Leaving Buenos Aires

I leave for the airport in 4 hours to catch my flight to Lima, Peru. I'm so upset to be leaving this incredible city, but I'm both excited and anxious to move to Peru. I'll get to experience a completely distinct culture and live with a new family, which I'm hoping is going to be amazing! Before I move on up the continent here are some random things I've experienced in BsAs...

Futbol!!!!!! Yep. Argentines are insane soccer fanatics (and I do not use insane lightly). The two most important BsAs teams are Boca and River. They are rivals and their fans hate each other. The Boca vs. River game has actually been called one of the top sporting events to attend in the world. I went to a Boca game last week (not against River, thank god). It was calmer than I expected, mainly because there are 2 sections of fans: crazy and absolutely freaking out-of-their-minds insane. We were in the crazy section. Lets just say I learned a lot of new curse words. Boca won! Our public bus back to our neighborhood was full of fans jumping, chanting, and banging on the windows and the ceiling as the poor driver tried to navigate the busy BsAs streets. (Oh, almost forgot, a fight between the two teams fans resulted in 2 innocent bystanders being shot...)

Argentines will celebrate anything. No joke, they have parties for Teacher's Day. So, as you can imagine, St. Patty's brought a little bit of excitement to town. Thousands of people drinking along one giant pedestrian street for 24 hours straight. We waited in line for 3 hours to get into the best Irish pub in town, during which we witnessed people dance on light poles that were about to wobble out of the cement sidewalk, a fight in which a guy started pushing dumpsters at his sloppy opponent, and a whole lot of broken bottles. It was a very classy night for the porteno crowd. Vicky G you would've been proud.

Many of you may be wondering if I actually took classes here. The answer to that question is yes. In February I took an Intensive Advanced Spanish Language class 5 hours a day, 5 days a week. It was actually very interesting, my teacher was really nice, and I got 6 credits for it! This month I took Argentine Culture and Art, and right now most of you are probably assuming "Hmm, that sounds like an interesting class." Wrong. It was 12 class meetings for 4 hours each over a 3 week span and it was absolute hell. The worst class I've ever taken in my entire life. For a total of 1 hour we summed up the tango, mate, urban tribes, the protests, and just ignored the entire military regime of the 70s. The other FORTY-SEVEN hours we discussed native tribes. We spent 4 of those watching Marcela (the worst teacher I've ever had)write illegible tribal names on the board and asking her to spell them out loud. For FORTY-SEVEN hours I sat in that class and picked at my hair while Marcela tried to convince us all that the white Argentines (Marcela's ancestors) had nothing to do with the fact that all the tribes people were mysteriously killed. Ugh. It was a painful 3 credits.

Argentina is a completely livable country. I felt safe and comfortable here. I've learned that you can easily live without air-conditioning, internet, cell phones, blow dryers/straighteners, dishwashers, and dryers - these are all things that I'm grateful to have access to in the US, but I've realized I don't need to depend on them. Here, I never leave a light on. Even if I'm just going to the bathroom I turn off the light in my room before turning on the bathroom light - there's never more than one room with a light on. I'm lucky that I have hot water, not everyone in my group does, but I only take a 5-10 minute shower each day. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for hot water in Peru!