The Beginning of Something Beautiful

Che, ¿Cómo te va? I decided to embrace my generation of blogging and use it as a way to keep everyone updated about my future adventures, and to let everyone know that I am still alive and thriving. So, wish me luck on keeping up-to-date with the postings! I flew in to Buenos Aires on July 23rd, so I have already experienced a little over two weeks of life in Argentina. These past weeks have been a mixture of orientation to the program, exploration of the city, and recuperation from the long trip/ exhaustion from extreme concentration of trying to understand the language. I already have tons to share about the beginnings of this trip, so I will try to make this first posting somewhat condensed so you won't get overwhelmed with information, and take off in the middle of my profound and pensive creative writing compositions. However, I just looked over this post and realized how un-shortened it is, I promise they won't all be this long! Starting with what I am doing here in the first place seems like a good idea, so here we go...

I decided to study in Buenos Aires, Argentina because it is one of the many South American countries that I hardly know anything about, and I needed to start exploring somewhere; and because Sarah Lawrence's financial aid transferred to the program that's offered here, so it worked out perfectly. I also decided that I wanted to study abroad for a complete year, with the intentions of it allowing me more time to become fully comfortable with the language and to make deeper connections with the people and places I will come to know. The program I am going through is called CIEE (Center for International Educational Exchange), and here in Buenos Aires, it works together with another program called FLACSO (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales), which is the program that has been running orientation, and is the program through which I will be taking my Spanish language courses at, as well as a couple other social science courses. The FLACSO staff is very friendly and supportive, and has made it very easy to adjust to life here. As for life here, I am living with an older couple named Ana and Eduardo, who are probably in their 60s. They are a nice couple who have already hosted 10 Flacsitos (as students of FLASCO are called) before me, so they know the 411 on this program and they are very good about giving me my independence. At first I was a little disappointed because they didn't seem like the smother-you-with-kisses-you-are-one-of-us-now family; however, I am trying to show them that I am interested in creating a close relationship, and I think that they are slowly becoming warmer and opening up more. We live in a house on the corner of a main street called Rivadavia and Sanchez de Loria. The house has a small, narrow layout, with beautiful hanging plants dangling above the stairway, and the stairs lead to my bedroom, which happens to be the only room at the top of the stairs. A few doors down, to the left of the house is a corner cafe, and a few doors down to the right is an open-aired market.

Buenos Aires is a faced-paced, dirty, and beautiful city, and reminds me of a mixture New York and parts of Italy. The food here is not exactly original and spectacular, except for maybe their empanadas, steaks, and ice cream, but you can find anything here that you are in the mood for- ranging from sushi to pizza. Transportation here includes walking, taxis, el subte (subway), and los colectivos (the buses). The colectivos still freak me out because there are no specified stops allowing you to recognize where you are when you want to get off, and you don't really know where the stops are on the streets when you want to get on as well. The day I feel comfortable catching a colectivo will be a glorious day. The subtes are much more familiar to me, and I have already learned their system here. However, I am not used to subway windows being open and with the cars being so jam-packed, your face is literally smothered into the back of the person in front of you. One time, because a woman tried to squeeze into the car right as the doors were closing, they automatically opened back up and from that stop to the next, the door stayed wide open. Due to me being the second closest person to the door, I felt the musty wind whip through the car, and I could see the dark, grimy walls flashing past me. What a ride!

This evening I just returned from a two day excursion to a small pueblo called San Antonio de Areco, just two hours out of Buenos Aires. There in el campo, 100 Flacsitos escaped the city life to play cultural assimilation games, and to get a taste of gaucho and folklore traditions. This morning, from our hotels we walked to a beautiful estancia (farm) called Bamba Chica, which felt like a mini amusement park. Only instead of it being noisy, filthy, and hectic, it was serene and breathtaking. I mounted a horse (whose need for speed left me whooping with laughter while at the same time fearing for my life), played bocce ball, lounged in a chair and listened to folk music, danced a little folk, ate some amazing steak, and watched a gaucho show. One of the many acts was a demonstration of a game where one at a time, they had to race at full speed on their horse to pick a ring off of a hook that hung from a crossbar. While somewhat standing up and riding rigid, if they were able to pick the ring off with a little pin, they then presented it to a woman in the crowd in exchange for a kiss. That woman in the crowd was me! Oh stop, get outta here....


I have already eaten waaaay to many empanadas, received a gaucho kiss, visited Eva Peron's grave, seen a protest, played soccer, witnessed the aftermath of a fatal accident, been slipped a number/email address by an overweight 40-year-old on the subte, and have laughed at the wrong time to a nonexistent joke due to a miscommunication of the language. These first experiences in Argentina have been nothing but positive, and have only left room for excitement about what lies ahead these next 12 months! I want to let everyone know how much I appreciate them in helping me set forth on this adventure of a lifetime. Thank you so much for all your love and support!