The First Steps

After arriving in Buenos Aires me and my API group of five other American students from all over the United States stayed at a hotel downtown. The city is divided into regions or neighborhoods to house over 13 million people. The city has over 40 neighborhoods or “barrios” including; Belgrano, Puerto Madero, Recoleta, Retiro, Palermo and La Boca. Belgrano is in the North western part of the city, opposite of La Boca which is in the South east. Retiro is the central neighborhood, close to Palermo which is farther north. The neighborhoods are all unique and different in their architecture, culture and people which mirrors that of turn of the century European style. However, it also has well preserved districts of the typical colonial architecture. While we stayed for a few days in our hotel in Palermo, we did much exploring and wandering on our own. I find this is the best way to learn all about a new city because while walking you stumble upon great unseen avenues and neighborhoods. As new students we were eager to jump right into the busy lifestyle of living in a foreign city. The first few days we had orientations about the city with our resident director, Carmen. She has helped us get to know the city better with both bus and bike tours of the many neighborhoods. We were able to walk the city and see first hand the monuments, architecture and people of Buenos Aires. We took the subte, and taxis and tried our luck with buses too! We traveled to see our University in Belgrano, to which we found is a marvelous one building university full of winter semester students from all over the world. After all of our orientations we were set to meet our host families. All six study abroad students with API will be staying with families in different parts of the city. I am staying with the Tejadas in the Barrio Norte/ Recoleta neighborhood. This part of the city is built up with new, glass buildings, marked with great billboards and streets lined with expensive fashion stores. The buses and taxis rumble by the windows all night long, but it is refreshing to hear life all night long after coming from a very suburban town in Massachusetts. Some people would not like this style living, but, it reminds you that we are a part of an evolving and growing community which is very much alive. My family here consists of Julio, a hard working single father of three teenage children; Ignacio, 10 years old, Macarena, 14 years old and Francisco, 17 years old. Nacio likes sports very much and we often play baseball and soccer on the outside patio. Maca is a spunky teenage girl who likes to sing American pop songs all day and dress in very cool clothes. Franc is in a rock band and always has his guitar handy to jam or make new songs. The kids are great at helping me learn Spanish, while I get to teach them some English too. We have fun watching the Argentina futbol games and talking about our homes. After a few days staying with them I had my first day of school at Universidad de Belgrano. I was accompanied by about 50 other American students who also will be taking the intensive language course with me. We have been split into classes according to our language level. I am in class with five other students in which we only speak Spanish in class, forcing us to test our knowledge and challenge ourselves. The class runs from 9:30am to 2:30pm, with short intervals in between. Although, it seems a long time to be in class, we are all so excited to be learning something constructive and useful. It is humbling to be so accepted by the people of Buenos Aires with my little language skills, where locals in the United States I find get frustrated quickly at the foreign travelers visiting. It really puts into perspective our human nature at work and the big picture of people.