Greetings from Buenos Aires!

Hi everyone! We arrived in Buenos Aires on Tuesday morning, where we
were greeted by a couple students and a teacher from Colegio del
Salvador. We took a half hour bus ride to the school where our
brothers were waiting for us with a nice breakfast of medialunas, which
are very similar to croissants. We met Eugenia who is the teacher who
assists our exchange program. Then some of us met our host families,
while others went to one of the 3 soccer courts which are located in
the school. We played for about a half hour before the rest of the
families showed up and brought us to our houses. I think that every
house that we are staying in are apartments which are located within
walking distance of the school. Everyone did different things once
they got to their houses, some people slept for 5 hours, some had
lunch with their host families, while others, including myself, went
to Driver's Ed class back at the school. We each were able to go to bed
early and get ready for everything that is ahead of us.
    It rained all night and it continued into all day Wednesday, so our
trip to the Recoleta Cemetery needed to be rescheduled and instead we went
to different classes with our host brothers and met other kids in the
grade of about 50 kids. We learned about how the school system is
structured from 1st to 7th grade for primary school and 1st to 5th
year for secondary school. Also they need to chose which career path
they want to follow going into 4th year, try it out, then confirm
which profession they want in 5th year. The 3 types of paths are
politics, economics, or math and science. We each do our own thing for
this day for the most part as we attend various classes with our
brothers and play basketball or soccer during our breaks. This day was
very good for getting acquainted with the school and forming new
relationships with the new students that we met.
    On Thursday there was a big controversy due to the fact that we had tango lessons at the same time as the opening ceremony of the World Cup, which of course was not acceptable. So the boys begged Eugenia to reschedule the class and she did.  So
in the morning we went to a class with our host brothers and then went to
someone's house to watch the opening ceremony and game between Brazil
and Croatia. Brazil won the game after some controversy with a penalty
kick and a goal called off that was scored by Croatia. This game was
very fun to watch with the boys, but the big game is on Sunday when
Argentina plays Bosnia.
    On Friday morning, a brief power outage due to the last night's
rainstorms lead us to believe that our plans to tour the city may
again fall through, but by the beginning of the first class of the
day, the lights came back on, and by the end of the first class, Sra.
Basin greets us happily so that we may begin the tour of the old city.
We walk through the streets passing beautiful buildings, some built
over a century ago. We pass the ornate building in which the congress
works, much like our capital building in Washington, D.C. The tour
comes to a pause at Tortoni Cafe, where we enter and observe the menu
overwhelmingly filled with delicious food options, and sit down to a
meal at the 156-year-old cafe. After that exciting experience, we walk
through the Plaza de Mayo, where people eagerly sell their handmade
goods such as hats, toys, and scarves. From there, we enter the
grandiose city hall building, in which a tour guide greets us and
provides a fascinating lesson on Argentinian history and laws, and
showing us the library, the mayor and council meeting room, in which
local representatives discuss laws for Buenos Aires.  From there, the
group moves along to the beautiful cathedral in which Pope Francis had
once preached. Some pray the rosary, and others take pictures around
the statues and artwork of the cathedral. This concludes the tour, and
we head back to the school on the subway.
Stay tuned as we will update this blog more often as we continue!