To start off with, my arrival in Buenos Aires was not exactly as peaceful and stress-free as I had hoped it would be. Let's just say that "20:00" does not mean "10:00 PM" but rather "8:00 PM," and that from now on I will always be that anal traveler who double and triple-checks the itinerary. After some swift finagling by my mother, we were able to find me another flight that left JFK at 10:15 at night, and after some quick goodbyes and a forced picture or two in front of security, I crossed into the land of no return and went to find my gate. On the actual flight, I was surrounded by what I'm guessing was a group of Argentine high schoolers on a class trip to New York, and as I sat there listening to them jabbering away in my ear, I thought to myself, "I'm. So. Screwed."
After the 10-hour plane flight, I arrived in Ezeiza International Airport, located the IES group of students, and was whisked away in a taxi and dropped off in front of the apartment building that would house me for the next four months. It was with great trepidation that I buzzed apartment 9H, and was faced with my first culture shock experience as I attempted to operate the elevator, which is somewhat like a moving closet with two doors and that I could barely squeeze my suitcase and myself in to. However, any uncertainties I was feeling were quickly erased when I met my lovely señora, Cecilia. I'm still learning about her, but so far what I've been able to gather is that she is from a family of 6, has many nieces and nephews who she treats as her own grandchildren (I'm still not sure if she has any herself), and who has been housing exchange students for the past 5-ish years. And, most importantly, she does NOT speak English - or at least prefers not to. Which was actually good news to hear, as one of my goals for this trip is to become fluent, and being forced to speak Spanish whenever at home will certainly help.
After unpacking, Cecillia set up a little play-date for me with three other IES girls who are staying with her friends that live nearby, and after getting coffee we wandered around the city for a couple of hours. One thing that I've noticed is that on the weekends, especially Sunday, the city is essentially empty. Everything is closed, there are very few cars on the street, and the city is relatively quiet. Coming from living in a city where most of the street activity occurs on the weekends, it's a very new feeling for me, but one I'm sure I will enjoy thoroughly as time passes.
Our orientation officially began on Monday morning at 9:30 AM (which I woke up an hour late for because I forgot to change the time on my clock - Buenos Aires is one hour behind the East Coast), and was held in the Museo Histórico Nacional in San Telmo, a barrio (or neighborhood) of Buenos Aires. All in all, there are about 30 barrios in Buenos Aires, and San Telmo is one of the oldest and most historic ones, populated mostly with historical bars and tango studios, as well as old mansions that used to belong to powerful families. I'm living in Retiro, which is one of the most affluent parts of the city, right next to Plaza San Martín, and luckily within walking distance of my school. Anyways, after our day at the museum where we met the IES organizers (and I got to eat my first empañada!) the rest of our week of orientation included Spanish classes (mostly covering colloquial phrases and unique grammar) in the mornings, followed by tours of the various universities of Buenos Aires that we can take other classes at. I plan on taking an art history class at la Universidad del Museo Social de Argentina (UMSA), a tango class at Instituto Universitario Nacional del Arte, and the rest of my classes at IES.
Today I actually went to my first class at UMSA, and it was quite an interesting experience. First of al, the structure of higher education in Argentina, and I think most of the world, is that once you graduate from high school, you go straight into studying exactly what you want to "major" in - if you want to be a lawyer, you go to law school, if you want to be a doctor, you go to medical school, etc. None of this "General Curriculum Requirements" nonsense that we have in the U.S. Therefore, many of the students in the art history class have already been studying the material in high school, because they knew they wanted to go to art school, and appropriately, the pace of the course is pretty quick even though it would seem to be an "introductory" class. Also, students here usually only take three classes a semester, to make sure they are able to fully dedicate their time to their studies, especially if they also have a job. Along the same lines, there aren't that many classes in the middle of the day; most are in the morning or late at night (for example, the tango class is from 6-10PM), although considering the average dinner time here is at 9:30PM, that's not too ridiculous.
However, despite how intimidating this class may seem, I am determined to stick with it, because I find the atmosphere of the classroom to be fascinating. There's not as formal a relationship between the professor and the students; the students are very relaxed and are constantly talking, both with each other and the professor, incessantly, and are passing around cups of maté (national drink of Argentina) to be shared with everyone, even a foreigner like myself. Plus, another one of my goals for the next four months is to make some Argentine friends, and I feel like this is the best place to do that.
Not to back track too much, but this past weekend IES offered many trips designed to teach us more about the culture of Buenos Aires and Argentina as a whole. On Friday we went to an "estancia," or a ranch, where there were a bunch of animals, places to play soccer or volleyball, bike paths, and the best meal I have had so far, which was a "parrillada." As you may know, Argentina is renowned for it's beef, and a parrillada is like a Brazilian steak house where waiters walk around with basically swords of meat and serve you slices directly from the BBQ in the back. I also went on both a bus tour on Saturday and a bike tour on Sunday of Buenos Aires, which were very informative and helped me get a better sense of how the city is organized, what some of the neighborhoods are like, and of course, more restaurants to eat at.
This weekend is a 3-day weekend, and so I'll hopefully be venturing outside of Buenos Aires to another area of the country at least for the day, and will spend the rest of my time learning more about this beautiful city. As this post was distgustingly long, I'll try to update more frequently and succinctly the next time, whenever that is...
It's worth noting that when I tried to take a picture of you going through security, I was nearly taken down by a crew of TSA officers. Apparently an overly proud mother is a threat to our national security.
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