Despite my plans to go to Thelonius on Sunday, I never made it there. I decided to go up to the common area of my hostel and see what was going on. Best decision ever.

There were a bunch of kids just hangin around, listening to music. Here is your new cast of characters: Alex (UVM grad '09 who has been living in Chile for the past 8 months), Tristan (German who has already traveled the world by age 22, Australia, Bali, China, schooled at Oxford and now takes Spanish here for 2 months), Nina (Swiss girl, met Tristan in Spanish class), Natalie (German friend of Tristan), Claudia (Columbian girl who lives at the hostel and speaks very little English), Carlos (on vacation from Sao Paolo, Brazil - he and I get along the best).

Sunday night we all decided to head to Plaza Serrano. It turns out that no matter how dedicated people are to the nightlife here, Sunday night is still a bit more mellow. We went to a bar where there was live jazz karaoke. It was small and nice and I started singing along. Well then Tristan was dedicated to getting me up there to sing. The problem was, all of the performers were from a voice school, so they wouldn't let me up there. So he insisted that I sing at the table and the entire walk home.

We headed back relatively early so I got my first night of normal sleep. Monday I moved to my apartment. It's farther from the center of town and from my new friends, but really nice to have a bathroom and a mirror readily accessible.

Fernando's mom, Sima, greeted me here. She helped me get settled in - showed me the jacuzzi on the upstairs balcony (important things like that). Then she toured me around the neighborhood, which I pretty much knew from all the walking I've been doing. Her help probably would have been AMAZING when I first got here. Although it was reassuring to know that I had navigated correctly on my own. She helped me get a phone and told me where to change money. Problems solved now. She took me to a little cafe in Alto Palermo - an elegant little shopping mall.

I had my first Almojar. Delicious. It's basically a cookie sandwich: two white cookies with dulce de leche in the middle. Dulce de leche is what Buenos Aires is famous for. It's basically caramel but sweeter and less sticky and you can have it in a more liquidy form or a more taffy-like form. In an almojar it's just kind of gooey and milky rich in taste. It was SO sweet of her to treat me.

After 2.5 hours with Sima, her grandson Alan met up with me. We strolled over to yet another cafe - they're cafe culture is no joke. There I had a licuado which is somewhere between a smoothie and flavored milk. My licuado de banana was so yummy. We spoke switching back and forth between Spanish and English and he invited me to his shul (or shil) this Friday. The little old woman next to us overheard and began to talk to us all about her Jewish upbringing and her granddaughter who I guess is away at school and very active.

She also asked me where I was from and when she heard New York had to ask me if I knew these two Jewish girls who she knows that live there. Well, obviously New York's Jewish community is quite a bit larger than she realized. She is going to join us at Bet Hillel on Friday.

That's what I mean about the people. In America they might be considered invasive or aggressive, but I think they're just super friendly.

After my relocation and two cafe stops, I finally got a start to my day at 3 pm. I took the subte down to Avenida Florida which is in the Financial District of Buenos Aires. It's a cross between the Financial District and the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I went to explore Museo Mitre. Emilio Mitre was a famous miliarty man and the museum is his house. This was the type of tour I like: self-guided, set up to show you how the person lived, light history lesson along the way.

Of course the most fascinating room to me was the library. It was stuffed to the brim with old editions that lined all four long walls. I found it so beautiful. On my way out I stopped to thank the older man and younger woman who had welcomed me. I ended up talking to them for 45 minutes about my trip and where else I should go and what to do and what to see.

They asked me if my parents were worried about me traveling alone - I think we all know the answer to that one. Valeria and Marcellino were just too cute. Again, friendly people.

There is more - feel free to pause here and return later to read about Monday night through Tuesday.

Monday night my new friends and I went to the Konex Center to see a live drum show from a band called La Bomba del Tiempo. Peronsally, I liked the drum band at the street fair better, but the scene on Monday was so cool. We were basically in an open plaza packed in tight. But Argentines don't just stand and bob their heads to music. They DANCE. So we danced for hours to this drum band until the show ended around 10:30. We headed back to Plaza Serrano and ate dinner because we were starving. They make good pizza here.

I tried to get an earlier start to my day yesterday. It almost worked. After lunch (I had missed breakfast) I went to the bank to change money. They were giving me a hard time but this one really nice teller helped me out and got me the money. He also friended me on facebook later. See, aggressive to the point of invasiveness. I actually laughed because when I had left the bank I had thought to myself "that would be a new way to make friends."

Anywho, I finally went on my walking tour through Recoleta. I started by getting lost on the bus. Then I took a cab to the infamous Cementario de Recoleta. The cemetary is a small city. Row after row of sarcophogi pay tribute to important families of Buenos Aires. These sarcophogi are so big, they may as well be houses. Some of them have staircases that lead to underground chambers. Others, you can just pull back the layer of cobwebs, look through the glass and see the coffins. It's kind of creepy to think that there are people in there.

Important military men generally have statues that go along with their sarcophogi. I wonder how important you have to be to have a palace like this one.

Of course I visited Eva Peron. You'd think that after all she did she would have a more prominent spot in the cemetary. But her tomb is definitely the most decorated.

At another tomb the statue of the woman and her dog should bring you good luck if you rub the dog's nose.

After having enough of the dead, I wandered past the Facultad de Ingeniera. Impressive in size and original architecture, I don't understand why the engineers can't get it together and maintain the building better. I then wandered into the Design mall. It's a mall dedicated entirely to housewares. Obviously it was the architecture I enjoyed.

Crossing La Plaza Francia, I looked at the Floralis which is a huge metal flower whose petals close according to the amount of sunlight present. Just in front of it is El Museo de Las Bellas Artes. I dunno how much bellas artes is really inside - it wasn't totally my style. So I left and wandered through a church and then to the 5th avenue of Buenos Aires.

I had planned to have afternoon tea at the Alvear Palace Hotel. It is unbelievably gorgeous and of course requires a dress code I did not meet. So I will go back another day. Instead, I stopped into a cafe for some food because I knew I wanted to go to yoga. I almost died from the richness and sweetness of my panqueques de dulce de leche. Similar to crepes, I had no idea what to expect when I ordered them. I figured I'd try it and see what the order brought me. Yay for trying foreign desserts.

I made it home in time to grab some clothes for yoga and head to class. One of the best classes I've ever taken, I love this class in Spanish. More on that later.

Rejuvenated, I walked back to the hostel to see my friends. There were a few additions: a guy from Costa Rica, a girl from Rio, another guy from Sao Paolo, a guy from Portugal, Tristan's girlfriend from Greece. The amount of languages being spoken was unbelievable. Even between those who speak Portuguese there is so much variation they couldn't understand each other. We settled on a mix of English and castellano (the Spanish here) before anyone got dizzier.

And that concludes this chapter of Ruthie in Argentina. Now I must get ready for the day ahead of me.