After a lovely 10-hour flight, I arrived in Buenos Aires, if not refreshed then at least very excited for the next three weeks. I went straight to COINED, the school where I'm taking intensive Spanish classes for the next 2-3 weeks, where I accosted the poor receptionist multiple times with lots of random questions (where is the bathroom? can I leave my huge bag behind your desk? how do I get to my host family's house via train, bus and taxi?). After failing my pre-test miserably (not surprising, as I know no Spanish at all yet), I was put in the very beginner level, and began my illustrious career as a student of Spanish. Hooray!

After 4 bleary-eyed hours of class, I was supposed to head into another 2 hour intensive private lesson, when I decided that I'd rather jump off the building than sit for another minute in my 2 day old and decidedly stinky clothes. I went to our friendly neighborhood receptionist, and begged her to let me off the hook for the afternoon class for the day. She graciously obliged and sent me on my merry way to my host family's house, giddy at the prospect of a shower and brushing my teeth.

Susana, my host mother, lives in Caballito, which is a middle-class neighborhood in Buenos Aires, from which a large portion of the city-going population commutes to downtown. When I arrived, she was waiting for me, and showed me around the place. It was two stories, with 5 bedrooms, all occupied by her family or other wayward travelers like myself. My room was small, but cozy, with shelves full of books in Spanish that I was excited to see I could almost understand the titles of. Maybe after my kick-ass Spanish lessons are over, I'll be able to read the first page of one of them?