When I first arrived in Buenos Aires, I found the city lived up to its reputation as being the "Paris of South America". The downtown area has some beautiful buildings and tons of shopping areas, so it's a good place to hang out, drink a coffee and people watch. Of all the places I visited in the region, Buenos Aires had the most European looking people; this was because there had been a huge wave of immigrants from Italy and Germany.
The downtown area has a main walkway called Florida street and because the hotels were expensive in this area, I quickly looked for an apartment elsewhere. Eventually I found one catering to foreigners; brick walls, a loft bedroom, fully furnished, and in the Palermo Hollywood district, a hip place with a lot of lively nightlife. Another area you might consider looking into, for an apartment, is the San Telmo district. On Sundays, in good weather, there is a street festival with the streets packed with casual walkers, tango shows, street vendors, and musicians.
Finding a Spanish school is easy over the internet; they are located all around the city. Since the subway system is really good, although hot in the summer, you can stay in any district and get to the farthest areas in a matter of 20 minutes. However, I'd suggest first finding an apartment or hostel then finding a school that's located nearby; it makes it easier if you can simply wake up and walk to the school. And since they all have rolling admissions (you can enter classes whenever you want), you will have no problem with scheduling your courses.
I paid by the week and it was around $130 for 5 two-hour private lessons, with the instruction manual included in the first week for free. You can also do group lessons, which typically have three or four students. I'd suggest doing the privates for a few weeks then going into the group lessons. The reason being, in two weeks of privates your Spanish skills will remarkably improve and then you can go into the group classes and have fun with it.
One caveat, is that Argentine Spanish is unlike any of the other Spanish spoken in South America. They pronounce some letters different because it is the most similar Spanish to that spoken in Spain. Also, it sounds very beautiful and flowing, almost like Italian.
My school offered Friday night "get-togethers" at a restaurant, which turned out to be really fun. On most school's websites you will also see offers for sight seeing around the country as well as weekend trips to the beaches in Uruguay.
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