estoy seguro en argentina

finally i have pictures for you all!! these are the first batch from buenos aires. we flew into the city on friday morning after a killer red-eye flight out of jfk. we began our tour the next morning, so here it begins...

these two pictures are from a church in buenos aires. the church is sacred (obviously?) and is right next to the governmental palace, aka la casa rosada. famous people are buried in this church. doubly as obvious, i have no idea who. 

one of two diagonal streets (or calles) in buenos aires that points toward an obelisk in the middle of the plaza de mayo. this area is very similar to times square in new york city. the obelisk is very similar to the washington monument in dc. 

la casa rosada, the government palace in buenos aires. the president, cristina kirchner works here. 

la plaza de mayo, right in front of la casa rosada

la boca. the houses in this part of the neighborhood are painted different colors. when people a long time ago wanted to paint their houses, the went to the docks and asked the captains of the boats if they could have the bottom of the paint cans to paint their houses. they would collect paint and paint their houses all different colors with the various colors used on the boats. the colors in la boca were so vibrant and there were markets everywhere. 

crossing over a bridge..

la tomba de evita perón, in a HUGE cemetery. this cemetery is also like a musem, there are paths everywhere and tombs in neat lines. the cemetery is so big you can see it as you are flying out of buenos aires. 

mmmm argentine sweets are the best. and there are markets and vendors that sell them everywhere.

these are from la zona norte (north zone) of bs as. like i said, there are markets everywhere. vendors sell anything from fresh fruit and vegetables to jewelry to photographs to antiques. we stopped in a market where people were tango dancing. 

these are from san telmo, a bit like the hamptons in new york. we drove 45 minutes north of bs as and had lunch right on the rio de la plata, which looks like an ocean. however, it is the mouth of a river and is fresh water; yet it has tides and waves. is that even possible, despite what i learned in geology?? from this part of the city, you can see the hazy skyline of buenos aires--it's beautiful. i think here it hit most people that we are here to stay for 5 months!! from here, we were bussed to the airport for our flight to mendoza. we got in around 6 and our families were waiting in the airport for us!! 

i have two host brothers, a mom, dad, some fish, and pancho, the dog. pancho is like the third son. i will make sure to post pictures soon because he is so friendly and adorable! he slept on my bed last night and loves to give kisses. he will be a great companion when i start to miss my dog!! i have my own room and will make sure to post pics of that as well. other than that, i am starting to communicate with my family with hand signals and spanglish and broken spanish. today, i went running with some other girls in the ifsa program in the huge park (much like central park in nyc). it took me 20 minutes to run there, lots of exercise to come!!