Dad has completed his first week of Spanish lessons at our school in Buenos Aires. I think that he has been enjoying his classes very much and I know that he was delighted to discover that there were several people in his class not too many years younger than himself. He has been studying hard to learn his past tense, indirect/direct objects, and comparisons. I have been studying (relatively) hard as well. I have now almost completed Level 4 and each week I am here the Spanish that the teachers speak with me becomes a little more rapid. I would like to think that I am able to operate in the language at full speed (which I can depending on the topic) but I have definitely had a few headaches with the increasingly difficult and subtle grammar points. We have been fortunate, in the interest of being good roomates, that Dad´s classes are in the morning while mine are in the afternoon allowing each of us to have a few hours each day to ourselves in our tiny apartment.
On Tuesday, while I was in class, dad managed to lock himself out of the apartment and since his key was in the lock on the inside he was unable to unlock the door even after he had come to the school to get my key. He ended up having to go through the apartment of our neighbour (who luckily happened to be the doorman on duty at the time) and scramble from his balcony to ours (we live on the 10th floor) before jimmying our backdoor (which we had tried, obviously unsuccessfully, to secure against intruders) open and climbing in. Dad seemed rather nochalant about his Macgyveresque antics but he was very excited to have learned the Spanish word for screwdriver destornillador in the process.
Most of our days aren't quite so dramatic. Much of our time is taken up with school, homework, going to the gym, going to the cinema and watching far too much television. We have also made many long rambles through the city. Buenos Aires is a huge place with multitudes of interesting streets to walk along and buildings to discover. On Thursday, we we to see the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra play some Nicolai Rimski-Korsakov, Ralph Vaugh Williams, and Franz Haydn. Unfortunately, the orchestra's usual venue, the famous Teatro Colon is closed for repairs this season and we had to see them in a rather standard, poorly lit concert hall but the concert was amazing. The orchestra had amazing tone and their playing was crisp, precise, and clean. The highlight of the evening for me was the cello soloist in the Haydn piece, Jose Alberto Araujo. He was so passionate about his playing and so obviously pleased to be there that he almost made me cry.
The Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival is on this week and we have made several attempts to go. This week we are looking forward to taking in more Buenos Aires culture with a football game, some theatre and a tango show.
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