I'm really interested in doing some structured activities in each place I'm visiting, and for Latin America I decided on Spanish class. Plus I wanted to learn some Spanish. I went through an outfit called Espanol Andando, which offers a 4-day class that takes place in a different neighborhood of Buenos Aires each day. I really recommend it, since I did learn more Spanish, got to see a lot of Buenos Aires, and learned a lot of cool local insights and history from our teacher, Augustina. Every day, Augustina would also give suggestions on places to go shopping or eat too.
You start every day in a cafe or bar, going over vocab, sentence construction, etc. Then you have some sort of activity "in the city." Here we are leaving our cafe in San Telmo to take the bus on the first day.
Something Lonely Planet does not tell you is how to take the bus, which is probably the most complicated process I've ever come across. 1. After you board the bus, tell the driver your destination.
2. Let the driver input your fare into his system.
3. Step behind the driver to drop coins into the machine. Coins only, exact change. Make sure your fare appears before adding the coins - I learned this the hard way!
4. Take the little slip of paper that prints out the bottom.
The second day, we met in Palermo, and went to a supermarket. I would never have known, but because of the high rate of inflation in Argentina, the government sets price ceilings for key staple products, with a few key retailers. That's what this chart in the window shows.
The third day we met in Congreso, and ended up on Av. Corrientes (the Broadway of BA, for its many theaters). We got to peek inside a milongas (dance hall) to see people dancing tango. If we stayed longer, we would have had to pay, or even signed up for a dinner/show that was AR$160!
On our fourth day, we met at the restaurant Cumana, which I wrote about before. I was really grateful to be introduced to different types of Argentinian food, since I would not have known to try it otherwise.
So, if you have 4 days, skip a city tour and do this instead! Plus you do get to learn practical Spanish, and practice speaking it with not just the teacher but the people in the store, on the bus, etc.
