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