to a packed Subway of sweat. It's insane how people just squeeze in.

Now, to a typical study abroad adventure. Jordin, Stacey and I returned to the restaurant where Jordin ordered a $5 "ensalada del día" and didn't know what it was, which ended up tasting great. So we sat down for dinner to see that DORS, the restaurant, had a phenomenal menu and knew we'd be returning often. Our camarero (waiter) started to ask us how we like Argentina and talk to us about the tornadoes in the US right now. We talked with him for probably 15 minutes, and then he asked us if we wanted to go dancing tonight.

While this sounds totally unsafe and esketchoso (sketchy), Jordin's friend Sam who is studying abroad here gave us some words of advice. Where else are we going to meet Argentinean friends? We have to take advantage of these opportunities to see what real Argentineans do and make friends! (Then again, he's a boy, but the advice still applies.) So we gave Pablo (the camarero) our phone numbers and he called us when he got off of work. We proceeded everything we did with caution, we met him and a friend at a restaurant, sat there for a little bit and took off for our adventure. They said the dancing club was close...but after walking for a few miles, we were scared out of our minds. Waiting with patience, after walking the distance of probably 5 stops on the Subte, we finally arrived at our destination--Maluco Belleza. This boliche (club) was known for its Brazilian music and intense South American cultural mix. We never would have found this place without our new friends!

We danced for a few hours, said bye to Pablo and Alberto and had a great evening. We not only found an awesome place to learn Brazilian dance, but met two Argentinean friends, carried conversation with them in Spanish (and they have thick Argentine accents!) all night, and didn't even have to pay for a lot of it! Night life was pretty lively last night as today is el 25 de mayo, the Revolución de mayo, and we have a day off of school for it. I'm glad we took a risk to find this area, improve our Spanish and hey, maybe we'll get free food at the restaurant!

Amor from Argentina,

Katie

News

Just because I left the country does not mean I stopped being obsessed with my GoogleReader news! These headlines are all really interesting and I highly recommend these articles!

• Today, Mashable posted instructions for how to get started on Google Analytics. As I've previously endorsed this site, I highly recommend it to get stats on your blog and other sites! Specifically, it helps businesses see who is viewing their sites to increase marketing ROI's (returns on investments), but it's also great to see who is stalking you, haha.
• Starting June 1, Illinois will be the 6th state to allow civil unions.
• The Missourian posted this article titled "The Department of Mental Health faces overtime issues from understaffing." This department in Missouri oversees "developmental disability and psychiatric services." Therefore, I see a bigger problem. Rather than worrying about paying staff members overtime, shouldn't we be MORE CONCERNED that TOO MANY RESIDENTS NEED PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES??
• This is older news, but anyone else wondering what's going to happen since Microsoft bought Skype? I wonder how Apple and Google feel about this as they take over the world.
• Ad Age published this article titled "Facebook forced to address legal gray area of kids and advertising." I understand and have learned a lot in Strategic Communication courses how advertising to children is an issue, but Facebook wasn't created for kids. Nonetheless, kids did not really start creating Facebook profiles until this year. So why blame this ethical issue and how to resolve it on Mark Zuckerberg when ultimately, the kids' parents let them create these pages? Targeted advertising is easy these days and I'm sure Facebook will be fine dealing with this challenge. Instead of making Facebook officials address advertising to children, make PARENTS knowledgeable that their children created Facebook profiles.
• The makers of Four Loko have a law suit filed against them after a 15-year old boy got hit by a car after drinking two Four Loko cans. Once again, there's a bigger problem here. Who was the idiot providing the 15-year old with alcohol? Sue them, not the company. Four Loko has already changed its recipe; I don't see any fairness in giving the family damages.
• Speaking of underage drinking, while I was in high school, this story about Deerfield parents that were arrested for throwing a party after Homecoming where a teen died of drunk driving home was very newsworthy. The Illinois Supreme Court declared last week that the parents were not civilly liable for the boy's death. Poor decision Illinois, and encouraging parents to allow such endeavors.
• Technology has come so long of a way that Facebook is now using it to detect pornography and take down such photos. This article discusses photoDNA software.
• Here's an infographic about the affordable future of college textbooks. Very interesting!
• According to Ad Age, Americans spent 53 billion minutes on Facebook in March. The average user spent 5.8 hours on Facebook a month, and this adds up to 100,000 years!!
• The invention of Lockitron allows you to lock and unlock doors from anywhere in the world with phone apps!
• Another Mashable infographic explains the power of peer-to-peer fundraising and defines social giving. This is especially relevant in Missouri's Joplin tornado crisis, as well as with the American Cancer Society for Relay For Life. As a tri-director for Relay For Life next year, I'm happy to see that Relay was the top fundraising event of 2010 engrossing $416.5 million for American Cancer Society. These statistics will really help my steering committee next year and can be applied to non-profits everywhere!

May 23: Gaseosa de pomela

El Subte (Subway)

• Stacey and I got on this morning at a fairly busy hour (11 a.m.), and the Subway always fascinates me. In five feet, you can have a man playing the guitar for money, a woman breastfeeding, someone taking a nap and another person reading. What a concept!
• We took a different Subte line home from our first day of school and it was a completely different scene. Not only was it packed, but it made me appreciate living in Recoleta and by línea D, the green line.
• Our commute home took an hour and 15 minutes between stops, waiting for Subways and more...and for some reason, out of all the things we do, this makes me the most tired. Craziness.

Los Pasantías (Internships)

• This morning, I met with Carolina about internship work and hours! I'll be working almost 30 hours a week, and I'm excited to start! I'll be doing work for Artemisa Wednesday afternoons, and Entercomm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. The next journalism seminar isn't until Thursday, so we're just preparing self-presentations for our workplaces until then.
• Both of my internships, as well as Mizzou's office and Universidad Austral, are in PUERTO MADERO, my favorite part of Buenos Aires! That means 1- a lot of time there. 2- No necessity to pay for additional transportation! 3- A beautiful harbor to look at from work!

Universidad Austral

• This afternoon, after an adventure to find Universidad Austral, we had our first Spanish class! Our professor, Alejandro, is great and I'm excited to see how resourceful the class will be! It's called Special Readings in Spanish, and cool because Alejandro is placing an emphasis on the unique Spanish that Argentina speaks. All of the literature will be from porteños, but we started off today with introductions, a proficiency exam and watching a scene from Cars in Español and Español Argentina.
• Although the class is only our Mizzou group for MU credit, I can see myself learning a lot from Alejandro!

Comida (Food)

• If you're just skimming through the blog, stop now and read this. Ordering food and eating at restaurants has been a large part of our trip so far, because we still can't get our gas oven to light up. I feel like Jordin, Elizabeth, Stacey and I are on an episode of Sex & The City and our lives are just glorious. We have groceries, but find a different café/restaurant or heladería/ice cream shop to eat at daily.
• Today, we took a big step and walked in the other direction down our street. Shocker. As I've mentioned before, you have to pay for bottled water or mineral water because tap water isn't a thing here, so for both of today's meals, all four girls ordered our favorite soda: grapefruit soda. Tasting like fresca, gaseosa de pomelo is sweet, phenomenal and thirst-quenching. I've cried of laughter after the first person orders and the rest just say "el mismo," or the same, and the waiter laughs.
• Lunch was hard to beat, because we found a great lunch special at a restaurant near our office building in Puerto Madero: For 28 PESOS (with tip!), that's $7 US dollars, we got a soda (gaseosa, usually $2), pasta meal, and a postre/dessert!! We'll be returning there.
• It's also funny because when we try somewhere, instead of saying "if" we come back, we just say "when we return" because we know that after two months, we'll be going to just about every restaurant around us.
• Dinner on the other side of the street was good as well, as I had some of Argentina's amazing red meat. Elizabeth (a vegetarian) had a bite of steak for the first time in three years, Stacey's salad came without lettuce because she didn't specify she wanted it, the steak fell in the grapefruit soda, and just laughing together and sharing stories--I cried three times.

Citas (Quotes)

As usual, I'm keeping a quote list of funny things said during the trip. Obviously, they will appear as out of context, but here's a few to brighten your day:

• "We have a president and it is a she." -Carolina
• “This place is in Uruguay…oh, ON Uruguay.” -Jordin
• "Well if you don't help customers, what DO you do?" -Stacey to the Wells Fargo representative from Buenos Aires after her cards were stolen
• "The neighbor was like...there's four of you and you're the only one that got something stolen?" -Stacey, on getting pickpocketed
• On Argentinean men catcalling all the time: "It must do wonders for your self-esteem, but Argentinean women are like ice queens." -Sebastian
• "That's why I hate Mizzou. I have to take a class on tribes and know all about those, but I can't order a steak in Spanish." -Jess
• "I'm going to tip him extra and tell him the money is for my ring." -Jess
• To Han, a member of our group who missed his flight to Buenos Aires: "IF you missed your flight after only drinking coffee, how are you going to be on mate?" -Jordin
• "I haven't seen this stuff journalists like page on Twitter. Like...I like all of these things!" -Stacey
• On ordering the salad of the day (ensalada del día) at a random cafe: "I was going to ask them what was in it, but I wouldn’t have understood anything he was saying so I just didn’t bother." -Jordin
• “That’s the one thing I miss. Refills.” - Stace
• "On eating and ordering in restaurants: “Maybe we should just get delivery so we don’t embarrass ourselves.” -Jordin
• "You can’t assume anything, we’re in South America!" -Jordin (on Stacey ordering a salad and it arriving without lettuce...because Stacey didn't tell them to include lettuce)
• "I’m sick of us speaking in Spanish all the time because all we do is say the same things!" –Stacey
• “I feel like my English is actually getting a little worse.” -Elizabeth, what Spanish conjugations do to us

el 22 de mayo: Greeks in Argentina!

Who knew that an active Greek Orthodox church exists in Spanish-speaking Buenos Aires, Argentina? Now I do!

After some googling, I found a Greek Orthodox church in walking distance of my apartment and had to check it out. I arrived at 9:30 am without knowing what time anything would start, and saw this.

Upon looking through the bars, I saw this!

Catedral de la Dormición de la Theotokos

A young woman who I believe was the custodian opened the bars for me, let me into the church, and said “no tenemos Padre,” meaning, we don’t have a priest. Wow. I came to church on a Sunday morning and there wasn’t even a priest. She didn’t tell me things correctly, because they DO have a priest, he just wasn’t there yet because Orthros/Matins started at 10 am. He walked in around 9:50 pm, and we conversed about the liturgy, the parish and the Greek community of Buenos Aires. He told me it was very small, but I was shocked that they have the funding for such a beautiful church. The liturgy would be a mix of Spanish and Greek.

The inside of the church

Next, the chanter walked in, and spoke a little bit of English too. He also serves as the consultant or the Greek Embassy of Buenos Aires, and gave me his business card and phone number for future events and to learn more. Promoting Greek name stereotypes, his name is Georgios Pappas, and the priest is Padre Ioannis. I was dying inside at the reality of this concept. I’m in the middle of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and there is a parish of individuals who for the most part, grew up in Greece, moved to Argentina and learned Spanish. I was definitely the youngest person in the church by at least 30 years. The service was great for me—because it was a mix of the liturgy I’m used to and the liturgy at Project Mexico, in Spanish! St. Luke’s in Columbia has taught me the Creed in Greek, so I even fit in with the older parishioners as we spoke in both Greek and English.

Many of them introduced themselves to me after the service, and even offered to meet me for lunch. The comical thing about the service was that because there wasn’t more than 20 people, everyone is very close. And they did a great job of doing everything you would expect from Greek Argentineans. For example, five women were at the chanting stand most of the service, and the main male chanter literally stopped in the middle of the doxology to greet one with a kiss on the cheek. Just stopped chanting, and the priest is used to this! They were turning the lights on around the church, and one of the older women in the pews just screamed that it needed to be on in the middle of a hymn and it was normal. I had to hold it all in.

I’m glad that I stopped by a few days after arriving because I’m adjusting to the Argentinean dialect and accent, so Padre Ioannis even said I “sound like a castellano.” I stopped for some pan and empanadas on the walk home and look forward to seeing more Orthodox churches when we’re not on weekend trips!

Our Sunday afternoon activity was going to the Centro Cultural Borges. It’s inside of the Galería Pacífico, a three-story upscale mall. One of Elizabeth’s internships is promoting “espectaculars” or shows at the Centro Cultural, so we spent the afternoon at its art museum. There were four main areas—one of paintings, a photography collection, an exhibit on artwork depicting hair, and miscellaneous modernist works.

Paintings in the Centro Cultural de Jorge Luis Borges

My favorite photo there today--Horacio Coppola's "Calle Corrientes desde Reconquista hasta Plaza de la República." It's cool to see this street then and now as we walked on it after!

The internet in our apartment isn't working, so my roommates and I are at our favorite place to use free WiFi--Freddo. Think of it as our Starbucks, except with helado (ice cream) and sandwiches instead. Conveniently located only a block away, this is our third time here! I'm crying of laughter because couples in Argentina show a lot of PDA (public displays of affection), and Stacey's parents just called her on Skype to work out her wallet being stolen situation. The computer beeped so loudly that a couple kissing on the couch just got up in shock.

As frustrating as it is, it's pretty nice to not have internet sometimes because it requires us to do all of our computer work at once, then go relax. Looking forward to reading and starting intensive Spanish classes tomorrow!

Día 5: 5-21, Ups and Downs

Last night we went to Brujas, a discoteca and restaurant in Palermo and traveled Plaza Seranno at its peak hours with my roommates and the two boys on our trip.

• Up: The weather was so beautiful that we walked all the way to Palermo, and had a great time hanging out with each other!
• Down: We could not dance at the discoteca because we were not 21 years old. Darn!
• Up: We went somewhere else afterwards instead and took Radio Taxis home.

Sitting outside of Brujas

Han & Jordin smile with the mimes that

dance around the table for money

Phones

• Up: Upon waking up this morning, Elizabeth and I finally got our cell phones to function! After time on the phone with Movistar and understanding the phone card attendant, we both have working phones to contact each other.
• Down: We had the neighbors in our apartment help us on the phone line.
• Up: We met our neighbors doing it! We were never given the zip code for our apartment because they are not very important here, but apparently they are to Movistar. I ran downstairs and found a woman named Amelia who got her mail and came over to show us what the zip code was, and ended up finishing off the phone conversation with Movistar. Thankfully we are not afraid to do things like this and it worked out well!

Art in Buenos Aires

• Up: One of Jordin's classmates from Highland Park who goes to Vanderbilt contacted her on Facebook that he was studying abroad here as well! He told us about an art exposition called arteBA (art in Buenos Aires) and it was held at a center called La Rural, comparable to McCormick place. We met him there and although I'm not artistic, I really enjoyed the art fair! There were hundreds and probably thousands of different exhibits of Argentinean artists who bring their best work to win awards at the show. We examined almost all of it--from photography, to watercolor, to paintings to huge statues--and I have plenty of photos of my favorite work.
• Down: Stacey got pickpocketed on the Subte (Subway) on the way there and her entire wallet is gone :(. Elizabeth and Stacey went home to get things taken care of and met another neighbor who helped them call VISA and Wells Fargo in Argentina.
• Up: Her cards are all cancelled and the pickpocketer left with nothing, except maybe a Vera Bradley wallet to sell!

La Rural in Palermo, where we saw arteBA

Sam, Jordin and I at the Blackberry exhibit

A colorful piece that I liked :)

Successful Saturday I'd say, and now we're off to get some helado para el postre (ice cream for dessert)!

Día 4: Logísticas

Halfway through my first week in Buenos Aires, I've been thinking about how much study abroad not only teaches you about the city and traveling, but about immersing yourself into the real world.

Not that Columbia, Missouri is the real world, but throwing college students in another country (especially with a different language) really teaches you a lot. Let's review.

1. Apartment living

I have never lived in an apartment, or alone for that matter. Always having a key, watching for people sneaking into the building behind you, lighting at night and being quiet at night are all in your control. So are answering the phone, the door, buying groceries, cleaning and more. Today, someone rang our bell from downstairs multiple times and we had no idea what to do. After running down five flights of stairs, the doorman (Juan) came up and explained to us that we have a different phone and system to let people in and utilize a speaker system. Who knew? The great thing about study abroad: he told us all of this in Spanish. You learn everything you didn't know about it, with a language barrier. Our TV now has more stations than ESPN (we can watch the news/noticias!) because my roommates communicated with a woman downstairs that an issue existed. We had to buy toilet paper because duh, why would your landlord supply that. Now that you are aware of all of our complications, look at the beautiful apartment!

Our apartment building

Living room and BALCONY!!

Recoleta streets view from the balcony

Dining room

Kitchen (enter from the dining room, another table to the right)

My room (1 of 4, two have double beds and two have singles)

The elevator. Scariest thing ever. Tengo miedo de esto.

It's probably 3 x 3 feet, and you close each door and it just shoots up or down immediately.

I hope you never experience anything like this.

We live on the 5th floor, and take the stairs as often as possible!

2. Electronics, contractors and accounts

After sleeping in, the main task to accomplish today was to set up our cellphones. Our advisor took us to Movistar to purchase cellphones and simcards, and Movistar just threw us off and told us to get them activated. We were not aware how difficult of a task this was. Not to call and activate, but to speak fluently in Spanish to do something we have rarely done in English. I can't say I ever activated my phone and used a pay-as-you-go card. We were hung up on probably 10 times and have spoken to almost every Movistar representative in the process of setting up these phones. It gets better, we went to the wrong location (different store than we bought them at) to ask about it! I was thankful that Kylie, a Mizzou student who completed this program last semester, gave me her cellphone to use. And I have the "jankiest" battery charger you have ever seen; it took us over 24 hours to figure it out (there are no directions). Therefore, challenges like this can arise when you're in another country, so I'm really learning how to live without having things done for you (or spoken in English for you).

3. Public transit, directions and safety

I am grateful that our apartment happens to be a block away from the Subte (Subway) system of Buenos Aires! And we LOVE it. In Chicago, I could always navigate the Metra and barely navigate the L (CTA), and feel like I could master it in a minute. We will be taking the Subtes to our seminar classes at Mizzou's office here, to Palermo for its nightlife, and hopefully to Universidad Austral. Successfully planning a route is so accommodating and now I know how friends at DePaul and schools in cities feel on a daily basis. There's six colored Subte lines and we have already ridden three of them. Look forward to stories about meeting comical men, musicians and getting lost on these!

4. Food, grocery shopping and health

There won't always be a kitchen staff downstairs that cooks for you (Mark Twain Market, Phi Mu kitchen, etc). I've been buying yogurt for breakfast, granola bars for snacks during the day, and have to choose groceries wisely. Because we won't always have time to cook between going to class and our internships, we must be knowledgeable about what's around, affordable and healthy. This will be another challenge to overcome--and in Buenos Aires lunch is around 3 pm, and dinner is around 10 pm. Adjusting to this schedule has been interesting for my stomach, but saves money on buying breakfast :P! And the food here doesn't always have preservatives (or has a lot) so you have to be careful with what you buy and its quantity. The word for soda is gas, and gas also symbolizes carbonation. Tap water is not a thing, and if you go to a restaurant, you have to pay for mineral water. So juice and Fanta (especially de pomelo, grapefruit) is an asset to my diet. Elizabeth and I found a HUGE grocery store two blocks from our house, so location really is key, because we also have two smaller supermercados that we were counting on until then.

5. Budgeting

Money money money. Being careful about spending it is already an issue when you are 1- a college student, 2- in the US, 3-shopping and 4- in Argentina. Four pesos are a dollar, and my mind still processes in dollars and divides by four. We even went to a restaurant that had a cover charge. I'm going to have to start logging what I'm spending each week on food, transit (the Subte only costs a peso-like a quarter) per trip!, and the costs of living. Hopefully I will train my mind to process in pesos sooner than later.

Therefore, the logistics of the day have been a key factor in my stress level (without even having work or class yet!) but my phone is functioning (kind of), we arrived at orientation on time, learned the Subte system and ate healthy meals! People in Buenos Aires go out from 1 am to 6 am (sometimes later) instead of America's typical college or city out time of 9 or 10 pm to 2 am. But it gives me time to blog, right?!

The last thing I'll leave you with:

So far, Puerto Madero is my favorite part of Buenos Aires. Honestly, I think it's because it resembles California in my eyes. Body of water, boats, lights, trees, overall classiness, restaurants on the port, and tall buildings. We don't have many tall buildings in Recoleta, so it feels homey to go to class at night and see this. Isn't it lovely?!

Puerto Madero

Me standing on the white crossing you see in the photo above

Our class building is on the right next to that ship.

Amor de Buenos Aires,

Katie