Day 4: The Walk

It rained all day today. Sometimes it was just a light mist and other times it really came down. Nevertheless, after my private lesson today, in which I went over the major body parts and essentially all the physical characteristics, I decided to walk all the way home instead of riding the subway. So I walked all along Av. Corrientes, which was quite a ways: it took me about 3 hours at a reasonably fast pace. Along the way, I looked inside a couple of the many "compro libros," bookstores, which were in all located within four or five blocks of each other. I passed the obelisk, which is a famous Buenos Aires landmark and the theatre to which the school has an extracurricular trip for a Tango performance tomorrow night. I suppose this is partly because I am not used to living in the center of a city, but it is interesting to me how rare it actually is to find a street that has traffic flow in both directions: even the "major" streets are one way. In fact, I don't remember seeing one since the road from the airport.

With a slightly tired and quite wet body and feet, I finally arrived back at Rio de Janeiro where I was soon joined by Betty's relatives for some ice cream and coffee. The perfect way to top off some exercise: deliciously cold and flavorful calories. It was interesting to hear the differences in how each of them spoke Spanish; the man I found quite a lot harder to understand than everyone else with whom I have talked. I think that I am still a bit used to the Mexican Spanish, where the "ll" and "y" are not pronounced as "sh." It throws me off a little when I am trying to keep up with the fast-paced conversation at the table that somehow ended up on the topic of the rumor that the Governor of Buenos Aires had a robot personally designed to swat mosquitos.

I think this blog entry will be a little short, because I only just finished my homework, and it now quite late. I plan on making a trip to the bank tomorrow for money, mainly for food and the subway, but I also am nearly done with "Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal" and I would like to buy the second in series.

The photo above is my group for the morning classes with one of our teachers: (l-r) Martha, the teacher, Laila from Norway, Lauren from the USA, Peter from Switzerland, and Andy from Germany. My apologies to Lauren and to you all for her closed eyes...she was not sleeping during class.


Chao.