I've managed to do a weekly update on the past two Fridays of the month, so I think going forward that's going to by my goal for the rest of the trip. First off, I've been here a little over two weeks now. The total length of my time in Buenos Aires is about 12 weeks, so that means I have around 10 left I think. My first week here was a bit challenging, mostly for the language barrier. I spent a bit of time brushing up on my spanish, and week 2 definitely was a bit easier. Spanish This week I finally found a private spanish teacher and have been meeting her for two hours a night on Monday, Wednesday ...

Had you asked me a few months ago about what language they speak in Argentina, I probably would have just said Spanish, assuming (erroneously of course) that all spanish speaking countries all speak the same form. Now that I'm here, I know what a lot of people in North American probably don't - in Argentina they speak a fairly different form of spanish based on Voseo, and also have some very unique pronunciations. The main change in voseo that the second person singular (equivalent to you in english, i.e. you are) is changed from tu to vos. Unfortunately very few books even make mention of this ...

My friend John sent me this link. I think you have to watch the video to truly appreciate the application: Basically it's an iPhone application that can translate (in real time) between Spanish and English. Obviously the grammar is a tad off since the words don't get reordered, but I can imagine a lot of really great uses for this on my trip. I'm going to grab a copy and play around with it this weekend. But definitely cool. ...

I just wrote four post-dated rent cheques, one for each month until the new year. After that, I should be officially homeless, at least for a while. I have to give notice on my apartment on October 30th, which would put me out of my place on December 31st. Right now the plan is to take off on the 2nd of January or so, which means I can hang out around here for Christmas and New Years, and then hit the open skies. I haven't had much time to study spanish yet, but I'm going to start blocking the time out in my calendar each week so I'm done all my lessons before I take off. I did one lesson a few ...