My SINCEREST apologies to you all for the lateness of this post, believe me if I had the time to write before now, I would have. I’m not quite sure how to tackle this first one considering I have so much to tell even having been here only 9 days, so we’ll see how it goes. Also, be warned that if you plan to read this, take a seat and make sure you have about 20 minutes to spare.

Ok. Here we go. I arrived in Buenos Aires on Sunday morning, around 8am. Having been in 95 degree, humid weather in Michigan for the last several months, walking out of the airport into 40 degree weather was a little rough. Reps from IES welcomed us outside of customs, put us all in cabs, and sent us on our way. Being dropped off on a random person’s doorstep on an unkown street in a foreign country was quite possibly one of the most terrifying experiences of my entire life. After ringing the buzzer, I was greeted by my house mother at the door, an elderly and incredibly kind woman by the name of María Jesús. She, however, prefers just Jesús. To further add to my anxiety were the first minutes of communication with Jesús, who speaks absolutely no English. None. On top of that is the issue of the very different Argentine dialect of castellano (Spanish). Here’s a quick Spanish lesson:

1. In Argentina, all Y sounds, which in Spanish includes the letters Y and the double L, are changed to “sh”. “Me llamo” is now pronounced “me shamo.”

2. Argentines don’t feel like saying S’s in their words. They just don’t really exist. Maybe it’s a laziness thing? I don’t know. But very interesting. They’re substituted by a faint H sound.

3. Remember when you conjugated in Spanish class and your teacher told you to skip the collective “you” vosotros form because he or she assured you that it is very rarely used? So you never really learned it? Yea…Surprise! They use it here all the time.

Put those all together and you’re gonna have a headache within minutes. Days can be quite mentally draining.

After unpacking my things, I started to relax. I decided to go explore a little before meeting up with some friends. I live in Recoleta, one of the nicest “barrios” or neighborhoods of Buenos Aires. The city is absolutely gigantic, and I hope to explore as many barrios here as possible. Every street corner here is different. The architecture is unbelievable, a mixture of old and modern with tons of European influence. I love the fact that there are many parks here, right in the middle of everything. I found my friends at a café where we chatted with some new friends from our IES program. We decided to have a happy hour at 3 pm (oops.) after which we aimlessly walked around the city for several hours, passing even more beautiful buildings and many street fairs that are held every Sunday. Later that night we went to a bar called the Alamo, which was clearly an American bar, considering the bartenders spoke English and ESPN was on TV.

Monday was my first full day and we had orientation in the morning. Since my apartment is only about a 20 minute walk from the IES abroad center, I walk there every morning, which is beautiful and very refreshing. We drove to the Museo Histórico Nacional to have lunch and to have more orientation presentations. During this lunch I had my first empanadas, pastries filled with meat, cheese, and vegetables, and completely fell in love. This could be bad. Later we had a guided walking tour of another barrio called San Telmo. On Sundays it has a remarkable unique fair which I hope to get to soon. Monday was my first dinner with Jesús. I was able to have my first taste of dulce de leche, which is basically a very delicious topping. It looks like caramel, but tastes SO much better. It’s eaten with basically water you want- fruit, toast, on cakes/pastries, or just by the spoonful (amazing).

Our first evening activity in Buenos Aires was the Alamo bar, which is kind of a joke because it’s an American bar. The bartenders speak English and ESPN is on TV. I had my first taste of fernet which tastes like jager but has a really strong herb taste…maybe it’ll grow on me? Doubtful.

Tuesday was just more orientation and general wandering around the city. We got a discounted membership to a gym here called Megatlon. I’m really excited about it because it’s huge and super intense and has lots of different locations we can go to also. For about $20 a month we can use any and all of the machines there, as well as take any classes we want.

Wednesday I visited the Cementerio de la Recoleta, the burial place of Eva Perón, aka Evita, a very famous and highly respected woman here in Argentina. She was the wife of president Juán Perón and served as First Lady until she died at a young age of cancer. She was a well known women’s rights activist and also founded a charity foundation for orphans and homeless women. All in all, a pretty amazing person. Her grave was beautiful and covered with fresh flowers.

On Thursday I had academic advising and was convinced to take a tango class at IUNA Artes del Movimiento, an excellent, if not the best, university for dance. Great. I’m going to die. I think it would be incredible to learn though, so I’m going to try it out. Thursday night I went out to my first parilla (steakhouse) called Don Julio with some friends and had dinner consisting of appetizers, wine, and steak for only $15…not kidding.

Friday was our day at an “estancia,” which is a ranch. We arrived in the morning and were greeted with empanadas and “mate,” an herbal drink. You put the herbs into a small wooden cup, I guess, and you have a thermos near you with hot water that you pour onto the herbs and keep refilling. You drink through a special straw that has a filter at the bottom so that you don’t swallow the herbs. It’s very neat and pretty good! I like it. It is considered a social drink, so everybody passes it around. It’s very common in parks on Sundays, where you’ll often see groups of friends hanging out and drinking mate together on the lawns.

But about this estancia…I may or may not have had the best meal of my entire life there. The empanadas and bread and cheese were just an appetizer apparently, because later we were lead into a large restaurant in which a huge buffet was set up. There was everything-meats, cheese, bread, vegetables, seafood, EVERYTHING. It was unbelievable. There was a separate buffet just for desserts, one of which was dulce de leche cake and I died after I ate one bite of it. It was heavenly. After we got back with our plates from the buffet, waiters came by with huge pieces of meet on long poles that they sliced off and gave to all of us. They came around about 5 times with different kinds of meats. Needless to say, we were all in the biggest food coma of our lives after. Later we were able to ride horses and borrow bikes to ride around the estancia. I realized how much I appreciated being outside of the city for the day. The noise is constant in BA and it was wonderful just lying outside on the grass on a beautiful day. It was exactly what we needed after a long first week.

Saturday we took one of those obnoxious big double-decker bus tours around Buenos Aires which was actually kinda great, we got a chance to see a lot of great sites. So much for fitting in. Later that night after dinner, we went to a hostel bar that made us all so happy because they played Girl Talk and Nelly while we were there. A little bit of home was nice.

Sundays are great here. Every Sunday there are street fairs that sell anything and everything. Live bands play as porteños sit on lawns either listening to the music or chatting amongst themselves while drinking mate. We all got a late start Sunday after a late Saturday night, so we didn’t really do much else besides sit and relax. It was great.

Monday we had to do an oral exam in order to be placed into a certain Spanish grammar class. It brought me down a little as I started to realize that I would actually need to take classes while abroad…?

Today, Tuesday, we visited the Museo de Bellas Artes (Museum of Fine Arts) in the morning. Later I went to UCES, a university for communication and social sciences, to enroll in a marketing class for the semester. In the afternoon, I visited one of the several botanical gardens here. Very nice to find such a peaceful spot in the middle of such a crazy city.

So…to end, a few things I have learned so far in Argentina:

1. I am the only ginger here. For this reason, I get stared at…all the time. I came to the realization that there’s no way I am going to fit in, so I might as well accept it. That is why yesterday I wore shorts on my way back from the gym, which is a. not common for girls to do here at all and b. awkward because all the porteños (Argentines) who were dressed for the dead of winter even though it was probably 60 degrees today looked at me as if I was absolutely insane. Staring also calls for potential car accidents. For example, the other day one man driving a bus the size of a greyhound who was too preoccupied trying to figure out who is this freak of a person than to look at the road. Awesome.

2. Kiosks on the street burn incense all the time. Why? Who knows.

3. Nights are LONG. If you plan to go out at night, your evening will probably play out like this: you will eat dinner around 9:30/10 until midnight or so. From there you will head to a bar for some casual drinking and chatting until around 3 am, at which point you head to the club, because clubs only open at 3am. So, if you don’t want to be considered completely lame, you won’t be home before 5. Perhaps you’ll be home in time for breakfast.

4. Breakfast. It doesn’t exist for many porteños. Breakfast consists of toast and jam, tea/coffee, and maybe some fruit.

5. Unlike the American drinking culture, Argentines drink slowly. They like to stay at bars for a while after dinner and casually drink and chat with their friends. WOW, WHAT A CONCEPT. Maybe we should try it sometime. It was very clear that when this topic was addressed at our orientation by one of the IES staff, she was trying to say “Don’t be an idiot and drink like an American because it’s only embarrassing and never socially acceptable” in the most delicate way possible. Everything here is about slowing down and enjoying time with friends and family. Also, you need to drink slowly or else you’ll never last till 7 am.

6.To Argentines, everything is close by. “Oh yea, it’s close. Just 24 blocks away.”

7. Everything is cheap. The bus is like 30 cents, clothes are decently priced, and you can eat an amazing dinner with multiple courses for under $20.

8. I can attest to the fact that yes, the majority of this country’s population is very well dressed and very good-looking. Intimidating? Very.

9. Everybody is incredibly helpful. They appreciate your effort to speak Spanish and are always willing to give directions. Even if they don’t know where something is, you will still end up standing on the street having a 5 minute conversation as he or she attempts to make up an answer in an effort to help.

10. Political correctness does not exist. Porteños are very direct and often give nicknames to people, so if you are Asian, they will call you Chino, even if you’re Japanese. If you’re fat, they call you fatty to get your attention. Mine is “colorada,” for my hair.

11. The concept of “get a room” does not exist either. PDA is extremely common, whether it’s in a bar, in a store, or just randomly on a street corner.

12. People here are apparently extremely body conscious, and for many women here shopping is a big ordeal, because sizes are abnormally small. It got so bad that the government felt it necessary to pass a law against stores making extremely small clothes. Whoa.

For now, I am done. Believe me I will never make you read another post like that again.