Beautiful Buenos Aires

One thing I have noticed here is that the beauty of Buenos Aires can be seen from the second story up. All of the buildings have such beautiful architecture because it has that European influence mixed in. It is another story on the street level, though, because it is here that the poverty of Buenos Aires is shown. The graffiti is everywhere and it is interesting that most of it has to do with the government. There is also trash on the sidewalks. It just boggles my mind how contradicting the two parts of the city are.

Beautiful architecture in the Water Palace

I'm sorry. I can't always get what I want!

The people here are also very different from home. I find that they are either excited to hear about where we are from or they are annoyed (either because we don't know how to speak their language or because they just don't like Americans). An interesting difference that we have also noticed is that people don't usually talk to each other when they are walking down the street or riding in a bus. I could tell you all the stories just from the past two days about the experiences that I have had with the people living here but that would take too long so I will save that for another time :)

During our stay here, we are working with a group called L.I.F.E. Argentina and yesterday was our first experience with them. This is a service that works with kids to help educate them and get them off the streets. Yesterday we celebrated all of the kids' birthdays in the month of August and let me just tell you--it was hectic! The kids have grown up in a home where there is no discipline and we were the ones that were paying for it. I had to continuously argue with the kids over the same thing...in Spanish. It was pretty difficult to try to get my point across and once I did, they wouldn't listen. But this wasn't true with all of them. I felt really special when these little girls made nine birthday cards for me! I told them my birthday wasn't until October, but they didn't care. They were so cute :)

So precious!

One of the birthday cards the girls made me. I think that is supposed to be a picture of me lol

Today we went to La Boca which is an area known for its celebration of the Tango. The handmade artwork in the forms of jewelery, paintings, pottery, and clothing were sold up and down the street in little "farmer's market" stands. The restaurant we ate at for lunch/dinner had a tango show and they called a few of us up there to dance and take pictures with them. We all had so much fun! I also loved how every part of the city was covered in color! One building was painted multiple colors such as red, yellow, blue and green. It was truly an amazing sight to see and I cannot believe I am lucky enough to experience the world in this way!

La Boca :)

I know this picture is a little crazy, but this is how the tango dancers made me pose

My camera does not do this picture justice