FINALLY blog post!

The aforementioned blog post (changes: I do have my luggage, and I have WAY more to tell you all about.):

So sorry that I haven't written in days. Orientation week was quite busy, and the internet has been slightly spotty. In fact, I am composing this entry in a word processor because the internet has been completely down for about 4 hours. But you don't want to hear about my internet connectivity problems, I'm sure. You want to hear about Buenos Aires! So, I shall tell you.

My adventure began with an incredibly drunk English ex-pat from Canada (mentioned earlier) who told the flight attendant that I was his daughter, and who insisted on helping me with my crossword puzzle. He also thought that the picture of Barack Obama on the front of the Toronto newspaper was Tiger Woods. That pretty much sums up THAT experience.

After a frantic sprint to my gate in Lima to catch my flight, and a terribly uncomfortable trip in the back row of an enormous plane (though, I got to play hangman in Spanish, that was fun), I finally arrived in Buenos Aires. As all of you know, my luggage wasn't there to greet me... and neither was anyone else. Everyone was at a loft in Palermo, starting the first day of orientation. ...Except me! So, I wandered around the airport. I changed my money to pesos, exchanged my travelers cheques, and made a two minute phone call to my mother that, as we later found out, cost almost fifty dollars. Then I got a taxi and headed to orientation.

The first thing I noticed when I stepped out of the fake-cool of the airport was the humidity. The wet heat practically hit me in the face, but I asked the cab driver if I could keep the windows down. As someone who's never been further south than North Carolina, I was so excited to see all that green and blue in the middle of winter. I had a stupid grin on my face the entire way into the city.

Now, I'm not going to bore you with details of orientation... lots of safety coaching (don't make yourself a target, lock your doors, don't set your bag down anywhere) and culture shock coaching. In Argentina, there are a couple major cultural differences. Here, they eat dinner after 21:00... that's the most relevant right now. I'll obviously talk more about culture shock in future blog entries.

Now, this past Friday, we went on a school-sponsored trip to Tigre, a small town to the south of Buenos Aires. Tigre is a touristy destination, but I guess you have to do Tigre once if you come to Argentina. And Tigre was beautiful. The water was very brown, but clean, so we could swim in it. And canoe in it, which was certainly an unsupervised adventure of wondering which way to move the paddles to avoid hitting that other person's wooden dock. Also! I tried blood sausage. I don't have the internet right now, so I can't look it up and tell you what it is exactly, but I'm pretty sure it's... actually exactly what it sounds like. I was told that it was delicious, so I was excited to taste it, but... oh goodness. I'm fairly certain that there's no actual meat in it... just congealed blood. I actually got goosebumps right now thinking of the taste and the texture. Some people might enjoy themselves some barbequed blood in sausage skin, but I'm going to pass from now on.

When we went to our second destination in Tigre, some sort of campground with a swimming pool, we were greeted by a surprise (all of us, including the staff members). Before we were permitted to go in the pool, we had to submit to a brief medical exam. So we queued up, gendered separated, and got medical-examined. None of us towards the back of the line had any idea what to expect.

After about an hour, it was my turn. The doctor first made me show her my manos, and then under my arms, and then my hairline. Finally, she had me sit down and she looked between each of my toes. As each part of my body was cleared for swimming pool goodness, she said “perfecto.” Ego boost! Why thank you, ma'am, I wasn't aware that I had perfect armpits. And between my toes? Awesome!

Anyway, more blogging to come in a few hours. In my next entry, I shall tell you about my Saturday at the movies, meeting Argentine men, and my foray into Chinatown for Chinese New Year. Also, about how I don't even have my luggage yet! And all this before classes even start.

Hasta luego,
Kristina

P.S. Pictures to come.