Growing on me...

After 2.5 weeks here, I can say that Argentina has really started to grow on me. It helps that the weather has warmed up a bit and I was able to do a little more exploring this past weekend than I had done previously. On Friday night I partied it up like a porteño, making it home at about 5 am (only 15 minutes before our host-sister came in). Saturday I went with a group to the city of Tigre, an river delta area where the majority of the town is located on islands accessible only by boat. Then Sunday I took a long bus ride out into the country to visit an Estancia (a type of ranch) where I rode horses, watched a gaucho show, and was treated to a fabulous dinner served on the lawn of the ranch.

My Spanish skills are also constantly improving and though I am a long LONG way from fluent and can't even imagine using the language effortlessly, I understand more and am able to express more every day. I still feel like an idiot when I have to ask someone to repeat sentences multiple times, or when I use the wrong word, or completely misunderstand something, but at the same time I am proud of how far I've come. That is a really good feeling...

My daily life in BsAs

7 am: Wake up call. I go take a shower in our bathroom that is basically a giant shower and as a result requires special arrangements to prevent everything from getting soaked.
7:30 - 8 am: Get ready for the day and curse my lack of warm clothes.
8 am: Eat breakfast which consists of black tea and toast with a cream-cheese like spread and marmalade.
8:30 am: Board the Subte at Estación San Juan with a couple hundred other people.
8:45 am: Get off the Subte at Estación Lavalle and walk the remaining 6 blocks to school.
9:00 am: Class starts.
11:00 am: Break time! I go get a cup of tea or hot chocolate and maybe a snack.
11:30 am: Back in class.
1:30 pm: Class finishes for the day and it's time to go find something to eat and maybe explore the city a bit.
6 pm: I usually go to the Locutorio (internet shop) for awhile to call Jake and the kids on Skype and check e-mail.
8 pm: Time to finish up any homework I didn't finish in the early afternoon.
9 pm: Dinner with the family after which we help clean up and wash the dishes. Dinner usually consists of meat, vegetables, and bread with water to drink and a piece of fruit for dessert.
10 pm: I settle into my bed to do more homework, read or journal.
11 pm - Midnight: I'm out for the night...

Things I've Discovered in BsAs

• The annual rainfall here is something like 4 inches. I think today we got at LEAST that much and this kind of rain does not make porteños or their gutter systems or roofs very happy.
• Usually the rain is much more of a mist.
• During a downpour, roofs in even nice building leak.
• People eat eggs on almost everything... on sandwiches, hard-boiled on pizza, hard-boiled inside pastries, etc. but never for breakfast.
• Breakfast here consists of coffee or tea and toast, crackers, or these sweet croissants called medialunas that are to die for.
• There are several Jewish temples, but keeping kosher here must be quite a challenge since meat and cheese (usually together) are huge staples of the diet. Also...
• Beef may be a strong part of the economy and the pride of Argentina, but ham is their other favorite meat. There are several different varieties of ham flavored snack crackers available at every snack stand and every restaurant has several options of ham-based meals. Bacon is also popular although it's not crispy and resembles ham more than American bacon.
• People do not clean up after their dogs here, and there are a lot of them, which means you really need to watch your step.
• There are TONS of pigeons here, one of which almost pooped on me further lowering them in my opinion. I have grown to loathe pigeons.
• There are very few controlled intersections so driving and walking is always an adventure.
• In the intersections that are controlled, they give a yellow light warning when it changes from green to red, but also when it turns from red to green letting people know to get ready to GO and FAST.

La Boca

Yesterday we went to the neighborhood of La Boca which is the most colorful and vibrant part of the city surrounded by the worst (and notriously most crime ridden) slums.

The 9 or so blocks that are fit to go down, however, are very interesting. The buildings are painted a variety of bright colors and the pedestrian-only streets are lined with restaurants, shops, and art galleries. In the streets themselves are Tango dancers, Gaucho dancers, and other street performers.


Wandering around the area was the most fun I've had exploring the city so far. Even the cold weather and our cab driver's warnings about the dangers of La Boca didn't prevent it from being a good day. The restaurants there were a bit on the pricier side for the city but the souvenirs were good prices and there was plenty to do and look at for free.

Finding My Way in Buenos Aires

I've been in Buenos Aires for 5 days now and I'm almost now starting to feel like I know where some things are. It's a very large city which makes it intimidating, and the lack of street signs doesn't help any. Of course, even if you know what street you're on, if it crosses another major street, it is likely that its name will change on the other side and the street numbering will also start over. As you might imagine, this makes finding your way in the city a bit difficult. The subway is actually the least confusing, at least when you're on it... figuring out your bearings once you surface is a different story. Still it is starting to make some sense to me and I'm starting to recognize street names and sites.

Another part of finding your way is figuring out the culture. So far it has been my experience that the porteños (the name for citizens of Buenos Aires) are rather reserved, unless of course they are trying to sell you something on the street. They might give you a kiss on the cheek when you meet but even that feels a bit distant. This has made the city seem like a very cold place in a figurative sense in addition to the cold temperatures. As a result, I'm not exactly in love with Buenos Aires yet, though in fairness, I haven't had much time to visit the most interesting sites since I've been busy with homework and fighting back a cold. I have 3 more weeks here to see what Buenos Aires has to offer and I'm keeping an open mind but... well... I can't say yet the BsAs is a place on my to-visit-again list at this point...

P.S. For those of you following my blog from the Global Crossroads study abroad blog of the University of Minnesota who are interested in the backstory, here´s a link to my earlier posts about my trip to Argentina.

¡Estoy en Buenos Aires!

I arrived in Buenos Aires on Sunday after a very long over-night flight during which I got VERY little sleep. As a result, my first experiences of the city are sort of hazy. After meeting my roommate at the airport, we took a cab to our home away from home and started to unpack. We live in the neighborhood "San Telmo" which is one of the oldest parts of the city. Every Sunday they have a street fair with performance artists and artisans selling various items so we wandered around that for a bit before crashing for a serious 3 hour siesta. For dinner I had empanadas for the first time and started to feel a bit more human and settled in.

Yesterday was my first day of classes and so far they are going very well. Spanish is still a struggle for me, but most of what I learned last summer has come back to me and I´m holding my own. The school and the instructors here are very good and I´m really enjoying the class time. I´ve had quite a bit of homework so I haven´t had much time to explore the city yet, but I´m starting to develop familiarity with the area in which I live and where the school is located. Having a sense of normal for those things makes it then easier to try new things. The new thing for today was the Subte (subway). It´s pretty much like any other city subway so is nothing too exciting, but having a first experience of the subway under my belt makes me feel much more comfortable branching out to check out other places, or ride the subway into different areas of the city.

Pictures will follow eventually, but not today, unfortunately. I have homework to do!

Countdown to Argentina - 1 day!

Tomorrow morning, I will leave at 10 am for about 20 hours of travel, flying from Minneapolis to Dallas and on to Buenos Aires arriving at 6 am Minnesota time on Sunday (8 am local time.) *yawn* I suspect the rest of the day Sunday will be spent recouperating from a night spent trying to overcome anxiety and being wedged up next to some stranger in order to get a little sleep. But eventually Sunday or Monday I should find my way to a computer to give some updates.

Bags are packed, MP3 player is loaded up, and everything else is either done or not getting done by me for the next 4 weeks.

Ready or not, here I go...

Countdown to Argentina - 3 days!

Here's the state of affairs...

• My kids are safely and happily up north with my mom with everything they'll need for the next month - except their mama. (Many tears shed over the goodbye, but we'll all survive...)
• I got a good selection of guilt gifts all wrapped up for the girls to open while I'm gone and a note with stickers for each day they're away.
• My suitcase is packed. (Though I'm thinking about how to pare it down... it's carry-on size, though I'll be checking it, but I still think somehow it's too much...)
• My carry-on is packed.
• My flight info has been confirmed.
• My bank has been alerted that I'll be using my ATM cards in Argentina and possibly Uruguay.
• All important information has been written out/copied and given to all concerned parties.
• I've been getting the things that I handle wrapped up at the Humane Society. (I'll finish that tomorrow.)
• Since the kids are now gone, Jake and I have had a little more time together and went on a hike up the big bluff along the river tonight. We watched the sunset and saw a red fox on the trail. Soaking up the together time before we say goodbye for 3 weeks.

But...

• I still have a lot of clean laundry that should get put away lest it become dirty in my absence. And really, who wants to come home from a month abroad to put away clothes?
• I need to connect with my friend Carol about meeting up with her during my layover in Dallas/Ft. Worth airport.
• I could stand to study Spanish a lot more... all of the adult English-language learners that I work with are Spanish-speakers so I get some practice in which helps. Today I translated a questionnaire and one man gave me a 5 minute lesson on the way I pronounce "b" and "v" today. Most of them love that I stink at Spanish - I think it makes them feel better about not being proficient in English yet. I am all about making others feel better about themselves at my expense. :)
• My stinkin' Eyewitness Argentina book that I bought on Half.com almost a month ago still hasn't arrived. I read other travel books, but I love the Eyewitness ones because they are small and have good detail, especially in their maps. Hopefully it will arrive before tomorrow or Friday.
• I REALLY need to back up my computer files. My laptop is on it's last leg. I am only able to see anything on my monitor courtesy of a gigantic clamp that is pinched at the top left of my screen - without it, it's just technicolor stripes. It also shuts itself off all the time and I have a trojan every time I do a virus scan. *sigh* I think I better back it up now in case it decides to just stop powering back up when I get home.

All in all, "Woo-hoo!" and "Holy #$%^!" - I'll be on my way to ARGENTINA in 3 days!!!

This Date in History

233 years ago something happened that is kind of important in U.S. history, yadda, yadda, yadda...

What's MORE important in our house is that 4 years (and 1 hour) ago, Vivian came into the world and things have never been the same. Vivian's name means "full of life" and sometimes I joke that we should have named her something that meant "dull, boring, quiet and never sassy" because she certainly has lived up to her name.

She is my snuggle-bug who is always wanting a hug and a kiss and to tell me she loves me. She is my alarm clock crawling into my bed at 7:30 am saying, "Good Morning, Mama!" with her face about 3 inches from mine. She is my boundary tester, never quite believing that I really mean what I say. She is my fountain of energy, always wiggling, bouncing, jumping, running - or dead asleep since for Vivi there is no middle ground. She is my performer, always putting on a dramatic show involving improved songs and interpretive dances. She is my bull-horn, whose whisper is louder than most people's conversational tone. She's my baby, forever my youngest, my sweet, lovable, hilarious, determined, caring, feisty, dramatic Vivian.

Happy Birthday, sweet girl. Your mother loves you more than you will ever understand.

This week

Time flies when you have an insane to-do list...

This week I spent several hours in the Mayo travel clinic getting my yellow fever and typhoid vaccinations. Vaccinations kind of ook me out - not the needles but the STUFF being injected into my body. *shudder* But so far I'm feeling fine. Also from clinic I received a horrifying little booklet that goes through the worst case scenarios of all of the injuries and illnesses that could befall you if you dare to leave your home country. In fact, it's probably best if you never leave your house. (They don't go to quite that extreme, but it's not a far leap.) I understand that it's important to know the risks, but man, LIFE is a risk. Some risks are just worth taking. Besides, the majority of the travel advice can be summed up as, "Don't be an idiot and pay attention." Look how much they could've saved on printing!

This week I spent 5 hours cleaning the house we rent out to get it ready for the new tenants. I am not a huge fan of cleaning in general and am even LESS excited about it when it's someone else's mess. Particularly if that someone still owes me a lot of money.

This week I finished up with a series of Family Fun Nights I was leading with my fellow religious education teachers. This was the final of four weeks and I helped 7 little kids tie-dye t-shirts. I only had one pair of latex gloves so I let the kids wear them. This is the reason that my hands are various shades of turquoise, purple, pink, and green. We had a lot of fun with the program and I really enjoy the other teachers I work with, the kids, and the parents but at the same time, it's nice to have one less thing rattling around in my mental to-do forum.

This week my girls started to get sad about leaving to go up north. I figured it would happen eventually, but I'm confident that they will get over it and will have fun without me. Still... it's hard.

This week my sunflowers started blooming, we ate several meals that included fresh herbs from the herb garden, and my tomato plants sprouted flowers! My black thumb is showing the slightest shades of green which delights me. I doubt I'll have tomatoes before I leave but just the fact that I kept them alive long enough to form buds is promising. My pumpkin vine is also growing so I hope to have homegrown pumpkins to carve up for Halloween. Jake and I also planned out the landscaping for our front and back yards. It'll be awhile before we'll have the money to do everything we want to do, but I like having a plan, especially one on paper so Jake can't dispute it later.

This week I spent a ridiculous amount of time working on MixBooks - online digital scrapbooks that can be printed out in bound books. I'm working on one with friends to showcase pictures from our get together in Kansas, one for my trip to Mexico (which I want to finish before I leave to start on a new trip), and two of my girls.

This week I stood in the kitchen of my old house (the one we rent out) and remembered 4 years ago. Four years ago, Vivian was born in that house. I sat in that kitchen watching the few fireworks I could see above the neighboring houses holding a newborn baby. I remember it like it just happened, but that baby turns four tomorrow. Time flies, to-do list or not...