One and a half months in...

Sorry for the delay in putting an update up. It seems at time that I never have enough time here.... but then I realize I just need to better prioritize!

So I have survived my first month and a half in Buenos Aires. I can't believe how quickly the time has flown by. One month in I can now hold a basic conversation with a person (if the person I am talking to speaks slowly). I've got just about 6 weeks of school under my belt and a good feel for the city. Even after 6 weeks I still find myself discovering new things and learning about new neighborhoods. As you can see in the picture above it still takes me some time to translate - it took me a good two hours to translate the newspaper story in the picture above.

These past few weeks I've met a bunch of new people. A few weeks ago I started using a new site called www.conversationexchange.com. Its a site where people who are interested in practicing new languages can meet each other (by the way this site can be used in just about any city - i.e. Boston). The old me would never have tried something like this - to be frank, my first thought is what type of person is going to be trying to meet someone else on the web - they most likely were going to be some type of freak!. Of course that's just the unknown talking. I have to admit that I have been very happy with the two people I've met via the site. The first, Carla, is a former lawyer who is hoping to improve her English so she can start traveling in the future. She and I have established a pattern of practicing our languages while walking through the gardens of Buenos Aires. The other woman, Laura, recently moved back from Vancover and is looking to improve her English. She's quite a character - after talking with her for 15 minutes in our first meeting I couldn't believe that we had just met - she's very outgoing and engaging and eager to help me with learning Spanish. In fact she actually gave me homework after our first meeting!

The one lesson I learned with conversation exchange is that when you meet someone new on the web make sure you agree on your meeting. Laura and I communicated via email to set up our first meeting, however when we first met up she kept asking me about Ireland. I told her a few times that I was from Boston not Ireland and she kept telling me "no, stop you are joking". Later while we were sitting at the cafe she stopped suddenly and asked me, "what is your name again?"
I told her, "Andrew."
It was hilarious - her face froze and she asked me - "you mean your name is not Brian?"
"No", I said - "its Andrew".
"Oh my god, I was supposed to meet Brian tonight." I took out my iphone and showed her the email I had sent her confirming our meeting. After she read it and had a moment to think she realized that she had been having a separate conversation with a guy named Brian who she was also planning on meeting with. Turns out she had never actually set up the meeting and had had a momentary laps of reason. She has now taken to calling me "ex-Brian".
Needless to say I am very lucky to have met both woman. I know that working with them will help me with learning the language. While its hard now I know that I'll be able to improve my Spanish through conversations with both of them.

The picture on the left is from my second week at IBL in downtown Buenos Aires. We had a great group. Two people from Israel, a guy from Germany and a woman from Brasil. Had a great experience at this school but figured it would be good to try another school to get a different teach style and jazz things up a bit. In addition to group lessons I've also started private lessons.

In for a penny in for a pound. My new school is called expanish. Its a pretty slick organization and they seemed to have figured out the importance of leveraging the web as a marketing tool. You can check them out at www.expanish.com.

Was invited to my friend Pilli's for a family dinner last night. It was great to have a home cooked meal (is it home cooked if the maid cooked it?). I can't get over how friendly everyone in Buenos Aires is. Its probably the single best feature of the city. I've been informed that their house is my house now (for those of you that remember your basic spanish - they actually use the phrase "Mi Casa es Su Casa"!)

Am listening to some spanish music as a means to learn the language. Check out Manu Chau (a funk hip hop band that switches between Spanish, French and English) and Mercedes Sosa ( a famous folk singer in Argentina with a beautiful voice). You can check both out by clicking on the links.

Much more to follow - just gone done hosting my buddy Greg Hren (check out his blog on the link on the right side of the page - there is even a picture of me!) followed my Mom for the last two weeks.