Never make assumptions

A lot of occurrences from the past few days have reinforced one of life's most important lessons: never make assumptions.

On Día del Amigo while studying for a test, we wanted to bake another dulce de leche cake. I lit up our gas oven, let it preheat for a bit (there's no place that says the temperature) and put the cake in the oven. Since we don't have cake pans, I cooked it in a pot (see below), but it worked last time, so why wouldn't it work again?

Every time we checked, the cake still didn't appear to be done. It looked doughy and wasn't really becoming golden brown on the edges, so we just kept putting it back in the oven. After two hours of impatience, from 8 to 10:15 p.m., I had it. I just took the cake out of the oven and said we'd eat it however it was.

Me, Stacey and Jordin with our cake in a pot

What do you know, after cutting into the cake, it was perfectly fine. Cooked and everything, it just didn't look like it because a toothpick/fork test didn't show that. I impatiently screamed, "This cake is ruining my life! Why did it think it could stress me out like that and be fine?!?!?" Never assume that something isn't done...it will just make you more upset.

This next situation is a little worse. I heard that Palacio Barolo was an observation-deck type tower that allows you to see all of Buenos Aires, and knew that the guided tours were at random hours. I emailed the company to make reservations for all of us to take a tour, and received confirmation for an appointment at 6 p.m. on Thursday. I got off of work at 5 p.m., and all of my roommates were off in the city at their own jobs or covering some intense press conferences (Stacey interviewed the CEO of Adidas!!). We decided we'd meet at Palacio Barolo whenever we could all get there.

I thought I had a general idea of what the palace looked like, because Buenos Aires doesn't have many tall buildings. I thought it was this building- a tall clock tower on Avenida de Mayo, one of the main streets, since Palacio Barolo's address is on Avenida de Mayo. I even told my roommates that it was this Subte stop, not far from any of us, and we could meet there. But don't make assumptions.

This is actually the legislature, by Plaza de Mayo, and a lot further down Avenida de Mayo from Palacio Barolo. None of us had even looked up directions because we know how to get to Plaza de Mayo (where the legislature is) easily and figured we'd find it once we get there. Poor assumption.

What Palacio Barolo actually looks like

Aren't the two tall similar-shaped buildings easily confusable?

At 5:49 p.m., I was literally having a heart attack when I kept asking people where the entrance to Palacio Barolo was and no one knew what I was talking about. Remember that this isn't in English and feel my stress level here. Because of the Argentine accent, sometimes it's our own fault that we're not understood. I pronounced BA-RO-LO a million different ways and finally, Elizabeth and I found each other in front of the Cabildo and went into a café to use their internet. The owners told us that Palacio Barolo was FOUR SUBTE STOPS AWAY on the A line, and I was about to give up. "We're not going to get there in 10 minutes." Elizabeth dragged me into doing it; I had no hope. How were we going to make a 6 p.m. tour going four subway stops in less than 10 minutes, then finding the actual building?

Never assume that things are impossible, because we did it! It's Argentina...nothing starts on time. We caught the Subte, literally SPRINTED through the city and ran into Palacio Barolo and bought tickets. We felt bad for Stacey, because her work was the same Subte stop as the palace, but since we all assumed it was on Plaza de Mayo (and the other side of Avenida de Mayo...), we all went there. We crazily waved at her on the street, ran in and the tour began. Phew.

Palacio Barolo has the same architecture as Palacio Salvo in Montevideo, Uruguay, which was right next to our hotel there. Every aspect of the building is designed after Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno), and very symbolic. It was built in 1923 and the tallest building in South America at the time! (Tall buildings are not common here). The symbolism is so fascinating, I'll just let Wikipedia explain it.

• There are 22 floors, divided into three "sections". The basement and ground floor represent hell, floors 1-14 are the purgatory, and 15-22 represent heaven. The building is 100 meters (328 feet) tall, one meter for each canto of the Divine Comedy. The lighthouse at the top of the building can be seen all the way in Montevideo, Uruguay.

The tour started off with seeing a typical office, some of the architecture on the 9th and 14th floors, then we walked up "the stairs to heaven." Stacey and I giggled at the older people struggling as we got up all the stairs, and the view was beautiful. At one point, the elevator from the 14th floor went down instead of up and the tour guide, Tomás, joked, "¡No, el infierno!" Hilarious.

The first observation area is a lot of windows, and the second is a circle of mini-balconies! Look what a beautiful time it was to see all of Buenos Aires!

Stacey and I

Being on Avenida de Mayo, Palacio Barolo

gives a great view of Congreso Plaza, being right above it

Congreso again

FASCINATING- if you look all the way down

Avenida de Mayo (the street pictured), you can see CASA ROSADA

(The Pink House, where the president works) all lit up at night

on Plaza de Mayo! How beautiful!

Me on one of the balconies

If this view wasn't enough, we got to go up one more story

to the LIGHTHOUSE that can be seen from Uruguay!

It's a very thin staircase where you often

bump your head and shoulders against the wall.

Hearing the end of the tour in the lighthouse

Dante's ashes are even stored in the center

under the dome on the first floor of the palace.

Here's some of the arches.

As you can see, both of these crazy assumption situations ended up working out once we figured out what was supposed to happen. Studying abroad really has provided some great problem-solving and rewarding experiences!