la despedida

i wish that i could summarize how i feel. i was skeptical about everything at first. afraid of being so independent (with regards to my complete lack of a sense of direction worsened by a complete lack of familiarity with my surroundings), afraid of not knowing anyone (although this fear was more than alleviated shortly), afraid i would search for a comfort zone (a thought i am surprised and proud to say i abandoned). i'm realizing now that i've begun to learn so much about myself. i know it sounds strange to say i'm beginning to do so, but all i want to do is understand what i experienced while i was here, in a city of 14 million people that force fed me dulce de leche, cut my hair, questioned my ideas, challenged my nationality, and warmed me to a world i know i will miss more and more. i know i've complained about a lot about things, inconveniences, differences, obstacles, but all in all i think i'm starting to understand that being comfortable is only one way of knowing who you are, and redefining what makes you comfortable is one of the best ways to grow into something bigger than a student, a citizen, a traveler, a conversationalist.

chau, argentina. suerte.

las ultimas fiestas...

argentina, what am i going to do without you.

this is a picture of me falling in love with my host family. i went bowling with alicia and clari, and shocking to all, i actually won. i'm beginning to realize as things wind down that i may never see these people again. alicia, with her larger than life laugh, luli, with her silly boyfriend, clari, who's sat in bed with me watching american movies in spanish, and agus, who took my friends and me into his group and showed us that buenos aires is every bit as good as the advertisements. it's so surreal to consider the idea of this family never meeting mi familia estadounidense, but 7,000 miles can do that to you. in a couple of days i'll say good-bye to all of them: an act i can't even imagine.

chinatown

why is it that it seems ludicrous to me to try to speak spanish to someone with a chinese accent? isn't it the same amount of ridiculousness in trying to speak english to someone with a chinese accent?

la flor

a waste of valuable public funds, which could have been better spent on education, reform, etc.

but holy jesus, look how big that metal, solar-powered flower is!

un boliche

i whole-heartedly enjoy the chaos that is the argentine nightlife. as in with every piece of my heart. like when i hear it beating, it only serves to remind me that in a better situation, all i would be able to hear is, "si supieras cuanto yo a ti te amooooooooo..."

went to puerto madero, a very hip part of town on the water which has colorful boats, expensive housing, and a myriad of tourists. obviously any part of any country that is modernizing itself needs a hooters, and that's exactly what we found. oh america, if only you knew how other people see us.

dia de la independencia

so independence day is not a big deal down in argentina, as in, no fireworks, no hick gatherings, no hair singed off of over zealous children. naturally, we decided to make up for this apparent lacking by grandly celebrating our own independence day in a truly american manner: eating some burger king at like 4 or 5 in the morning.

nice.

chupame un huevo, i believe is how you say it

my father spent an exorbitant amount of money on making my younger host sister's birthday a really good one, and i'm really, really grateful. one of the things my family here has stressed to me is the idolization of the brand gap, although of course no one can recognize when i wear things from that store because nothing i own has the iconic letters on it. so i informed my dad of this infatuation (a surprising parallel to my host family in spain a few years ago, incidentally), and sure enough, he pulled through in flying colors as is his custom. however, to explain the negative tone of the title of this entry, i have to outline the process of retrieving said presents. fedex sent me a letter in super technical spanish which i understood but didn't want to think i did, in which i was informed of the necessity of my going to ezeiza airport to receive my package. i wanted to throttle someone. i had one of the coordinators of our program call in for me just to be safe and she told me i'd be expected to pay some fees for them to have held the package that was supposed to be delivered to my host family's house, and to take a remis. lisa, danielle, and julie came with me because they're awesome, and after forty five minutes and driving to the airport, i proceeded to spend another hour and a half or so going back and forth, back and forth among three offices. literally: "back to office one, sign another form," then "take this form back to office two," "okay, great, now what was in the bag? anything illegal?" "yes, if you consider goodwill illegal, you freaking idiots."

at least it's all over. i would not encourage anyone to send anything to argentina unless you know the recipient really, really wants it.

kosice

every time i see this picture i just freaking crack up. we were led to believe in one of our classes that this artist named kosice (a hungarian dude who apparently came to argentina in his 20s while vowing to never speak his native tongue again) who makes all this crazy artwork out of plastic and water and neon was planning on implementing a city in the sky as a solution to the world overpopulating. this is a description of some of the things he wanted his so-called hydrospacial city to accomplish: he wanted a room to allow people to say "mom," a room dedicated to a "mini-religion" of water culture, and a room to be the giant vagina of the world.

all i'm saying is i want in on this.

un arbol en un sueter

i find that most of what i really enjoy about this country is the stuff that catches me off-guard, that incites that, "what the hell is that" reaction that i then have the opportunity to challenge myself on, so i can start to really understand what makes a culture seem different from another, and how much of those differences are superficial, and how much of those differences can be appreciated with a little effort and a little empathy.

p.s. i'm awesome at run-on sentences.

hasta luego, mis pantalones

it has become apparent that these jeans can no longer be worn. this saddens me.

tarea...en serio

4 hours of 1 class every day...not even 2 hours of each class every day, but 4 hours of 1...i guess i should stop complaining because this sentiment about the program's organization has made me less than popular with a few important people. although really, i challenge anyone to attempt to stay awake after traveling in the cold for an hour and then listen to anyone talk about anything for 4 hours. i'll buy you as much dulce de leche as you want.

turistas

i would post some of the million pictures i took of official buildings in downtown (aka el centro), but i feel like showing things that anyone could see if they type in "argentina" in google's search engine isn't very interesting. lisa took this picture of the three of us resting after having walked all over, i think after having visited one of the art museums we've seen (which i love), in one of the rare times that it's actually felt warm enough to be without a jacket. the sculptures randomly strewn about are generally refreshing, although this probably isn't the best example, since most of my favorites are slightly more modern, and include things like wire giraffes and weird ants crawling up an announcement board. i also wish i would have taken more illegal pictures, as in inside of the museums, but alas i fall victim yet again to authority.

la boca, kids

here's a picture of probably my favorite place that we've seen via our awesome tour guide, nacho. it's a really colorful neighborhood (as you can see) called la boca that we've all been warned about a bajillion times not to venture into alone--especially us ladies. you see the colors of their soccer team, gold and blue, basically everywhere. i bought my little brother a soccer ball from one of the stores in tigre. i want to come back here but it doesn't seem incredibly likely since we're all so busy all the time and my host family just had their car stolen. :(

empanadas con pechas

this is a poster that freaked me out. although there a lot of posters that have strangely sexual connotations that i'm never sure whether anyone is actually supposed to be excited by.

on another note: empanadas everywhere! i need to get my immediate affection for them out of the way so i don't pine when i'm away from this place, and i know exactly how to do it. eat them ALL the time.

milonga. BLEH

so we went to this thing called a "milonga," which is apparently argentine for "let's wear fairy dresses and clunky shoes and call it sex." i mean, i found ways to tolerate it, a lot of laughing at myself, but seriously i found myself just thinking, okay, great, here's one of the standard tourist events that doesn't really say that much about the culture, except for in an ineffectual encapsulated sense. kind of like taking someone who's just come to the states to a hoedown and saying, "why looky here, them's amurrican!"

el poder

just a friendly reminder: convert, convert!

one of the first evenings we attempted to spend together in spite of those pesky vegetarians. definitely not a country for people who don't expect every single thing they order to be covered in ham, whether the description of the food specifies or not. i tried to tell my host family that the quantity of ham here surprises me because i thought argentina was known for its beef, and they keep arguing and saying there isn't that much. i mean, my bad, maybe i'm the only person confused by fried steak covered in ham.

and another thing: why did no one tell me buses don't stop unless you hurl yourself into the street and flail your arms? i seriously was beginning to think they just didn't stop for foreigners.

had to buy a ticket to take this train back and forth every single day. my host mom took me to school the first day, then informed me that i would basically have to find my own way home. which i did, with the help of lisa and danielle, and many, many blocks crossed and re-crossed (and many, many questions of, "hey, do you know where domingo repetto is? because i have nooooo idea..."). i was a little taken aback at how independent we're immediately expected to be, but on the other hand, the idea of experiencing something while genuinely knowing nothing about it is still kind of fascinating to me, so i'm trying to be optimistic about it. and walking so much is super nice anyway.

primer dia de las clases...

my host mom, alicia, took this photo of me, looking super uncomfortable and nervous because it's the first day of meeting everyone, and i'm still not quite accustomed to how italian everybody sounds when they speak spanish. also basically shocked about how freaking small this school is! like half the size of my little private catholic school but with more students. and i know that everybody warned me about the weather, but seriously? two winters in one year? i must be a silly girl. my boots are already super worn out.

made the choice to try to speak spanish to everybody today, even the people from the states, and it's interesting because we all have such varying levels of proficiency. the professors seem super nice, especially one woman i met named florencia who seems to be some sort of coordinating figure. i was also pretty surprised at the overwhelming number of uw students compared to the other students from rice, harvard, wellesley, u of maryland, and york. but it's awesome to be able to meet all these people i never would have otherwise.

llegada!

so here's one of the photos of the house! i know it's not the most flattering of pictures, but that toilet absolutely terrified me because it seriously roars up into a spiral when you flush it! (and not the one on the left)

i finally get here after like twenty hours of solo transit, only to arrive in the morning in a place i know nothing about, after having feigned a conversation with a man i still don't know the name of who picked me up from the airport. my host mom is the only person here to greet me so far because i think everyone's at mass or something, but i'm trying to stay awake because i hate jet lag. really excited! super exhausted though, barely slept at all during the entire flight from d.c. because some guy who just got out of grad school (really, really cute) talked to me the entire time.