Nicolas was so awesome and is the perfect person to greet people coming from the airport. He made the drive over to my hotel/apartment very pleasant. Our ride from the airport was about 45 minutes and we mainly talked about culture. I also learned that he was actually from Colombia, but met and married a woman from Argentina and so now he lives here too. We arrived at the hotel and he helped me unload my bags. Some EY folks gave him my room key to give to me with some additional information. Also, Nicolas gave me a tour of the hotel/apartment. The hotel has a gym, laundry, and a pool. When we walked into my room, my refrigerator was in the bathroom and there were dishes around the sink. When I decided to come to Argentina, I decided that I will try my best to just go with the flow of things, have an open mind, and be ready to adapt as best as I can as the situation arises. So I didn't think too much into the fact of how things were arranged, but Nicolas called the hotel to ask them to come check on my room. He then showed me around my room and then he left. Then about 10 minutes later a lady walked into my room. When she saw that I was in the room she was totally startled. She wasn't expecting me to already be in the room. She started cleaning and putting away the dishes and as she was doing so her hands were shaking. I felt so bad that I had startled her that bad. It made sense though, I had on all black and I'm really tall. I would have been startled too! Anyways after she finished I took the below video of my room!
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| Hotel Pool |
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| Hotel Gym |
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| Hotel Sauna |
There is a person that comes to tidy up my room every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Funny thing is that I didn't even realize that my bed wasn't even made until the end of the week. All that was on the bed was two sheets. I wondered why a blanket wasn't on the bed, especially considering how cold it was, but thought maybe it was a cultural thing and just turned my heat up really high. I was so tired and cold and so took a nap. After my nap, I was so hungry and decided to go get something to eat. I went to this placed called "Dandy" that was suggested by one of the EY folks and is about a 5-10 minute walk from my hotel. Upon leaving my hotel is when "culture shock" started setting in for me, I will talk more about this in a later post though. When I entered the restaurant I was greeted by a guy who later told me he was Haitian. I was thankful he spoke English and he patiently helped me through the menu items. I decided to get spaghetti with salmon. It was really good.
On my walk back home I walked by a nail salon and decided to stop in to get a manicure. There was only one English speaking person there and she barely spoke English although she understood it more than she spoke. The lady who ultimately did my manicure spoke no English at all, although she was super nice. We ended up using a lot of hand gestures to communicate with each other and I ended up having to use my Google Translate app alot. I thought I knew alot of Spanish, but being here has made me realize how much I actually do not know and how terrible my Spanish speaking abilities actually are ☺ On top of that, their Spanish is slightly different from the Mexican Spanish I have learned for majority of my life. Anyways, I ended up getting my nails done exactly the way I wanted! My nail lady took the below picture of my nails for me.
I have decided that I'm going to continue to go there at least every week or every other week, so I can continue to practice my Spanish with them. My goal is to be able to go in there at the end of my time here and not have to use google translate at all and speak only Spanish the entire time. After I got my nails done, I decided to stop by the grocery store that is right by my hotel to pick up a few things. I bought some fruit and bath soap and then headed back to my room for the evening to get prepared for my first day of work in the BA office.
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