que se yo

well, it has been a week since I left my lovely Estonia. It has also been a week since I wore socks or anything with long sleeves, which for February can be considered as quite an achievement.
My main thing here in Buenos Aires has been trying to get used to the weather, taking showers 3 or more times a day and speaking speaking speaking Spanish or... castellano (pronounce kasteshano).

After a veeeery long and boring flight (and no I did not meet any cute guys on the plane) I finally landed in Buenos Aires at midnight. In my mind I had already accepted the fact that I will either have to spend the following days wearing the same clothes and lose the Vana Tallinn and Viru Valge I brought for my friends, or just spend loads of money to buy new things. To my surprise I saw my dear new suitcase on the luggage line. It had an orange sticker of Estonian Air saying "heavy" (through some miracle I managed to convince the check-in woman that I can fly with 31 kg instead of 20 without paying for the extra) but who cares! My suitcase was there and all the things were fine!

So my next concern was if someone would really be there to pick me up. And yes! My friend Martin was there to take me to my other friend's house. Getting out of the airport was a bit of a shock for me since I was welcomed by a big wave of hot sticky air, and yes it was already past midnight! Then I realized I have to do some major acclimatizing.

The trip from the airport to Beto's house in Villa del Parque neighbourhood took, well I think around 1,5 hours because Martin is not really from the capital and he had not been around this area too much. And well, I would say that I think even if I live in Buenos Aires for 20 years I would still be able to get lost without any major problem :) This place is really not small :)
Looking for Beto's street we had to ask for the road from... 1) a few drunk people on the street corner 2) some old people 3) POLICE! And you can guess who finally gave us the right directions :)

It was 100% pure joy to see "mi hermano" Beto, althought I thought to myself that he must be already very sick and tired of me because there is always some problem related to my trips :D So the first three days I lived with the family of Beto. His mom is incredibly friendly and at times I really felt bad for being such a freeloader :D

The heat of the first days was really horrible, on Wednesday the temperature reached 37 and it is bloooody humid here so the air conditioning (aka AC) has really been one of my best friends here :D One night I put it to 16 degrees and when Beto entered the room in the morning, he was sure he saw some snowflakes flying around. But I guess they understand me, I am from the north, eh :D

Being here now is very different from what was the first time. Then I had this "wooooooow, I'm in Buenos Aires" excitement. Now I'm here with the feeling of "ahh, I'm here, I'm supposed to be here". The streets are still a bit dirty and the people are still extremely friendly (especially the taxi drivers and the kiosk salespersons who always ask for my number when I buy credit for the mobile phone or call me muneca (the doll)... one of the joys of having blue eyes).

One thing is different tho, I have been practicing spanish since day one. Due to the fact that Beto's mom doesnt speak English I had to start immediately. I have to admit, it is an effort, and sometimes at night I switch on the TV and put on a channel with English, because my brain is soooooo tired. But I think I am doing pretty well, although some people say I speak like a Spanish person and some friends still dont believe that i understand spanish =) But I do, even if it means that I have to ask some of my friends to speak VEEEEEEEEEERY SLOOOOOWLY as if I was a kid =) It has only been a week, so it will come. Considering that Jaago (for those who don't know, he is an Estonian who has lived here since November) who before coming here didnt speak anything is now able to speak really well, I think I will be allright =)

A very important part for settling in has been getting Argentinean phone number. And OH MY GOD. I think I have just called once. Here the cool thing is to send messages. I have some friends who can send messages for free, so I think.... I have received ca 200 messages and sent 100 in just one week. I am thinking that it is just because I am new here and everyone wants to be in contact with the new thingy, right? :D But its cool, makes you feel more welcomed and less alone :)

What else have I done? Ah! been out! Well, I haven't managed to go to a boliche (disco) yet. So far we have only been to bars. But it has been really loads of fun. One thing that I have to get used to is that going out at 2 am is a totally normal thing. So in order not to be dead (con cara de muerto) I have started to take siestas in the afternoon :D I have been drinking also one of the most popular drinks here Fernet con coca. For those of you who haven't tried it.... it tastes a bit like Jägermeister but is way more medicine-tasting :D And at first I really didn't like it, but it sort of grows on you... especially if people keep buying it for you and you cannot really say no :

Right now I am in my hotel, where I will stay until Friday. It is sort of like an apartment hotel because I have a living room and a kitchen too. And its quite nice. It even has wifi! Although it took me 3 days to get connected because the stupid woman in the reception didn't tell me that the password letters are in CAPS.

If you have any questions, please write :D I promise to write more often now :)

besos

khm!!

I wrote a long new entry and then the stupid wifi in my hotel disappeared. So I am not going to write a new one until the wifi comes back :)

Just to let you know that I am alive and loving every second! Except the ones that I have to tell some kiosk salesman that I dont want to give him my number!

Huh?

It is the strangest thing to be sitting in the lobby of the hotel in Madrid where I was 1,5 years ago, the same hotel and the same problems with the same company (fly Aerolineas Argentinas!!! :)). I am staying in almost the same room I was at the last time and even the dinner was almost the same :) If we are lucky Aerolineas Argentinas will be so kind as to transport us to the destination in 4 hours. But with them you never know. As the Argentinean woman at the dinner said yesterday, Argentineas lie... a lot, so let's see.

Not that I am in a hurry or anything, I have all the time in the world. And quite honestly, yesterday when I was running with my 10 kg of handluggage (yes, my back and my shoulders do hurt) through the confusing mess of Madrid airport, being sent to three different directions by three different information workers I was actually totally sure that I will not go to the plane this night :) And when I finally found terminal 1 and the check in counter of AA and saw the grumpy faces of people, I knew it. The only thing I was hoping for at that point was that I didn't have to spend the night at the airport and that I would find a way to let my friends in Buenos Aires know that I will be late. But it seems that by entering the latin zone I have also entered into the tranquiiiiiiilo mode :) While most people here at the hotel are extremely angry for this delay, of course, some have to go to work and one guy has to go to his sister's wedding, I found it very hard not to laugh when they told me this morning we have to wait another two hours.

Besides the obvious - that they male part of the scenery looks much less "oooooohm-i-don't know" type and much more of "eeeeeeee, bella" I feel very comfy to be here. Last night at the dinner I was seated at the table with two Spanish, three Argentineans and one argentinean-italian-whatever and I already know half of the life stories of each of them :) (One of the Argentinean women has a son whose girlfriend is Estonian, eh :D ) I just had to think how different this table would be if there were 8 nordic people sitting there, chances are I wouldn't even know where they are from. I just loved it. Ok, i did feel a bit like a retard baby among them, because they were mainly speaking in Spanish and they just felt the need to ask me every five minutes "do u understand?" :D And funny enough, I did! :p

That is the first overview of the happenings.

Hasta luego :)