Halfway Done...

Wow, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm officially halfway done with my study abroad experience as of Saturday. It's amazing how quickly the time goes, but on top of that, how much more I'm enjoying this city each day. It's been a while since I posted last, my apologies, but not much has happened. We started our midterm exams so we're all a little bogged down by school, but after having my first one and seeing how easy it was, I'm not as concerned for the rest!

I'm really enjoying my mate. As the weather is getting nicer here in the city (spring in 5 days!), it's so nice to sit out on our balcony and share a mate in the morning. We like to celebrate with "mate miercoles" and it's always a good time. I can't wait to drink my mate back at home, though I'll probably get some weird looks because I'll be drinking out of a gourd, oh well!

Like I said earlier, the weeks haven't been too eventful.  I have some exams in the next two weeks, but with the grading scale here, they really make it seem like there's nothing to worry about. Of course I'll be trying my hardest, but it's just kind of funny how it works out.

Last Thursday was probably one of the most interesting nights so far here in Buenos Aires. For those of you who don't know, there's a lot of drama and controversy here surrounding government, and especially the president.  She wants to make some constitutional reforms and is often linked to a lot of corruption schemes.  To put it in perspective, her and Chavez up in Venezuela are best buddies... Thursday night there was a huge protest planned all over Argentina, with the largest gathering happening in various spots in Buenos Aires. While other groups were told not to attend the protest (for fear that it could become violent if police become involved), we were told no such thing, so a few of us decided to go down to Plaza de Mayo to check it out, and I am SO happy we did! There was no violence, and we got to meet a lot of people in the plaza who wanted to talk to us and find out what we knew about the situation. We knew the basics, but it was wonderful to hear straight from the people what their concerns were, and also great to hear them thank us for helping them spread their message.  All in all, there were at least 100,000 people gathered at the plaza, and the crowd spread dense in the streets all the way to the Obelisco. Normally, there are smaller "pot-banging" protests (called cacerolazos), where people literally bang on pots and pans in the streets, and this was a HUGE example of that. Our host mom actually told us that her neighbor went to the protest and actually broke one of her pans because she was hitting it so hard. I was also able to learn some of their songs, which was a nice addition to the night! We left the protest after about an hour or so and headed home to our apartment, where we watched the protest unfold and grow larger on TV with our host mom. It was one of the coolest experiences I've had here in Buenos Aires, and for the first time the city truly felt alive to me.

Yes, I got one of these flags

The prettiest room in the museum!

On Friday a few of us went to the Eva Perón (Evita) Museum in the city. It was definitely an interesting experience. Across the world Evita is seen as a saint in many people's eyes. But she was also centered on a lot of controversy surrounding her choices, as well as the governmental choices of her husband. We had heard from our professors to go to the museum and see at the pure lack of facts presented, and boy were they right! It was basically a museum centered around her clothes, and every now and then showcased her philanthropy, but never showed how she got the money or resources to accomplish any of that. It was interesting to see how the museum was basically a shrine to her, when in fact many people don't believe she should be celebrated at all. Still, the museum was cool because I'm a big fan of vintage clothing, but oh the whole it was not what I expected it to be. After the museum we went on an adventure to find froyo and we FINALLY found it in this God-forsaken city. And it was delicious, and all was good in the world.

On Saturday we went to an event called the Buenos Aires Underground, and it was AWESOME! We went to the Almagros neighborhood of the city (which I had never heard of) and ended up at an old metal fabrication plant... not exactly where I thought I'd be getting some artisanal food from Buenos Aires. When we entered the building, we paid our 5 pesos to enter and then headed up to the 3rd floor. On all the floors in between, you could see all the old machinery and it was pretty awesome.  Once we made it to the top we found out that you had to buy "Indy Bucks" in order to get any of the food (why am I not surprised?), so we each bought a sufficient amount and started looking at what we could eat.  Even though we paid more than we thought we would, it was absolutely worth it for the experience! Not only that, but for about 20 dollars, I was able to have half a pulled pork sandwich, half a brisket sandwich, froyo (woohoo!), lemonade, and another small sandwich to try! The location was definitely one of the more hipster things I've experienced here, so that was definitely interesting. It seemed like there were A LOT of Americans there, though I'm pretty sure the whole thing was put together by Americans as well. If you're ever in Argentina and looking for something local and cool to do, you should definitely check out the Underground Market, so awesome!

Pulled pork... and it was spicy!

Today (Sunday) we headed back to the Puerto Madero neighborhood! I went there during the first week with a few friends, but this time we went with our program. We walked the length of the water and got to hang out on the bridge. We ended up going to a restaurant with our director Alfredo for lunch and it took over 3 hours to eat. The service was pretty bad, the food didn't all come out close to the same time (One girl and I waited to get our food when some people were already done eating), and it also took close to an hour for anyone to even take our order. However, the food was delicious and I was so full afterwards. Puerto Madero is beautiful!

On the way home we stumbled on a Brazilian festival! We only checked it out for a few minutes but it looked like lots of fun! Besides that, it's been a quiet few weeks. I found out a few days ago that my dad will officially be visiting in the beginning of October and I'm absolutely looking forward to that! For now, I'm looking forward to officially welcoming spring to the southern hemisphere on Friday, and maybe being able to wear shorts without being ridiculed. My roommate learned that lesson, even if we are hot because it's 75 degrees, it's not acceptable to wear shorts here because they think it's still jacket and scarf weather.  Crazies.

Puerto Madero

That's really all I have for now... I'm looking forward to some more adventures soon!

I hope everyone has a wonderful week, and ciao for now!

- Meagan

One Week Down...

Ah, the past week has been absolutely crazy.  It's been a big mix of traveling as a group and exploring our neighborhoods on our own, but it's been a blast.

But before I begin, I have one more concern to add to my list of things that are incredibly weird here: Dog poop.  Everywhere.  People seriously need to learn to pick up their dog poop here, but I guess that's just the culture.  The street that my school is on reeks of the smell and its horrendous. But I digress...

 We had our orientation on Monday and celebrated Gita's birthday.  I don't think there's any way I'll ever be able to adjust to the way of life and going out here. Most places don't get crowded until 2 AM, and apparently its socially acceptable to just sleep the entire next morning/early afternoon away.  It's obviously an adjustment but we're working on it!

On Tuesday a few of us headed down to see the Plaza de Mayo and Puerto Madero areas of the city. Man, I could spend all of my days down there with no complaints whatsoever.  Our first adventure was walking the wrong way out of the subte but that lead us to El Obelisco which is absolutely beautiful.  It's pretty much a much smaller version of the Washington Monument, but it gives the same effect.  El Obelisco is set in the middle of a street with God only knows how many lanes, but it's wonderful!

Our group at El Obelisco

Me at the plaza!

After that, we continued to walk in the wrong direction, which eventually lead us to a really pretty park with a fountain with a statue of two dancers in the center, where we did typical tourist things like pose with them.  After we realized it was the wrong way, we turned around and headed back towards our subte stop.  We then headed down to La Plaza de Mayo, and it was beautiful! It was a beautiful park area in the center of some very busy streets.  There were little kiosks of vendors trying to sell touristy-type things, but that's to be expected.  There were two major highlights of the plaza.  The first being the Pirámide de Mayo in the center, and the second being La Casa Rosada.  

El pirámide

Part of La Casa Rosada... it's very big!

So after we explored the plaza are, we headed down to Puerto Madero, where I decided I could live for the rest of my life.  The water is lined with boats and restaurants where you can sit outside and enjoy the beautiful weather (Though, the people here think it's FREEZING!). While waiting for a few of our other friends to meet us, we stumbled on a museum on a boat that was only 2 pesos to get on to.  So we took an hour or so to explore the levels of the boat and climb around inside, and it was actually pretty cool! We sat down for our lunch, and all did the very american thing of ordering hamburgers, but sorry we're not sorry.  One thing I'm never going to get used to here is that there are no free refills, and you always have to pay for water.  All drinks here come out of a bottle... never a tap. So because of that, if you order a coke, you'll pay about 16 pesos but if you want more, it's another 16.  It's very frustrating because I would prefer to just have free water, but that's just not the way it works here. 

We did have our first super awkward begging experience while at that restaurant.  First, a man and his young child came up to our table, and asked if he could have the rest of our food.  Since none of us expected this at a nice restaurant, we chose to ignore him and continue with our meal, but he stayed and didn't move from our table and repeated the same thing over and over again.  Eventually, his wife and another child came up and were literally hovering over us asking each of us individually about our food. One of the girls gave them the rest of her french fries thinking they would go away, but they didn't.  The most peculiar thing about this entire experience was that the wait staff didn't do a single thing to stop it.  It really put a damper on the dining experience for all of us, and made everything incredible awkward.  After telling them we wouldn't give them anything else, and them being less than appreciative, they finally left and we were able to move on. 

The boat museum!

So we let the restaurant and headed to walk around a bit, and Puerto Madero is just so beautiful! That was pretty much the end of that day.  The only major things since then were our dinner and dancing with our program director, and our city bus tour on Friday.  We went to dinner a salsa/milonga/tango club, where they teach different levels of the dances while you have dinner.  It was incredibly fun and I had an absolute blast.  We got to watch our teachers put on a show and let me tell you... tango is the most beautiful thing I've ever watched.  The dancers are just so strong and so good at improvisation. Its something I need to learn how to do, or at least try to before I leave! We had our city bus tour on Friday which was pretty boring because we were stuck on a bus, but we were able to visit La Boca for about a half hour, and it was beautiful! I'll put up pictures of La Boca soon, but for now, it's time to nap! ¡Adiós!

- Meagan 

We've Arrived!

What a crazy couple of days it has been.  We finally arrived in Buenos Aires after over 24 hours of travel-related madness. We had a really late flight out of JFK (11:05 PM!!) and I expected that I would get a little sleep on the 8 hour flight considering it was overnight... I was wrong.  I swear I've never been on a flight where so many weird things happened.  Some of the best included: 1. A middle-aged gentleman in front of me watching the Justin Bieber movie in Portugese.  2. A screaming baby for a few hours. And finally, 3. An elderly man collapsing in the aisle right next to my face and needing complete assistance and medical attention to help.  (By the way, that last one happened in COMPLETE silence so all the people who were asleep missed it.)

We arrived in Lima, Peru around 5 AM their time, and we had a 7+ hour layover from hell.  We all pretty much passed out in the terminal on the chairs and periodically checked to see if our flight had a gate yet.  As we all woke up, we passed some time by reading Cosmo out loud and finding food.  Sorry, I'm not sorry, but I had a chicken caesar wrap at 7:30 in the morning.  I've never been so bored waiting for something to happen.  A few of us decided around 10:30 that we would go to the little restaurant near the gate and have some empanadas to get a little food in our system.  However, the chicken empanada I ordered was also filled with olives, raisins, and god only knows what else... I guess I'll stick to the seriously delicious empanadas here in Buenos Aires. Once we boarded our second flight to Buenos Aires, I pretty much immediately passed out, but I did get to catch all but the last 20 minutes of the Hunger Games before we landed.  LAN Airlines has EXCELLENT choice in movies and television.

Once we danced our way through security and customs and got all of our bags, we met our director, Alfredo, where he had a van waiting for us.  Alfredo is possibly one of the nicest guys I've ever met and I have a feeling this group will have a lot of fun with him. It took pretty much forever to get to the Universidad de Belgrano because of traffic, but when we got there all of our host mothers were waiting on the sidewalk with hugs and kisses.  My roommate Jenn and I took a taxi with our host mom to our apartment, where we were pleasantly surprised to find we each had our own room. It's small, but it absolutely gets the job done!

My room!

Our host mother made us a pretty big dinner, but by the time we were done eating we were ready to pass out.  The next morning we had some orientation with Alfredo, and then it was off to the Exposición Rural. Basically it was a giant agricultural expo with animals and foods and anything you could imagine. But before I get to that, I'd like to make a comment on the sidewalks.  I don't know what crazy person is in charge of them here, but there has to be 500 different kinds of sidewalks... and none of them are good.  They're either made of tile and complete uneven, or they were paved but people or dogs stepped in them when they were wet.  I can now see why they told us not to bring high heels...

But back to the expo. There were real life gauchos dressed in traditional attire and we got to interact with them, which was awesome.  We also met two other students from California who are on our trip, and we all meshed as a group really well.  We got to try lots of different foods and drinks and it was all around an awesome day.  

Los gauchos

We tried a lot of food... and it was all delicious!

We ended up at the fanciest McDonalds I've ever been in my life for some coffee and snacks before heading off to a ridiculous all you can eat buffet dinner with a fresh pasta station.  The food here is excellent, and I really can't speak any more highly of it.  On a funny note related to the McDonalds, we also discovered that my cell phone given to me by my program has a "sexy" mode... We're all kind of afraid to find out what it does. 

My motorola piece of crap is bringing sexy back. 

After dinner last night we went out to just chill and have a beer to celebrate Gita's birthday! Today is her actual birthday so we're going to go out to celebrate some more, Argentine Style.  It'll be an adventure but so much fun! Other than that, we had orientation today with all of the International students at the university, which included taking our spanish placement test.  We'll meet with our advisors this week and then finally start our classes next monday.  I'm really looking forward to exploring the city some more and finally learning how to use public transportation.  My spoiled upbringing has made me completely oblivious as to how to take a bus.  Better start learning...

It's going to be an interesting week... ¡hasta luego!

- Meagan