Friday, May 4, 2012

Buenos Aires as a student: Academia Buenos Aires

(April 23-27)


I am no fan of big cities and I would have not probably agreed on staying in Buenos Aires for the time that instead we ended up spending there, if it had not been for two reasons: a language class and some tango life. The original plan was therefore to stay only one week, but we extended our stay a few more days.

We arrived in Buenos Aires with an extremely uncomfortable, bought last minute, night travel, made of a 3 hours bus ride (Rio Grande at 18:30), a 50 minutes propellers airplane that felt more like a kite freely swinging in the wind (Rio Gallegos, with 5 hours delay, at 3:11)  and a final flight to the capital with a check-out check-in done in the record time of 14 minutes (Buenos Aires at 6:30). Needless to say I could not sleep an instant on those flying things, but all we wanted was to start the Spanish class at Academia Buenos Aires, as back then I thought you could start only on Monday. I am going now to drop a few lines about my experience as a student at the school.

The Academia has an excellent location, just in front of Plaza de Mayo, central and easy to reach from everywhere in the city. We were only 4 people in the class (+1, that arrived on Wednesday) and the teacher could follow us closely. Most of the people there take classes for several weeks, while we were mostly interested in a one week intensive class. At the end the class ended up being less intensive then what I thought. The quality of teaching and material seems appropriate and I feel like recommending this school, but if you are looking for an intensive class, you are probably better off attending a bunch of private classes rather than a single week course. I have to add that the staff  here is extremely friendly, flexible and useful. We got a lot of important recommendations about the city life and the visits to the city organized by the school were great.

As for the accommodation, we arrived in the school with our bags and, as usual, without a place where to sleep. We asked for some last minute accommodation and we were given the possibility of a room in a shared flat. Well, true, we did not pay much (170 AR$ per night per room), but the place was not that great either. 

This towel that was full of long hair...
The place desperately requires some renovation and I would not rate it as clean. So, you can definitely save some money here, you can benefit of extreme flexibility of the staff, e.g. for extending your stay (as we did), and at the end you get used to rust, mold and others. If I could go back though, I would probably spend a few bucks more and search for another accommodation. 

Mold...
...and rust.
A cozy living room.
We were not here only to learn Spanish, however. The idea was also to take a one week class in tango, hoping again for an intensive course. It took us some time to decide for a pair of tango shoes for me and  laziness helped as well when it came to choosing a tango school. So we actually did only one lesson at the Borges cultural center. The experience was everything but positive. As newcomers, we were mostly ignored, the teacher did not really correct our mistakes (or anybody's, for that matters) and we decided not to go again. We instead decided to go to a Milonga (tango ballroom) on Monday. This was much a more interesting, albeit embarrassing, experience. As I did not feel that confidence in dancing much, most of the times we were watching the others. No one will come and ask you to dance, if you are  a man, but that is not true at all if you are a woman. Therefore I got my girlfriend stolen a couple of times while I was left with my glass of wine to keep the chair warm. Anyhow an interesting place, very relaxed atmosphere (especially if you can dance). It is called Bendita Milonga. Go there on Mondays.


Numbers. At the Academia Buenos Aires, we paid 195 USD per week of course (20 hours, i.e. 4 hours per day, for 5 days). This includes unlimited coffee and, on monday, a big tray of medialunas (croissant). Private lessons are 25 USD per hour. 


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