Thursday, February 25, 2010

4 Days in and still going strong.

So, I thought it would be a good idea to create a blog about my experiences in Argentina, just like those 300000 other people who have (which also happens to be the number of students who attend La Universidad de Buenos Aires). There are several reason I wanted to share what's going on in my life and they are as follows:

1. Someone else in my program is doing the same thing and I decided it would be cool.

2. I love to talk and this way I can tell many people all about my trip at one time.

3. I am the first of my friends to go abroad, and consequently the youngest person in the entire program, and I thought it would be nice to share what most everyone will at sometime experience in one context or another.

Es decir, it is my fourth day in Buenos Aires. I arrived on Monday after traveling for about 20 hours and sleeping a mild 4 hours on the plane. I was exhausted and forgot the word in spanish for plane when I was talking to the Assistant Director of the program. The people who were there to greet me at the airport then proceeded to push me into a taxi (that they called first of course, because it is never safe to hail a taxi in Buenos Aires, unless you want to be a desaparecido). I was handed a piece of paper with my address on it and off we went. The airport for Buenos Aires is in a province south of the city and for those who don't know, the south part of Buenos Aires is pretty much like South America. But from what I have learned from watching the news, I am living in the equivalent of the 2nd and one half world, I have wifi in my house and a tv in my room, but if you leave the city, you are in what people generally think of as South America.

Anyways, I arrived without any previous notice and was overwhelmed beyond belief. I may have cried, but I generally cry quite easily, so that's nothing new. I went and got a phone card, a notebook and some cash from the atm. I showered and I napped. I got on facebook. I ate beef and potatoes and coffee and toast and some type of squash. I slept in hopes that tomorrow I wouldn't be scared to leave the apartment.

Day2: I followed my host mother to a bus stop. We got on, I had no idea where we were going, we got off, we walked, I tried to ask how to get home, she tried to explain, damn language barriers. I later realized that I could walk but that we took the bus because she is older. I tried to make friends, I think it's working. I ate some pasta with some funky cheese in it. Eventually I walked home, I don't really remember all the details.

Day3: Ami and I became friends. We had a thing in the morning and we tried to find some place with some empanadas from the lonely planet, but it was closed, so we had some medialunas and café con leche, they also serve gaseosas con esto y no me gustan las gaseosas. At lunch, Greg and I became friends, we walked to the COOLEST BOOKSTORE IN EXISTENCE. It is an old theatre converted into a bookstore. It basically has the amount of material as a B&N but it has a local café feel. This may come from the fact that the old stage is a café, where people actually serve you and it smells like coffee and someone plays the piano, this place is heaven. That is most certainly the most important part of that day. Oh except that later, Greg and Ami and I went back to El Ateneo, aka heaven on earth.

Day4: This was today. I had to get up super early, which was actually no early than the day before but I had to go to Belgrano which is two barrios away, While in actuality, this is not really that far away, I had to take a bus by myself, for the first time. I had to talk to a place I didn't know to catch the bus and ask the bus driver to make sure I got off at the right stop. To shorten the story, I made it and while I was waiting at the bus stop, I was asked what bus number we were waiting for, and I knew. For lunch, I went to a kiosko type ting and had a 5 peso sandwich (super cheap) and a lady both toasted it and coughed on it for me. After orientation, we went to get some empanadas at that place from the lonely planet. And mmmmmmm, let me tell you how I love some empanadas. We then went to the recoleta cemetery of which I took pictures and which I will later post for all to see (along with some pictures I got of a manifestación, muy intersante).

Breakfast: Coffee, granola, milk in a bag, toast with jam of membrillo (a fruit we don't have and is called a quince in english)

Dinner1: Beef with some squash and potatoes
Dinner2: Fish with roasted butternut squash and some potatoes
Dinner3: Pork with roasted potatoes (sweet, but not like our sweet) and roasted apples
Dessert1: Weird texture sweet fruit thing with some cheese
Dinner4: Chicken and rice (the chicken was on a bone, my host mother had to cut it off for me), delicioso

more tomorrow of course, for now I must sleep

2 comments:

  1. ¡Me gusta mucho! Sounds like an adventure. I would be so overwhelmed in that situation, but it sounds like you held it together very well. Can't wait to read more... que te diviertas!

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