Viernes

After a late night in Palermo with Jordin yesterday, I woke up to see that it was 8:15 a.m. and I had to be in Puerto Madero in 45 minutes. Happy to see that the bus was waiting for me right outside, I hopped on and sure enough, got into work at 8:59 a.m. But it had appeared that no one else in the office had.

My boss usually unlocks the doors and is the earliest person to arrive, with everyone else floating in between 9:30 and 11 a.m. Since she was stuck in traffic and no one else had a key, I didn't get into the office until 9:45. So much for sleeping longer and being on time, right? But relaxation time isn't allowed; something always inhibits me from chilling or just reading some news for a bit. A few minutes after 9, a man was waiting outside the office with me to pick up an iPad that we had been using for a client. I explained to him that we'd have to wait for the office to get unlocked, etc, and we managed to converse until 9:45. His name was Pedro and he was from Peru, but works for an audiovisual/electronics company in Buenos Aires. In addition to discussing why I was in Buenos Aires, working and where I was taking classes/living, I learned his family history, how his company rented out the big screen used at the Shakira concert in March, that he went to the auto show yesterday, and just about every other conversation topic you can imagine. My mind is never put to sleep here in a full-on conversation in castellano!

I felt pretty official at work today because I wrote a press release for Espacio Forum, a convention-center type place in La Plata. The British Telecom documents I translated taught me a lot of new vocabulary about employee benefits, summer and skin cancer, always interesting to learn.

Continuing the pattern of taking a different way home from work, I went to Parque Lezama (where Buenos Aires was founded) because I realized it's only a five minute walk from work. I saw the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church, that looks more like a building from Aladdin, on the outside but it was locked. Picture to come soon!

After a good Friday afternoon nap, our roommates did dinner at our favorite, WOK China, and got helado for dessert at the same place I've been to three days in a row now. In an attempt to befriend the ice cream man, I laughed & said "REGRESAMOS!" - We're back! as we entered, at least it got him to laugh.

Time to rest up for a week of travel! Our flights are all booked, and if I've learned anything, it's to never wait to book a flight and just pay for it when you see the price and times that you like. Websites like Despegar will trick you.