#(four more hourssssss!!!)

[robo-dino-puppy]

*kiss*

[billygoat26]

FOUR MORE HOURSSSSSS

[bandsanitizer]

.

[autogynocrat]

FOUR MORE HOURSSSSSS

[lavidaatravezdeunavion]

Week One

June 15/16

The long and grueling travel is finally over;  I’m in Buenos Aires!!  Let me mention that my flight from MIA to EZE was delayed an hour but coincidentally, my roommate and another friend were also in MIA because their flight was also delayed...five hours. They had been there since 6pm so i couldn't really complain too much about my delay but I got on the next available flight and was delighted to get the aisle seat. I settled in with my free pillow and blanket, I browsed the free inflight entertainment and watched Captain Marvel (it was as tony the tiger would say “There GRRRRRRReat!”). I fell asleep soon after dinner was served around 2am and thankfully was able to sleep for about five hours, but that last hour and a half was full of turbulence.

When we finally landed, I was a little sad since it was rainy and dark outside. On top of that, there was a country wide black out (our taxi driver said that the dam that generates the power for Argentina was broken! He said it might have been an accident but he wouldn't doubt that someone might have done something to it on purpose...) We were in the taxi for about 40 mins; I was too tired to keep my eyes open and had fallen asleep! As we pull up to the residence, the taxi driver yells “levantase mija ya llegamos.” I got into the room and wanted to take a shower immediately; I felt like after traveling for 12+ hours you just feel so nasty. Of course I hopped into the shower using my phone flashlight to make sure I didn’t slip, but to be fair our shower is like 2ft by 2ft so there really is no room to fall. I got out the shower and then took a four hour nap, and thankfully when I woke up the power was back on.

I got ready to go to dinner with our group at a restaurant called “Rietti” (Jorge Luis Borges 2205) it was a cute cafe a couple blocks from our residence. I ordered a “Milanesa de Carne con Puree de Papas” - which I would rate about a 6/10. The meat wasn’t as flavorful as i thought i'd be, and the mashed potatoes were pretty plain. Thankfully I had a glass of red wine; I couldn't tell you the name but it was great!

After dinner we went back to our residence and made friends with other people who also live and go to school here. We met some Peruvians, an Ecuadorian, a Costarican, a Chilean, and of course some Argentinians. They were all studying here and had been away from their families for months but were determined to finish school so they could have a career and help their families after. I admired them for being brave and studying in a different country where they don't know anyone. Now being 2 hours from home doesn't seem too bad. This was the end of my first night here, I went to bed feeling excited that I had made new friends and that they welcomed me with open arms.

June 17

This morning we walked to the Subte, which is what they call their metro, and bought and loaded cards so we can be prepared for our first day of school tomorrow. We took the Subte to Las Heras and went to grab lunch at this cute cafe that had dog paintings all over the walls. It kind made me feel like I was in the “Dogs Playing Poker” painting. I got a ham & cheese omelet which was subpar; maybe because I wasn’t very hungry it wasn't that appetizing, but it was just not for me. On the bright side, I ordered orange juice and let me tell you it was BOMB.COM. Honestly, that was probably the best part of my meal.

After lunch, we went back to the residence and proceeded to take a nap. After the nap, my roommate and I went to a restaurant that a friend recommended about fifteen minutes from here and it was called “Chicken Bros”. As my roommate and I were deciding what to order, the guys behind the counter asked us where we were visiting from. Usually, I tell people I'm from right outside of DC just because people know DC. Anyway, turns out that one of the guys was from Woodbridge, which isn’t too far from where I’m from in VA! It was cool to see an American-owned restaurant in a foreign country. Besides the owners being really cool, the food was great and the ambiance of the restaurant was really amazing. The table markers they were handing out were people from american pop culture so it was funny to see that. After this, we went home and went to sleep since tuesday would be our first day in class.

June 18

If you know me at all, you know that I am NOT a morning person. I am THE queen of sleeping in and sleeping for hourssssss. With this being said, waking up at 7am was not the most exciting thing to do. We got up to eat breakfast, and I tried my best to eat something because I knew it was going to be a really long day. For transportation, we use the Subte (their version of the metro) to get to class. It takes us about half an hour to get to school which isn’t too bad; the only thing is that the Subte is really crowded with everyone trying to get to work and school so you kinda have to be aggressive to just push yourself onto the train. We got to Expanish which is where all of our classes are being held. The first two weeks of classes are a crash course of spanish, so they did an oral exam to make sure they were placing us in the right level. Being a native speaker, it wasn't too difficult for me so I was placed in the advanced class. There were only two other kids in my class: an Italian girl and a Swiss guy. I was kind of nervous that our class was so small but throughout the day it felt better because she was able to pay more attention to how we spoke and we were also able to have more in depth conversations about different topics. Today was an exception because we had to take the oral exam but usually class starts at 9:30 and went till 1:30 then we had an hour break then class started again at 2:30 until 4:30. It sounds excruciating, and it is, but the class is fun and time goes by pretty fast. As the class finished, everyone was drained and we all went home on the Subte.

Once we got home, my roommate and I decided we wanted to go find a snack so we walked out of the residence and just started to walk. If you didn't know, street art is a big part of the culture here and is legal, so here in Palermo everywhere you look there is graffiti on the buildings. We started to walk all over the neighborhood and just took pictures and looked at all the beautiful art around us. We ended up walking around for about two hours. Once we got back home we took another nap and then got ready for dinner. We went to this bar in Palermo called “Ragnar” I got myself a burger, and because im legal here i got my first mojito which was really tasty. I really enjoyed the view from the rooftop that they had. Overall it was a really long day but we were finally getting on some kind of schedule. After dinner we went back home and got ready for bed.

June 19

I had a normal school day today but since the women's Argentinian soccer team was playing in the World Cup, we headed over right after class to my teachers favorite bar to watch the game! I later went with Gloria (the italian girl from my class) to eat at a sushi place about a block from our school. I got myself a Mexican Poke bowl which was absolutely delicious. It was my first time eating a poke bowl so i didn't have anything to compare it to. After lunch, we went back to Expanish and waited for everyone to get out of class.

After class we all signed up for a tango class. We waited for our teacher to come and she taught us the basics of Tango; I learned that Tango is not a dance where the point is to move all of your body but it should be a continuous motion (not sure if this makes sense but its not like merengue where your hips, legs, and shoulders move). I think after this class I have more of an appreciation for tango just because I had never really been exposed to it and it didn't look that interesting to me, but dancing it was a whole other thing.

After the tango class we all hopped on the Subte back to the residence. We all took naps (as you can see naps are a crucial part of our routine here lol) and then got ready for dinner. We all decided to go to a bar and to be able to watch the Argentina-Paraguay game. Not sure what bar we went to but it wasn’t too special; I got a quesadilla and some nachos on the side. The most exciting thing about dinner was seeing everyones excitement when argentina scored. The bartender even had a vuvuzela! Since we didn’t have class Thursday, after dinner we walked about two blocks and went into a club. The thing about Argentinian nightlife is that things don’t start poppin till 2am. This is something that we all questioned but it makes sense because they eat dinner at about 10pm. A group of us were just hanging upstairs until about 1:30 and then finally the music started to get really good so we all went downstairs to dance, it was one of the funnest nights so far. We left the club at about 3:30am and got home and all knocked out. 

June 20

Waking up at 9:30 after a night out was not ideal, but you do what you gotta do right? Since we didn't have school today our professor from JMU (and our mom for the trip) took us to La Boca which is where the city of Buenos Aires first was established. It’s now very touristy but let me tell you... it is beautiful. All the buildings are so colorful, and craftwork and artwork they sell on the streets were mesmerizing.

We went to the“Museo de Bellas Artes Benito Quinuela Martin,” this museum was in Benito Quinuela Martin house that he lived at the time. The gallery is free to enter and I definitely recommend going if you have time.

The exhibits they had were really interesting my favorite exhibit was the one they had for Roberto Cortes. He is able to depict perfectly what La boca entails and also the struggles and oppression that argentina has faced. The museum also had the rooms made up like how Benito Quinuela Martin had them while he was alive and it was interesting to see how someone lived during the early 20th century. I'm not much of an art person but this entire museum was really interesting, especially to see how different artists show the oppression they have faced as a country.

After the museum, we went to lunch at a restaurant down the street called “La Perla”. I was not the biggest fan of this restaurant just because their service was bad, and the food was mediocre. 

We later hopped on a bus back to Plaza de mayo. I'm going to give a little back story for this next part:

During the 1970s, Argentina was facing a “Dirty War” where anyone who was against the government was persecuted. Most of the people speaking out against the government were college students, and because of this students started to disappear all over. Once mothers started to notice that their kids were not the only ones missing they started to organize themselves and want to get answers. This government was obviously very oppressive and because loitering was illegal, mothers would get into groups of two and march in circle in front of La casa rosada (equivalent to our white house) they would wear white scarves on their heads as symbols that these were mothers looking for their missing children. In total over 30,000 students went missing during this dictatorship. There is so much more to this but I personally do not want to write a whole dissertation on how horrible this situation is so here is a link to more information: https://www.history.com/news/mothers-plaza-de-mayo-disappeared-children-dirty-war-argentina

To this day, every thursday, these mothers still march on Plaza de Mayo. We all had the honor of seeing these mothers, family members and activists march in front of la casa rosada. There are now two groups from my understanding one group is still looking for answers for what happened to their children and so this group would walk around La Plaza de Mayo and they would read the names of the disappeared students outloud and after each name the group would yell “Presente” (Present) just to show that their kids will never be forgotten. The other group is now more politically active and strives to make more changes so that this never happens and they walked around the plaza saying different chants. It was remarkable to see that even fifty years later these mothers are still the front of the movement.

After seeing them march, we walked over to a cafe to get some coffee but I personally got a Submarine which is THE best hot chocolate you can drink. It’s basically a bar of chocolate that melts in the boiling milk its delicioso! After we all finished we went back home to the residence, and you guessed it, we took a nap. After our wonderful nap we went to go get dinner at a restaurant around here called “el Galeon”, not my favorite but it was a 6/10, to be fair I only got a salad but the chicken in the salad was a bit questionable. After dinner we went home and got into bed.

June 21

Today was our last day of having class till 4:30; we had two holidays this week since we had to make up for the class time missed. But I am so,so,so happy we do not have to be in class for seven hours anymore. Today in class, I realized that my vocabulary needs to expand more so now i'm glad that we were talking about topics I usually don’t discuss in spanish like the economy and politics. Other than that, class had been fun but I was a little sad today since my friend Gloria was graduating from the program and won't be in class but since shes still gonna be here for another five weeks we plan on hanging out so i'll update you guys when I get to see her again

After class we all went home and then later that night we got ready to go to dinner at a restaurant called “La Robla,” this was a spanish inspired restaurant in Palermo. I shared a Milanesa Clasico with Mashed Potatoes and we also got a side salad. This has been one of my favorite meals so far. The milanesa was to die for and those mashed potatoes really had me begging for more.

After dinner we went to a bar called “Chupitos,” we paid 140 pesos to get in and the entrance fee comes with two shots. I got a shot called “Poseidon,” it had tequila, lime juice and some blue liqour in it but i thought I wasnt going to like it but it was really good. I also took a picture of my friends beer because i mean just look at it...

After the bar we went to a techno club which was really cool to see EDM in a different country. We stayed out till about 5am with everyone and some of the guys from our residencia. After that we all went home and went directly to bed.

P.S.

I know this was a really long post so I may try and keep it to three or four day a post but I just am living in the moment an enjoying life right now so it might be a bit difficult so you all will have to bear with me. Thanks for your support!

Con mucho amor,

T.L.