Intro

My excursion to El Tigre and the beach today got cancelled due to the rain, so now I have some free time and decided to start a blog. I won't bore anyone by writing about my daily activities here (unless something special or unusual happens). Instead, I'll share my observations and thoughts about Buenos Aires and Argentine culture (and then about Brazil and Peru later). Of course with any experience, there are ups and downs, so I'll share both of them. First, an intro with a summary about my semester here (skip to the next post if you just want to read about the culture here).

My time here has been divided up into 3 parts:

  - For part 1, I spent the month of January in Buenos Aires doing volunteer work in the slums in Buenos Aires province 3 days a week in the afternoon, and spending the rest of the time in the city, living in a student residence. This was the time when I learned the most about the city and its culture. I didn't have classes, so I had time to explore the city, learn the transportation system, and go out almost every night, and also because I wasn't provided with food, so I had to go grocery shopping (in addition to buying other things I needed, like a camera, cell phone, toiletries, currency exchange, etc.) and I learned that transactions here are done very differently from what I'm used to in the US. This month was also the time that I was able to meet locals (they call themselves "porteños") as well as people from all over the world and of a range of ages. I've met people with some of the most interesting lives (definitely one of the pros of traveling), but I'll save that for a later post.

- For part 2, I'm still in Buenos Aires, but now I'm living in a different neighborhood, and this time with a host mom and another girl in my program. I'm with ISA now (during the first month I was with a program called Road2Argentina). After R2A had forced me to be much more independent (the program provides housing and a few activities, but everything else you pretty much figure out with your friends), I was unaccustomed at first at how much ISA shelters its students. Food is provided by the host family so you never have to cook or go grocery shopping (this does help me save money, though), your laundry is done for you, all of the excursions and tours are included, and most of your day is taken up by classes, so you only have time in the evenings or on the weekend to go out to the city and explore it, and having to wake up early for your classes limits how late you can stay out on weekdays. Also, almost everyone I've met in my program is an American student in their second or third year of college (I think there's one Canadian), so not as much variety as there was in R2A. I have classes 5 hours a day at the University of Belgrano (but my professor is engaging, so it often goes by really quickly). It's a different experience from the first month, but there are many things I like about it. I like that I have a host family to interact with and speak Spanish with. My class is also helping me improve my spanish a lot. I like the planned excursions that ISA provides. I'm totally excited about going to Iguazu Falls next weekend. And while going out almost every night during the first month was fun, it would have been really unhealthy to do that for long, so I'm glad the classes are making me go to bed early on most weekdays and saving my liver and my money. It's also really great to have my own room. And the times that I do go out at night with friends are fun.

- There's a week-long break from Part 2, during which I will go to São Paulo and then Rio de Janeiro for Carnival. Then I come back to BA and part 2 continues with a new class. There's also a four-day weekend two weeks after the first break, so I'm thinking of planning a trip to Mendoza to do wine tasting (oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I took a wine-tasting course during the first month with R2A). In total, Part 2 is 2 months long, from Feb through March.

-Part 3 starts in April and goes through May. ISA will fly us to Lima, Peru, where we will take another set of classes at the University of the Pacific. Argentina is great, but I'm glad I'm going to get a chance to experience yet another culture. Some of the planned excursions during that time will go to Cusco and Macchu Picchu and the Peruvian Amazon Jungle. The Amazon Jungle excursion sounds amazing (4 days of exploring and camping out, boat ride down the river, swimming with pink dolphins, spotting monkeys and tons of other wildlife), but I am concerned about the recent outbreak of a particularly dangerous strain of dengue in that region, especially in the jungle where there are tons of mosquitos. Hopefully by the end of April, there will be fewer mosquitos because it's winter, but I'm still scared. I looked at some pictures, and this is not a pretty disease. You start growing weird rashes all over your body and then hemorrhaging out of them (there was a picture of a kid hemorrhaging out of his face!). There have already been several deaths from the outbreak. Anyways, it's too early now to be able to tell what's going to happen and whether or not the trip will get canceled. Even if I don't end up going to the jungle, I'm sure I will have an amazing time in Peru.

So that's the outline of my semester. Now I'll write a post about my thoughts on the culture here in Buenos Aires.

Edit: Ok, I changed my mind. I'll write about it later today or something. I want to get out of the house right now.