San Telmo

Today my program took a bus to San Telmo which is the southern part of BA. It was beautiful!

We had breakfast (croissants, coffee/tea and fruit) outside of the Historical museum then had a few presentations about housing and health/safety in it's auditorium.

After that we had lunch which was a beef stew type thing over rice with a bunch of little lunch pastries with spinach in one, ham in another and cheese in another.

Then was time for the tour! Gabriel was my tour guide again today! San Telmo is very pretty but it is historically known for being the poorer part of BA. This is because in the post-colonial times, many landowners lived in the area. After they moved the Silver River, more working class moved in and the wealthy were not happy about it. The landowners left their mansions and rented the rooms out to the immigrant workers. A mansion that once held one family held around 40 with terrible conditions. The wealthy then moved up north to the now more affluent areas of BA.

We visited one home like this. It was a large gate in between the other buildings on the street that had a padlock on it. As we stood in front of it as our tour guide was talking, one man squeezed between us to get in. It looked like an inside-out motel. There was a patio all through the middle of the house and rooms on the outer rims. There was also stairs leading to an upstairs patio with more rooms, I believe. It was so cute because when we were sitting there a boy who couldn't be any older than 2 or three was standing at the top of the many many stairs with his toy car that he could ride in and a small fluffy dog. He was just staring at us with his car very close to the stairs and we were all kind of nervous that he would fall all the way down the stairs then we couldn't get to him because of the padlock. All was fine though. It seemed like a very cramped but beautiful place to live.

The tour showed us many streets with churches and apartments. The architecture was beautiful! Again, very diverse. We went to a square with tango dancers and it was beautiful!

After the tour and all I went home--found my way home by myself! Ate beef and salad then skyped my parents and my friend Julia.

It's Julia's birthday today so shout out to her!!

Until next time.

Arriving to Argentina

If anyone tells you traveling to another country for a semester is easy--they're lying to you. It is hard!

First of all is the packing. Why must a suitcase only be 50 pounds? Come on, now.

Anyway, Arriving in Buenos Aires was pretty easy despite my 40+ hour period of no sleep consisting of long flights and uncomfortable pillows.

I met a girl boarding the plane and we said that we would meet at the gate when we arrived in BA 10 hours later. So we did and took a cab to our homestays which coincidentally live on the same street (Calle French).

Driving from the airport was a little shocking- there we saw the slums of BA. It looked terrible. But once we got into the neighborhoods of Retiro and Recoleta, it was just like any other historical city. One way to describe the arcitecture is "arquitectonico". There is so much architecture from various eras and styles that it is a complete mixture.

The reason for the mixture is because many intelectuals didn't want Spanish architecture in their city after the revolution so they decided to knock town every single building and hire architects from Eruope to come over and build a whole new city. Then after 99.9% of the buildings were torn down and in the process of being rebuilt, other intellectuals decided it was a good idea to keep some colonial Spanish architecture. Now, there is one building that was torn down then built up again in the main square where the president works that is a colonial style.

I know all of this from a bus tour of the city we had today. But before I continue on about the events of today, I want to speak of the struggles I had starting off my journey.

Leaving my family and friends was very difficult and emotional for me. I was just so overwhelmed during my travels and the day I arrived in BA. To say it simply: I was not happy. I was sad and lonely and overwhelmed.

Mi mama (my homestay mom) is very very nice; but she's nothing like my mom. And it's very hard to understand Argentine Spanish even though I've been taking Spanish since middle school. Trying to converse with her and being sleep deprived was not fun and it made me even more upset. But after a good night's rest I felt much better.

Mi mama gave me toast and 2 croissants for breakfast.. so much pan! Then she walked me to the center at 2 for my bus tour. I saw a few girls I met going though customs at the airport (which took 2 hours) and hung with them for the rest of the day.

We saw some cool places on our tour. There were outside concerts at a park in Palermo and in the main square. The main square is where the president works and where most of the demonstrations are. It was beautiful looking around at the various architecture!

After the tour we decided we were going to watch our friend Sam in a soccer game she signed up for through one of the universities. Sam, Chloe, Sheridan and I went to Chloe and Sheridan's mama's apartment (which is close to IES) and had a small dinner. Sam left to take the subway to the game in Palermo early. We then met up with another girl, Jessie and all took a subway to the soccer field.

Using the subways, map and asking for directions, we showed up to the indoor soccer field an hour later... Sam nowhere to be found. And the man working said the university match was over. So we found a restaurant/bar with wifi and had a beer as we texted Sam to tell her what happened.

Since Sam lives near Palermo SoHo, we took a cab up near hear to find a nicer club/bar. The bar we wanted was closed because it's Sunday so we found a TexMex restaurant and ordered a few margaritas, quesadillas and borritos.

We each had one margarita and we were all pretty tipsy! So we all walked Sam home (who lived very close) and split a cab home.

First day: terrible.
Second day: great.

I'm really looking forward to day 3 :]