Picking a language school

Now that I've got some things down and April is over, May is my month to study intensely -- CFA and espanol.

I need to find a language school, so that I can hopefully start classes next Monday. Believe it or not, I'm going to aim for early classes. At first, I thought that would mean 11am. But now I'm considering 8am classes, so that I have to be disciplined about waking up, doing spanish, and then bouncing back to my apartamento for a nap before some afternoon CFA studying.

I thought finding a language school would be easy, as there are many options. And it's a service, which means in this place it will be cheap in terms of USD. But there's lots of things to consider -- cost, group classes vs. private, do they take AmEx?, time offered, location -- close to me is preferred, possibility of meeting people, but at least close to a Subte (subway) stop would be nice, commitment factor (eg, do i have to buy 4 weeks to get a decent rate, or can I buy a week at a time), etc. That doesn't even include quality of the teaching; though this seems like a near impossibility to accurately quantify. At best you'd be moving a few percentage points either way.

Right now I've found a new Spanish school relatively close to me that is quite cheap -- presumably because it's new, as my area is gentrifying rapidamente. I've also contacted a girl my age who works for herself. She seems good; I'm meeting with her for half an hour tomorrow to find out. I'm deciding on picking between the two, or possibly doing the school for a few weeks and then the girl. I figure the class will introduce me to a few people, and then the girl can teach me stuff beyond that. In fact, I'm considering hiring her just to go stand in line with me and translate so I can open a bank account.* Plus, potentially I could meet her friends, which could be fun.

* Technically you can open a bank account here, but the bank employees may not know it, and trip reports indicate that they don't really care much in discovering the answer.

Two thoughts

1. I should probably stop trying to keep the Argentinean vineyards in business by myself. But wow, the wine is good. Very good.

No, I'm not hungover. Just probably could cut down on my Malbec intake so that I continue to fully appreciate the splendor that is Argentinean Malbecs. Did I mention that a decent bottle could be $3?

2. It's great having a maid. I should've probably invested in a maid before this. But my apartment smells fresh and is swept and mopped every week. That's great. And, because it's Argentina, my maid is kinda cute.

It has come to my attention that comments were closed before. If you feel inclined to write a comment, enjoy.

As if there could be one more reason...

So Spanish apparently doesn't have a word for dating. As in, there's novia (girlfriend), which is serious commitment. Not engaged, but a definite possibility of. There's also a literal translation of "going out with" which seems to me to be "we've gone on dates." Anything in between is not generally a part of la cultura de Latino Americano. So they don't even put a word on it.

This seems to be a good reason to be very careful. Si?

Nothing stays the same

I just read all the posts that I've written so far. A few thoughts: very tangential (such am I), topic-based, and no pictures.

You'd get no idea of specifics of my day-to-day life, the people I've met, what I've done or anything else. Perhaps this will change. Pictures in particular are necessary. But though I provide few specific details, you might get the idea that I like this place so much that I may buy an apartment.

Today's measure of how much I've improved en Espanol

One of my biggest guilty pleasures (as anyone who has ever lived with me knows) is Enrique Iglesias' Escape.* In Spanish or English. I play this song ad nauseum. I wouldn't say that it is unhealthy, but...probablemente. Apologies particularly to Nick, who has probably listened to this song 500 times, against his wishes. I played it at Rice, I played it at 2344, and I played it at Valhalla. And yes, it always got people dancing -- girls especially -- at Valhalla. !Meringue!

But even though I love the song in English, I've never been able to make out the words. It's just too bloody fast, and my Spanish is not so good. But tonight, I am listening to it and making out most of the words.

* And no, it's not just because of Anna Kournikova. Although the teller at the bank does look like her...but in a sexy Argentinean kind of way.

In a previous post, I offered that these were my reasons, in rough order, for moving to Buenos Aires:

cost of living, safety, food, soccer crazy, lifestyle, services, pretty women. We'll see if this holds up when I get there.

After 10 days here, let's evaluate, shall we? What's been great so far? Let me address, in order:

Cost of living: I'm Dutch. We like inexpensive places to live. This place is inexpensive right now.

Safety: Look, I may be robbed at gunpoint, but I've never felt safer. Seriously. Moreso than in NYC, Philly, etc.

Food: Wow. Amazing. I also live in the mecca of not just Portena-style (Buenos Aires style) restaurants. So far though, why would you not get a Malbec and an amazing steak? Wow. The appetizers are enough diversity for me.

Girls: Not every girl in Buenos Aires is beautiful. But most of them are at least close. I will have more to say about this topic. It is hard for me to imagine a place that has more beautiful women.

Soccer? Yes, they live for it. So do I. That's awesome.

Lifestyle? Look I'm not raising a family yet. It's awesome.

Services? Hmm. I haven't yet had a massage (so much for my planned Massage Mondays*), but rumors are that they suck here. I can see that.


Evaluating all this now? I don't know. The girls** and the food seems pretty important. I keep thinking about buying an apartment here.

* The plan was that every Monday I'd get an hour-long massage.
** I've found that the line "your english is better than my spanish" delivered in spanish is an effective flirt.