Bienvenido a Eseisa!

After 20 hours of commuting in airports and in transit to the city, I arrived far below the equator in Buenos Aires. Without any bad luck, I am here: stress free and so ready for the next two months to begin right now!

I got in to Buenos Aires International Airport (Buenos Aires Ministro Pistarini, or EZE) around 8:30 AM. It was an easy flight: one straight from LAX to Lima, Peru and after a short layover, I had about a five hour connecting flight to my final destination. It was kind of interesting flying with Lan, a South American Airlines. From the moment I checked in, even though I was still in LAX everything was in Spanish, from my ticket to all of the announcements and all the words spoken by the flight attendants.

Arriving was kind of surreal. We began descending upon a real rural area with huge wide open farm lands. This was a surprise and I was thrown off, as I was expecting to start seeing congestion of the worlds tenth largest city right away. One of the flight attendants announced “Senoras y senores, Bienvenido a Esaisa” (the airports nick name, pronounced “Ey-say-sah). Honestly, with the surprisingly rural landscape of “Eseisa,” for a few minutes I was worried I was in the wrong country! Until finally, she said “Welcome to Buenos Aires” in English. Within seconds, I was unable to control my perma-grin! I got off the plane and headed to customs. There were two lines, “turistas” y “Argentinos.” I was walking with a huge group of people who looked either American or European and was shocked to see all of them step into the “Argentinos” line!

Buenos Aires is so unique for South America. They call it the Paris of the South for the right reasons. One feels more lost in a European city than in an exotic Latin American country. The architecture looks like the eclectic collage of London’s various building styles. There’s definitely the Victorian look of Paris, with the big city bustle of New York’s Times Square and London’s Picadilly Circus, with neighborhoods and streets modeled closely to those of San Francisco’s separate and distinct neighborhoods! Some parts feel a little run down and underdeveloped, like stepping into rough or derelict Tijuana neighborhoods. When I got into the airport, I took the shuttle into the city, about 30 miles or so to the microcenter of downtown. It was hard to not notice how insane Porteños (residents of Buenos Aires) drive!! Swerving in and out of lanes, cutting off motorcyclists inches away from their tires, driving in the middle of lanes, running red lights and flying around round-abouts; I was holding on tight with a huge face breaking smile. The possibility of a car accident did not even distract me.

I checked into the Lime House Hostel right smack in el Microcentro, the busiest part of the city, where I met a couple of friends, Ryan and Beau. We caught up and laughed over travel stories; Ryan had just spent three days in the “discombobulated concrete jungle” of São Paulo, Brazil and Beau filled us in on Buenos Aires as he spent the whole day before wandering about on his own. We finished up and headed out, spending the day roaming around and familiarizing ourselves with Porteñian cafes, stores and the landscape itself. I learned how rad the pizza is here, how cheap beer is (and everything else, in fact!) and how fast paced this city really is. We experienced our first Subte (the subway) trip, our first bottle of Malbec from Mendoza, crazy taxi rides, drinking a lot of espresso, and little outdoor markets all over the city! It was cool to try and figure out the city and where to go before the rest of our study abroad group got here the following day. I think we found a few of the wrong places to go to, like a pretty lame club with a very young crowd. The best part was watching the entire club stop and roar with the most energy I have ever seen pour from a crowd after a goal was scored in the Argentina vs. Nigeria Olympic soccer game. Overall though, I can hardly wait to see our knowledge grow over two months and get to know all of the right spots, especially after we meet and live with our Argentine families.

I could not escape my constant wide-eyed enticement mode, with every step being an exciting leap into the immersion I have desired for so long. I was now surrounded by a foreign attitude, an exotic language (Spanish that is very, very different than the Mexican dialect I am used to hearing and practicing) and an enormous landscape full of wonder. I just kept reminding myself over and over: this is only day one.

Just another local printing press! Everything is so much more manual here than in the States!