Me Gusta.

Okay Buenos Aires, you win. I like you.

My hotel is in “El Centro” de Buenos Aires. It’s cramped, busy, and hot. But there’s SO MUCH MORE to this city and I’ve really started to love the different neighborhoods.

I got here on Thursday afternoon and since then I’ve been to La Boca, San Telmo, El Centro,  Puerto Madero, La Recoleta, and a little of Palermo (I’m spending all day in Palermo tomorrow). Each area of the city is so unique and I’ve really started to appreciate that about Buenos Aires. 

Puerto Madero

Okay, so the water isn’t the cleanest.

Puerto Madero is an up-and-coming area in the city. I started out my first full day in Buenos Aires exploring Puerto Madero. The first indication you’re in Puerto Madero is La Puente de la Mujer (pictured above) designed by Calatrava (love the Milwaukee connection!). It’s a nice part of the city but nothing too exiting to report. 

El Centro

El Centro contains a whole lot of the city. There’s a few main landmarks throughout that all have a different feel and a different history.

La Avenida de Mayo

La Avenida de Mayo is a grand street that runs into La Plaza de Mayo. La Avenida has gorgeous European-inspired architecture, a grand street, large sidewalks lined with trees, shops, and cafes. It’s beautiful and quickly became my favorite street in Buenos Aires. 

It’s also home to Café Tortoni. This cafe was founded in 1858 and has so much history within. Most of the tables are original, and gorgeous artwork and beautiful chandeliers fill the cafe. In the 1900s the cafe was primarily visited by artists, poets, writers, musicians, and journalists, and entering the doors makes you feel like you’re stepping back into a grand cafe from the 1900s. 

I’ve visited the cafe twice now since getting to Buenos Aires, and have enjoyed a refreshing iced coffee both times. It’s a nice place to relax and cool down from the 90-degree Buenos Aires days and I know I would spend a lot more time here if I was living in the city. It’s a little touristy (and by a little, I mean a lot), but I understand why. 

 

 

 

La Plaza de Mayo

At the end of La Avenida de Mayo, you will find La Plaza de Mayo. It’s known for protests and it’s main monument is to remember Los Desaparecidos. During the 1970s, La Guerra Sucia (the dirty war) was going on in Argentina — this period is known as an era of state terrorism and guerrilla warfare.  About 30,000 people were “disappeared” in Argentina during La Guerra Sucia.

The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is the best known Argentinian human rights organization, and the mothers have campaigned for over 30 years to find out what happened to their lost relatives. They still gather every single Thursday afternoon to remember Los Desparecidos.

There are lots of signs of La Guerra Sucia y los Desaparecidos in Plaza de Mayo still today, and signs and graffiti serve as constant reminders of the sad history of Argentina during this time. 

Plaza del Congreso

Plaza del Congreso is exactly what you think it is. The plaza in front of the building where Congress meets. Nothing too much to say about Congreso, other than the fact that the actual building itself is beautiful. There’s a huge monument in front of the building (pictured above) that used to have a fountain in front of it. But starting in the 1990s they had to fence it in because people used the fountain as a swimming pool, a place to do laundry, a place to soak your feet, etc. 

La Recoleta

La Recoleta, to me, was like a breath of fresh are from the chaos in El Centro. It’s known as a wealthier part of town and there’s some interesting history behind this. Apparently Buenos Aires had a bad cholera/yellow fever epidemic in the 1870s and that’s when the city started to expand, to avoid contagion. The lower class settled in the south/southwest of the city (where La Boca is), and the wealthiest settled in La Recoleta because it’s on higher ground and the were less disease-transmitting insects.

Anyway, I started my day in La Recoleta with some café con leche out on the terraza of a great little cafe. This was probably the moment when I first could say “Wow, I love Buenos Aires.” I had a great waiter who was actually attentive (this is uncommon here). He brought me an excellent cup of café con leche and let me tell him exactly how much coffee and how much milk I wanted. Looking around I saw lots of old couples and friends enjoying a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper on a Sunday morning. There’s just something about coffee on a terrace that makes me love Spanish-speaking countries, I guess. 

After that I started to explore the massive Cementerio de la Recoleta. Now it might seem odd to spend a lot of time in a cemetery, but this is not an ordinary cemetery. La Recoleta is home to the graves of the richest, most prominent people in Argentinian society including politicians, authors, lawyers, doctors, military generals, and professors. These are not normal graves in the ground with a simple tombstone, either.

An example of a grave in La Recoleta Cemetery.

 

These are huge monuments made of marble, granite, or some other stone. They have statues on top, domes, stained glass, gates, fences, quotes and prayers, plaques, brass wreathes, etc. I have never seen anything like this in my entire life. Walking through I couldn’t help but appreciate the perspective on death in most Latin American cultures — of cherishing and celebrating the dead, rather than mourning a loss. It’s the idea of really appreciating the person instead of sadly remembering old memories. 

I was able to find Evita’s grave in the massive cemetery. It’s not proudly on display in the center of anything. It’s off near the back, left-hand corner of the cemetery down a basic row of graves. She is buried in the same place as other members of her family. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer and although she was the first Argentine to undergo chemotherapy, she died from the disease in 1952. She was only 33.

Initially they were going to make a huge memorial in her honor, but her corpse disappeared from 1955 until 1971 as the military dictatorship of Argentina issued a ban on Peronism. It became illegal to have pictures of Juan or Eva Perón and to even speak their names. In 1971, Evita’s body was exhumed and flown to Spain. Juan Perón was married to his 3rd wife at the time, and they decided to keep the corpse in their dining room (don’t ask, I don’t know). In 1973 Juan Perón came back to Argentina, out of exile, and he became president again. Eventually her body was buried in Recoleta with the rest of the Duarte family (pictured).  

 

Rotary Connection

Today I met up with two other Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars (let’s abbreviate with RAS from now on). Melanie is from California and is going to be getting a Master’s in International Relations here in Buenos Aires, in the Recoleta neighborhood. Nate is from Pennsylvania and is getting an MBA out in Pilar, a city about 40 miles northwest of Buenos Aires. Nate and I had the same Pre-Departure Orientation in Kansas City so we met last March. Melanie had other things to take care of in the afternoon, so that left Nate and I to explore more of Buenos Aires. Nate bought a car because Pilar is kind of a suburb and it’s hard to get from there to Buenos Aires easily. So he bravely (seriously, bravely) volunteered to drive around the city with me. For more information on driving in Buenos Aires, click here. 

La Boca

La Boca is considered one of the sketchier neighborhoods of La Boca, so I was happy when Nate agreed to go there with me. We found a place to park his car and wandered into La Boca stadium. For those of you who don’t know much about soccer or Latin America, La Boca is A HUGE TEAM here and soccer is THE BEST SPORT OF ALL TIME. So for $10 each we were able to look at the small little museum and go in to see the field. 

Nate and I in front of the field

We started talking to a really, really nice girl about our age who was working at the field. Nate was trying to convince her to let us go see the locker rooms, and although that didn’t work, she told us SO MUCH about the team, the history, the stadium, the games, and how to get tickets. 

 

 

After exploring the stadium and museum, we set off to talk around San Telmo. Immediately I realized that it was indeed a pretty sketchy part of the city as soon as you left the main tourist areas. We walked around and looked at all the brightly colored buildings and settled in for lunch at a little restaurant. After getting back in Nate’s car and heading back towards El Centro, we ended up driving down a street bordered on either side by the homeless population of San Telmo and I was reminded of the sad reality of any big city in the world. 

Despite that unfortunate reminder of worldwide poverty, it was a great day getting to see another part of Buenos Aires. I am thankful for other RAS living in Argentina because I know that anytime I want to return to Buenos Aires I’ll have friends here and (hopefully) a place to stay. 

First Impressions

One of the national standards for Foreign Language teaching reads as follows:

Comparisons
Students are encouraged to compare and contrast languages and cultures. They discover patterns, make predictions, and analyze similarities and differences across languages and cultures. Students often come to understand their native language and culture better through such comparisons.

Although I am a Spanish teacher, I am still a Spanish student and learn new things every single day. This standard has been running through my mind non-stop since I landed in Buenos Aires this morning.

Comparing and Contrasting Languages
Argentinian Spanish is… throwing me off right now. When I studied abroad in Madrid as an undergrad, I had nothing to compare Spain Spanish with. It’s just what I learned. So a piso is an apartment, a carro is a cart, a coche is a car, and “c” sounds like “th.” Now that I’m living in a completely different linguistic context, I am constantly second guessing myself and am worried that I’ll say the wrong word. Today I was going to ask about an ATM but didn’t know if they call them cajeros here. Weird things like that are going to continue to drive me crazy, on top of starting to understand words when pronounced with the “juh” sound for ll. I have to take a step back when I hear a word with that sound so I can conceptualize what the word looks like. I can’t understand it right now and it’s so depressing.

Comparing and Contrasting Cultures
I’ve lived in Madrid and Quito and spent time in San Juan, San José, and Antigua. So anything I see in Buenos Aires is instantly compared in my mind with another city. The sidewalks are like Quito. The colonial buildings I found late this afternoon remind me of Calle de Alcalá in Madrid. Being highly vigilant also reminds me of Quito. The heat reminds me of Antigua and San José. There was a frutería combined with a carnicería and I instantly thought “Pretty sure I wouldn’t see that in Madrid!.” The people yelling to get tourists to convert their money remind me of the “Compra Oro Compra Oro Compra Oro people in Sol in Madrid.” I’m trying to stop doing a constant comparison and let Buenos Aires just be it’s own city in my mind but I’m struggling,

One thing I have REALLY enjoyed is feeling like I see my grandpa everywhere because there’s all these old men that look just like him (thanks for influencing so much of the culture here, Italians!). I’m also enjoying the feeling that I genuinely look Argentinian. I’ve been asked for directions twice today on the street (let’s compare: this NEVER happened in Ecuador or Madrid and I was there for 2 months and 6 months, respectively).

Anyway, my goal for tomorrow is to sleep in late and go to a new part of the city away from my hotel. I know there’s tons of different areas and neighborhoods that I need to explore! If you have specific suggestions, please let me know in the comments: areas of the city, restaurants, cafes, places to see, or stores to go to (I’m literally not buying anything in Buenos Aires but I still like to window shop).

International Travel

Yesterday my mom and I left our house at 11:30 am, stopped for lunch, and were at O’Hare by 2:30. Luckily curbside check-in was available because I had A LOT of luggage. As soon as the American Airlines employee lifted my bag he said, “Well this is overweight.” I just laughed and told him I knew, because Luke bought me a Samsonite luggage scale a few years ago for my birthday (seriously the most useful gift!).

$320 later I had my official boarding pass in hand (yeah, seriously that’s how much it cost to check my bags!). My mom and I chatted for awhile and then it was time to go through security!

My flight to Miami was excellent – on time, one empty seat in my row, watched The Mentalist the whole way. Then I had a 3-hour layover in Miami. I stopped for dinner and had my last meal in America (grilled cheese with tomato and guacamole, yum!), and then proceeded to locate a charging station. I got into a good Spanish conversation with some Spanish-speaking folks (I don’t think they were Argentinian, based on the accent — more on that later) about Nook vs. iPad and they never asked where I was from (score!)

The flight to Buenos Aires was PACKED with Argentinians who came to the US for vacation over their summer break. I was surrounded by children ages 5 and younger and began to visualize the 4-am part of the flight where they get stir-crazy and start whining. Luckily these kids were the best and slept THE ENTIRE TIME. Midnight until 10 AM. Amazing.

I can’t sleep on planes so I watched 3 different movies, played games on my iPad, tried to sleep, paced up and down the aisles, and chatted with the Argentinian woman next to me.

Full disclosure: I had never had a conversation with someone who spoke Argentinian Spanish until that moment. WOAH. Even though I was prepared to understand “vos” and the “juh” sound for “ll,” I was seriously struggling with my listening comprehension. Not a good feeling. But as we talked more I started to get used to it.

Once in Buenos Aires I was exhausted and as soon as we got off the plane it was summer. I was wearing jeans, boots, a MU t-shirt, a MU sweatshirt, and my winter coat. It was 90 degrees. Part of the airport is not air conditioned because they’re renovating it. Yuck. After finally making it through immigration and then getting a luggage cart (free! yay!) it was time to wait. I started to panic that they lost my bags but I am proud to announce that all of them arrived, only one bag damaged (not bad considering how much I shoved into each suitcase).

Then it was time for customs. I had to take all my suitcases off the luggage cart and run them down a conveyor belt. The man working customs asked me where I was from as he saw how much I had. I said America, but quickly explained that I would be moving to Salta and that’s why I had so much stuff. He smiled and said okay (he was totally judging at first).

After making it through there it was time to find transportation to the city. The international airport in Buenos Aires is located pretty far outside the city (like Barajas is to Madrid). So I went with a company that took credit cards and had good reviews online. The great driver, in addition to not killing me in the insane traffic (more on that later), also loaded all my luggage into his van and all the luggage into my hotel to the front desk. Yes, I tipped him with the pesos Sara gave me before I left (thanks again! Came in handy!).

Up to my room I went, exhausted and disgusting. It took 24 hours from leaving my house in New Berlin to getting to my hotel room in Buenos Aires, but at least I made it and not a single bad thing happened!

More on first impressions of Buenos Aires later.

Here I am waiting, I’ll have to leave soon, why am I holding on? We knew this day would come, we knew it all along… how did it come so fast?

Okay, so maybe my Maroon 5 lyrics are a little cheesy but  I can’t help but have that song Daylight playing through my head as I prepare to leave.

The last few days have been a complete whirlwind. I had to pack my life away, say goodbye to friends and family until Christmas, attend two Rotary meetings and give one speech, and finish up my responsibilities at Eisenhower which included grading about 100 semester exams for my Spanish students.

It’s also consisted in trying to eat all of my favorite American foods that I know I won’t have for awhile. I am so glad that I studied abroad in college because that’s making this process SO much easier. But at the same time, I know that Argentina won’t be Spain. First of all, they have peanut butter in Argentina (Argentina-1, Spain-0). But I’m also there for a full-blown 4 seasons, requiring me to bring a lot more clothing. Packing truly began on Saturday.

Step 1 was to roll. After googling different methods of rolling different articles of clothing, I think I have mastered the art and am now considered a clothes rolling expert (in my own mind). 

Step 2 included A LOT of Space Bags (if you need space bags, get these. So great and I don’t know how I got to Spain without them.

Step 3 included re-organizing and trying to fit things into different suitcases.

Step 4 included weigh-ins. I started to weigh in my suitcases like they were on Biggest Loser. First weigh in? 66 lbs. 16 pounds overweight. Not good. After a lot of re-arranging I thought I had a solution. Nope.

I literally spent all day Saturday trying to get my bags to work out to be 50 pounds. And failed.

Step 5. Enter Michele and Marissa. The pack and squish team went to work. This is what best friends are for. Making you laugh while you try to fit your life into a couple of suitcases.

Me and Marissa trying to get all the air out of my space bags!

Everything is finally packed away and I’m ready… I think. I know I’ll forget things, but that’s a part of life. I am so thankful for the past few days and all of the wonderful people I got to see. Co-workers from every school where I’ve taught (& student taught!), friends from elementary school, middle school, high school, and college, and my relatives. It’s going to be hard knowing that their lives are going on while I’m in Argentina but I know that as soon as I get back. things will pick up right where they left off. That’s the magic of friendship, isn’t it?