Today was my first day of classes. It was a busy, but good, day. I got up at 9 after 10.5 hours of sleep! After getting ready and having breakfast (tostadas with dulce de leche, hot chocolate, and grapes), I read for a while in my room. Two of Fani's grandchildren and one of their friends were coming for a visit today so Fani was tidying the house. They were supposed to come at 12 (I think), but they came at 11am. I got to meet them. There names are Camila, Valentina, and Florencia. Florencia is their friend and she speaks better English than I speak Spanish. It was hard for me to understand them because they all tried to talk at the same time. Camila mumbled and Valentina scarcely said a word. We had ham and cheese sandwiches on white bread in the kitchen. I got ready to leave and Fani said something about them coming with me. I did not understand, but I waited until they got ready. We all left together and then I asked Florencia (in English, I'm afraid to say) what was going on. She said that they were going to go shopping. I think Fani sent them with me so she did not have to go downstairs to let them out. (The doors here must be opened with a key, as well as locked with one.) They walked with me to the main road, Cabildo, and then they went left as I turned right to head to the university. I got to the tenth floor a little early and sat and waited. In just a few minutes, other students started appearing. No one wanted to be late for the first day. The elevators at the university are very funny. They only stop at every fifth floor. When you are riding in them, they go so fast that they make your head spin. Our profesora showed up five minutes late. We started class by each answering nine questions about ourselves off the board. When we had finished writing, she mixed up the papers and passed them out again. Then we had to introduce the person whose paper we had. I could tell she was doing this to test our ability to conjugate verbs because we had to change the verbs from first person to third person rapidly in our minds. After many detours, we finally finished that exercise and we talked a little about grammar mistakes that had been made. By this time, it was 2:30 and she gave us a half hour break. It wasn't really enough time to get food, so I ate my granola bar and looked for the computer lab. The paper that the ISA people gave us had the wrong floor listed for the computer lab, so I never found it. I ended up going back to class a little early. After the break, we had three more people in our class that they were considering moving up to our class. I think two of them are going to stay, but one wants to move back down. The time after the break was very interesting because we talked about the difference between tú and vos (what is used in Argentina). We also talked about certain vocabulary words that are used in Argentina, but not in most other Spanish-speaking countries. We went down to the bookstore at 4:30 and bought our textbooks, our cuadernillos, for 15 pesos or $5. They are actually just 100 pages of worksheets and readings stapled together. We went back upstairs and did an exercise in our book and then it was time to go. I went upstairs to the twelfth floor to use the computer. I stayed until 6:05 and it was almost dark. I am not really a fan of walking home in the dark, so I tried to hurry. However, I caught up to other people from my program and they were going to get ice cream. I was not really in a hurry to return to my apartment (other than the darkness factor) so I went with them. We went to a heladeria (ice cream store) pretty close to my house. I had frutilla (strawberry) and frambuesa (raspberry). It is so delicious! We sat around and talked (in español, finally!) for about an hour. We are kind of crazy eating ice cream in an open-air shop in winter! We decided to walk to a grocery store nearby because Heather and Rachel needed to buy some things. We walked around and looked at stuff. Then we stood outside by a fountain and talked. People wanted to make plans for tonight (bars or movies), but I am so tired that I did not really want to do anything! Will and I headed back to Cabildo and then I headed back to my apartmento alone. There are actually a lot of people out at 7:56pm! I got back and talked to Fani briefly and then she gave me dinner. I had soup, as usual, gnocchis (because people in Buenos Aires always eat them on the 29th of the month?), and chocolate mousse for dessert. Fani cleaned up and went to bed. I worked on part of my homework and decided to wait until the morning to take my shower because it is freezing in here. (I will probably regret this decision in the morning!) I really cannot stay up past 10:30 which is quite pathetic! Every night about this time, I am so tired that I cannot even stay awake to read in bed which is one of my most favorite things to do in the whole world!
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