Repeat after me: be flexible

So my amazingly cool, fun, interesting internship is turning out to be less than that.

It's not that the organization isn't what I thought it would be, but that the internship itself isn't.

This small little organization (in staff and space) has eight interns right now... no wonder all they have for me to do thus far is translate years-old World Bank documents from english into spanish.

Anyway, this is week two (although only day 3) and I am giving it until tomorrow after I work until I try to change organizations or pitch a fit, or both.

It's sad really that it's turning out this way because the organization could easily say no, we have too much help right now, any more interns will just clog up our office... On the other hand, I assume they get some kind of money for hosting us, so it's much less profitable to say no.

I'm sure there are other organizations much like this one in Buenos Aires dying for help, even if it is just menial work.

I, for one, do not want to do menial work... isn't that why I have a bachelor's degree? So I can move on from translating documents to say, helping write a grant proposal, work on a project, something?

Anyway, that's what I had expected, and the organization spun a good story the first day, so I still did expect it after meeting everyone... Unfortunately I assume all of the other interns want non-menial work as well, and that seems near impossible.

Other than the internship problems, my time here is going swimmingly.

I've become really close with two of the girls in my room and their friend who are all talking the TEFL course (teaching english.) We go out to fun restaurants, get lost, shop in huge expensive shopping malls, eat ice cream at the shop across the street, commiserate about the laundry situation (nearly everyone has had a garment ruined, it seems par for the course)... It's great.

I got to really explore the cool little barrio of Palermo this weekend while shopping with my Irish friend, Beatrice... We arrived at the Plaza Serano at 12:30 only to discover that nothing fun and cute was going to open for another hour or more. Argentine time, always later than you expect. So we sat at a little cafe and had wonderful cafe con leche and talked.

Basically it's amazing.. the city, the people, the weather (minus like 3 days of yucky, dark, cloudy, rain.) People joked that I would never want to go back, and in a few ways I don't, it's marvelous.

A lot of the girls that I'm with are staying for an entire year, lucky them! On the other hand they are all apartment shopping, and that seems a lot harder than it should be. We found a cool studio in Palermo only to find it was about $950 US dollars per month, ouch... It may be 'cheap' in some people's eyes, but I find that cheap is not the word I use for most things down here.

Yes you can get a fabulous dinner with three bottles of wine split between 6 people for around $10 per person, but other than that, all of us feel like we are bleeding our hard earned money out here.

It's something about the culture of always going out to eat, paying cover at some places, wanting to experience every cool thing. It sucks you and your money in easily.

Anyway this is week two and it's starting off pretty well, but we will have to see how I feel after I try to figure my internship things out!

This weekend there is a dance workshop at a gym in Barrio Norte, I haven't been able to contact either of the women on the flyer, but how amazing would that be!? Hip Hop in Buenos Aires, who knew?!

XoXo

Breezy