I’m Finally Here!

Hola!  After almost 3 months of hanging out in New York, Michigan and Wyoming, I’ve finally arrived in Buenos Aires, where I’ll be the next five months.  Even though it was sad saying bye to friends, family members, etc., I am so happy to be here and ready for new adventures in South America.  I’ve been here for about a week now, so I’ll give you a run-down of what the past seven days have been like. The plane ride down was okay, despite my 9-hour layover in Atlanta.  Molly & Stephanie, 2 girls I know from home, ended up being on my flight, which was fun, and I also met the other girl living at the homestay with me.  Her name is Rachel, and she’s from Maryland and goes to Dickinson College.  She’s super cool and we’ve been hanging out every day/night. We finally landed in Buenos Aires and a woman named Paméla from CEA (the study abroad program) picked us and one other girl, Rita, up and drove us to our homes.  We are living in Belgrano, which is one of the neighborhoods of BA. We arrived at our apartment on O’Higgins (possibly the only Irish street name in all of BA) and our “mom” Sara greeted us downstairs in the lobby.  She is so sweet and seems genuinely happy to be hosting us.  We took the elevator up to the 9th floor, but we had to go one at a time because it’s so small and we had our luggage. The elevator was scary.  You have to manually open and close the doors and did I mention how small it is?    The apartment is really nice! It’s a lot bigger than I expected and Rachel & I each have our own room with a double bed.  There’s also a balcony looking out over the city.                   I think I’ll be really comfortable living here for the next 5 months. Sara also only speaks Spanish to us, so hopefully my skills will improve soon! Until then, I have Rachel to help translate. Oh! The best part is that Sara has a dog! Her name is Camila, and even though she isn’t obviously not as cute as Piper or Leni, she is a perfect substitute.   In Argentina, they eat all of their meals really late, so we didn’t have dinner until about 10pm. Sara made a great meal with eggplant, corn, salad, and an authentic Argentine dish of warm zucchini, egg, and cheese.  I don’t think I’ll have any problems eating here being a vegetarian, even though I’m sure she would prefer if I ate steak. Even though we were jet-lagged, me and Rachel decided to go out for the night and explore a different neighborhood, Palermo, where there are a lot of bars and “restos” to hang out at.  We ended up in Plaza Serrano where there are tons of outdoor places. It was fun, but we only stayed for a few hours because we both just wanted to pass out, since we had a long day ahead of us.   On Sunday, we woke up at ate breakfast before we left for the University for an orientation type thing.  Breakfast in Argentina is the smallest and least important meal of the day (unlike America) so it generally is just toast with jam or butter and tea.  Possibly a piece of fruit.  The University of Belgrano or “UB” is about a 15-minutes walk from the house.  Once there, we met about ten other students that arrived the same day we did.  They all are really great and I’m so excited to get to know them better! The UB is really nice, but the elevators are also strange here! There are two elevators, but they only go to three floors each.  So if you want to go to the 17th floor, you take it up to the 16th and then have to walk up a flight of stairs.  Makes no sense to me.  At orientation, we met our two “leaders” Paméla and Nahuel.  They are really helpful and are there if we need advice and to make us feel comfortable.  For lunch, they took us to an amazing restaurant called 1816. They brought out so much food it was unreal.  First was empanadas (traditional Argentine food), then more appetizers, then the main meal, and then dessert, which was ice cream with chocolate sauce, merengue and dulce de leche, which is also Argentine and is pure goodness. After lunch, we took a walking tour of Belgrano.  I was surprised at how beautiful the architecture of the homes are.  For a big metropolitan city, it definitely has a neighborhood type feel.  The rest of the day, we just went back to the apartment and caught up on our sleep. Monday was an extremely long day. I had to get up early for our official UBE orientation, with all of the other students who are studying abroad through different programs.  The president of the University spoke to us and welcomed us all there, and other advisors came and talked to us about the different classes they offer to us.  When that was over, we went on a bus tour of many neighborhoods in Buenos Aires.  It was soooo long! They took us through Palermo, Recoleta, San Telmo, Puerto Madero and La Boca.  The only place we were able to walk around was a little street called “Caminito” in La Boca.  It’s one of the oldest parts of BA and it is the first place immigrants came when they settled in the late 19th century.  It’s really touristy now and apparently also really unsafe if you walk one block in either direction away from the main street. All of the houses are painted in bright colors because they used paint left over from the boats to paint their homes.   It was interesting to see, but the authenticity of the whole area was spoiled when “tango” dancers come up to you in the street and ask if you want to take pictures with them for money.   After the tour, we came back to UB and took our Spanish placement test and then went home.  At night we met up with some Molly, Stephanie & Sam at a bar in Palermo called Unico, which was fun.  Then we ended up back in Plaza Serrano where we found more Americans from different programs.  I would say the highlight of my night was when a creepy old man told me I looked like one of his past girlfriends because she had red hair too.   I’ll give a quick run-through of the next few days since it’s such a long first post.  Tuesday…*scheduled my classes. I can basically take anything I want. Very easy to register and get into classes here. University of Michigan should take notes from them.                                                                                     *walked around the Belgrano to get more familiar with it. I learned that redish hair, pale skin and being tall make you an easy target for men whistling at you. I still feel safe here, though.  All of the women here have reallly long hair, either super dark brown or dirty blond and they are all tan.                                                     *met Rachel for lunch. Here there is no such thing as tap water. It’s either “agua sin gas” or “agua con gas” and it’s usually more expensive than coffee. Gas = carbonation.                               *Paméla’s mom had everyone in my program over at her apartment for dinner. She made delicious empanadas and for dessert, traditional Argentine cookies called Alfajor. The apartment was absolutely gorgeous, but Paméla reminded us that this is not typical for most Argentine people.  Wednesday…*woke up kind of early and went to two museums right near my house. First was the Casa de Yrurtia, which is on my street. Rogelio Yrurtia is a famous Argentina sculptor and the museum used to be the house that he and his wife lived in.  He’s known for this sculptures of men boxing.  Second was el museo Sarmiento, which is about D.F. Sarmiento, who was the 7th president of Argentina and wrote a famous book I can’t remember the title of. These museums were cool, but I know there’s better ones to see.     *Lunch again with Rachel.  Here, lettuce is not a main and standard ingredient of a salad. So if you “create your own” salad, then you must say you want lettuce or you will not get it.                                                                                           * At night, we met up again with Sam, Rachel, Stephanie & another girl on their program named Katie. Here, people don’t go out until around 12 or 1am, and they also eat dinner really late, around 10pm. We went to a great bar called Milión (million). It was in an old mansion and was really cool inside. When that bar was closing, we heard about another place called Cocoliche.  It ended up being in a scary neighborhood and the club was extremely bad. Everyone in there looked like drones and were super zoned out.  We were scared and left immediately. Finally we ended up back in Plaza Serrano, because it’s guaranteed to be a good time.  Thursday…*Met up with Nahuel and the rest of the group and we took the bus to the Plaza de Mayo in el Capital Federal. Taking the bus here is very common  and everyone does it.  However, learning how to ride the bus is an acquired skill. First, there are about 200 different bus lines, that are privately owned, so there is nothing uniform about them, making it difficult to know which one to take. Second, when the bus does come, you must get on as quickly as possible, with the correct amount of coins in hand.  The bus driver will leave without you, not feeling the least bit sorry for doing so. Finally, when you arrive at your stop, do not take your time walking down the bus steps. We have witnessed old ladies literally getting their feet caught in the door.  Now, Plaza de Mayo has a group of mothers who have been marching every Thursday for about an hour for the past 30 years. They march because their sons “disappeared” when they expressed negative feelings about the government and have been dead or missing ever since.  It was really sad to see them, but it also shows how dedicated they are to their cause.                                                             *We then visited a famous Catedral Metopolitana, and afterwards the whole group went to Cafe Tortoni, one of the oldest and most famous cafes in Buenos Aires. It was really beautiful inside, but kind of touristy. I’m sure there are better, smaller cafes around. Another way to get around BA is to take el Subte (subway), which is the method we took to get home today. I had never been on the Subte before, and after this day I don’t know if I will go on it again. Never in my life have I been smushed by so many people for such a long period of time.  New York City subway rush hour traffic has nothing on Buenos Aires subway rush hour traffic. I’m lucky I can still breathe right now.                                                *At night, Rachel and I walked over to a bar in our neighborhood called Puerta Uno.  From the outside, it’s just a big black door, and you have to ring a doorbell to get let in, to make people like me think I’m “in the know” for hearing about this secret place. Inside was actually really fun and I would definitely go back there again. Plus it’s only 6 blocks from the apartment.  Friday…*Lazy day, just walked around Belgrano and went into some shops.  The clothes are not as fashionable as what I see people on the streets wearing.  For dinner, Sara made us polenta and vegetables.  Her cooking is really good and she makes a lot of Argentine influenced dishes for us.                        *At night, Rachel & I met up with a bunch of other people in our group in Plaza Serrano.  It’s a great place to go with big groups of people because there so much outdoor seating.  Saturday…*Today we met up with Nahuel and our group to go to Recoleta, another, very wealthy neighborhood of Buenos Aires.  It was about a 30 minute bus ride away. First we went to el Cementario de la Recoleta. This is the cemetery where Eva Peron aka Evita is buried.  The cemetery is so big, it is like its own town.   And the tombs aren’t normal tombstones; instead they are giant works of art made of marble and other materials.  It was both eerie and gorgeous. Plus there are stray cats everywhere climbing on all of the tombs to make it even creepier.   After the cemetery, there is a fería or flea market in Recoleta where we got to walk around for a while.                           *It was Molly’s birthday celebration tonight, so we all met up in Las Cañitas, which is an area with a bunch of bars and clubs.  We started out at a bar there called Jackie O’s, which was fun, but we really wanted to dance. So we left there and drank a little bit in the streets before we went anywhere else.  Open alcohol outside is completely legal in Buenos Aires. We met a bunch of Argentine guys who entertained us with their lack of English speaking skills for a while. Around 4am we took cabs over to Crobar, a disco/club.  Stephanie and I decided we didn’t have to wait in line or pay cover, so we just walked right in. For some reason, I didn’t think I had to follow the rules that night. The club was amazing! Really great music, huge dance floor, more creepy old men buying me drinks. It was a fun time.  We ended up staying there until 7am.  I went to bed when the sun was rising.  Sunday…*I was exhausted, but somehow made it up and out of the house by 2 in order to go with the group to San Telmo, another neighborhood. Apparently everyone had too much fun the night before, because only 4 of us went on this little day trip.  San Telmo is another old neighborhood, with a rich history of immigrants moving there.  It had a very European influence, with the narrow, cobblestone streets and architecture. Here there is a giant fería full of antique booths and other crafts. It was fun, but we only stayed for a little while since we were all so tired. The highlight may have been when we saw a man get arrested and handcuffed by the police probably for stealing something, literally a few feet in front of us.  The whole area of the fería was cheering and clapping, as he knelt on the ground with his head down.                                 *Subte Update: Apparently the subway is not always as crowded as on Thursday. We rode it back from San Telmo, and not only did I get my own seat, but I had at almost 2 inches between me and the person next to me.  Monday…*First day of class! Woke up early, so I would be fully functional for my long day.  First class was Historia Latinoamericana. Great professor, I can tell it’s going to be a good class.  I had a 2 hour break, so Rachel, Sam & I ate lunch at a cafe nearby.  Whenever you order coffee at cafes, they always bring you a small cookie or treat to go with it for free. Second class was Hispanoamericana Literature. This class was completely overcrowded and not everyone had seats, so I’m hoping people drop it. Third and final class of the day was TANGO! Today’s section was the “theory” or history part. Awesome professor, but will be a lot of work. We get to listen to Tango for 30 minutes each class. So far my classes seem good, I hope tomorrow is the same.  Oh, I also only have class on Monday and Tuesday. It’s just the way my schedule worked out. So currently I’m in the process of trying to plan many many trips during my five-day weekends. I think that’s all for now. I know it’s a really long post, but I wanted to share everything that’s been going on for the past week.  I promise the next ones will be shorter and more often.  Miss you all!
Kyle