Halfway through my first week in Buenos Aires, I've been thinking about how much study abroad not only teaches you about the city and traveling, but about immersing yourself into the real world.
Not that Columbia, Missouri is the real world, but throwing college students in another country (especially with a different language) really teaches you a lot. Let's review.
1. Apartment living
I have never lived in an apartment, or alone for that matter. Always having a key, watching for people sneaking into the building behind you, lighting at night and being quiet at night are all in your control. So are answering the phone, the door, buying groceries, cleaning and more. Today, someone rang our bell from downstairs multiple times and we had no idea what to do. After running down five flights of stairs, the doorman (Juan) came up and explained to us that we have a different phone and system to let people in and utilize a speaker system. Who knew? The great thing about study abroad: he told us all of this in Spanish. You learn everything you didn't know about it, with a language barrier. Our TV now has more stations than ESPN (we can watch the news/noticias!) because my roommates communicated with a woman downstairs that an issue existed. We had to buy toilet paper because duh, why would your landlord supply that. Now that you are aware of all of our complications, look at the beautiful apartment!
Our apartment building
Living room and BALCONY!!
Recoleta streets view from the balcony
Dining room
Kitchen (enter from the dining room, another table to the right)
My room (1 of 4, two have double beds and two have singles)
The elevator. Scariest thing ever. Tengo miedo de esto.
It's probably 3 x 3 feet, and you close each door and it just shoots up or down immediately.
I hope you never experience anything like this.
We live on the 5th floor, and take the stairs as often as possible!
2. Electronics, contractors and accounts
After sleeping in, the main task to accomplish today was to set up our cellphones. Our advisor took us to Movistar to purchase cellphones and simcards, and Movistar just threw us off and told us to get them activated. We were not aware how difficult of a task this was. Not to call and activate, but to speak fluently in Spanish to do something we have rarely done in English. I can't say I ever activated my phone and used a pay-as-you-go card. We were hung up on probably 10 times and have spoken to almost every Movistar representative in the process of setting up these phones. It gets better, we went to the wrong location (different store than we bought them at) to ask about it! I was thankful that Kylie, a Mizzou student who completed this program last semester, gave me her cellphone to use. And I have the "jankiest" battery charger you have ever seen; it took us over 24 hours to figure it out (there are no directions). Therefore, challenges like this can arise when you're in another country, so I'm really learning how to live without having things done for you (or spoken in English for you).
3. Public transit, directions and safety
I am grateful that our apartment happens to be a block away from the Subte (Subway) system of Buenos Aires! And we LOVE it. In Chicago, I could always navigate the Metra and barely navigate the L (CTA), and feel like I could master it in a minute. We will be taking the Subtes to our seminar classes at Mizzou's office here, to Palermo for its nightlife, and hopefully to Universidad Austral. Successfully planning a route is so accommodating and now I know how friends at DePaul and schools in cities feel on a daily basis. There's six colored Subte lines and we have already ridden three of them. Look forward to stories about meeting comical men, musicians and getting lost on these!
4. Food, grocery shopping and health
There won't always be a kitchen staff downstairs that cooks for you (Mark Twain Market, Phi Mu kitchen, etc). I've been buying yogurt for breakfast, granola bars for snacks during the day, and have to choose groceries wisely. Because we won't always have time to cook between going to class and our internships, we must be knowledgeable about what's around, affordable and healthy. This will be another challenge to overcome--and in Buenos Aires lunch is around 3 pm, and dinner is around 10 pm. Adjusting to this schedule has been interesting for my stomach, but saves money on buying breakfast :P! And the food here doesn't always have preservatives (or has a lot) so you have to be careful with what you buy and its quantity. The word for soda is gas, and gas also symbolizes carbonation. Tap water is not a thing, and if you go to a restaurant, you have to pay for mineral water. So juice and Fanta (especially de pomelo, grapefruit) is an asset to my diet. Elizabeth and I found a HUGE grocery store two blocks from our house, so location really is key, because we also have two smaller supermercados that we were counting on until then.
5. Budgeting
Money money money. Being careful about spending it is already an issue when you are 1- a college student, 2- in the US, 3-shopping and 4- in Argentina. Four pesos are a dollar, and my mind still processes in dollars and divides by four. We even went to a restaurant that had a cover charge. I'm going to have to start logging what I'm spending each week on food, transit (the Subte only costs a peso-like a quarter) per trip!, and the costs of living. Hopefully I will train my mind to process in pesos sooner than later.
Therefore, the logistics of the day have been a key factor in my stress level (without even having work or class yet!) but my phone is functioning (kind of), we arrived at orientation on time, learned the Subte system and ate healthy meals! People in Buenos Aires go out from 1 am to 6 am (sometimes later) instead of America's typical college or city out time of 9 or 10 pm to 2 am. But it gives me time to blog, right?!
The last thing I'll leave you with:
So far, Puerto Madero is my favorite part of Buenos Aires. Honestly, I think it's because it resembles California in my eyes. Body of water, boats, lights, trees, overall classiness, restaurants on the port, and tall buildings. We don't have many tall buildings in Recoleta, so it feels homey to go to class at night and see this. Isn't it lovely?!
Puerto Madero
Me standing on the white crossing you see in the photo above
Our class building is on the right next to that ship.
Amor de Buenos Aires,
Katie
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