Buenos Aires – The Long Trip South and My First Sites (and Bites!)

For me the long trip to Buenos Aires begins in a humble passenger van that collects me at my parents’ house in College Station and deposits me at Houston International Airport.  I carry with me one roll-aboard suitcase enclosed with 7 t-shirts, 2 polo shirts, two sport shirts, two pairs of jeans, three pairs of shorts, flip flops, tennis shoes, soccer cleats, Converse All-Stars, power adapter, shaving kit, and 14 pairs each of socks and boxers; and one JanSport backpack containing my MacBook, headphones, hat and sunglasses, journal, camera, dumb phone, passport, and three paperback books.  That should be good for a year, right?

The day before and the day of my flight I was nervous.  Despite having completed my to-do list I felt unprepared.  Random doubts began to arise…will my ride be at the airport?…will my credit cards work?…will my Spanish be good enough?  I tell myself it is natural to have doubts.  Will some things go wrong?  Yeah, they will!  Get over it.  You are about to get on a plane to BUENOS AIRES!!!  What else do you want right now?

And after a 10-hour flight, here I am on a whole new continent.  After a particularly lame Customs experience**, my driver met me outside of the terminal and delivered me to the home of my Argentine host–Susana!  Susana is a widow, 69 years of age, who lives in a 3-bedroom apartment in the San Telmo barrio of Buenos Aires.  She lives alone except when she is hosting students with whom she connects via the Spanish school I am attending and a local university.  Her apartment is nice, if small, and reflects the “old” feel of much of the city.  The building itself was constructed in the 1890’s, and has many excellent architectural features common to that era such as 15-foot ceilings, a huge marbled stone spiral staircase leading between floors, and huge, heavy front doors to the building entrance and each apartment.  Here is a picture of my room, and one of my ancient castle-style keys.

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Since my Spanish classes don’t start until Monday, I have had a few days to get acclimated to the city and its culture.  I have been doing so, by the way, in shorts and flip-flops because it is a beautiful and sunny 88 degrees here.  Here is what I have been up to:

Eating Steak and Drinking Mabec – I couldn’t wait long to get to this one and I will be back for more.  Pictured below is one “bife de lomo” accompanied by “puré de calabaza” and a half-bottle of Argentine Malbec from the Mendoza region (followed by me poised to eat them).  “Bife de lomo” is beef tenderloin; however, cows are butchered differently in Argentina which accounts for this steak being rectangular and flat as opposed to a U.S. tenderloin which is round.  Regardless, the quality of the beef was evident and I finished off this steak–which I would estimate at 10 oz.–with little trouble.

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Meeting some locals and practicing my Spanish – I went to a gathering at a bar on Friday night hosted by an organization called Spanglish, which assembles events where locals and visitors in Buenos Aires can meet and practice their English and Spanish.  After a mingling/intro period, you get paired up with native speakers of the opposite language for 10-minute conversations with a “language switch” being called halfway through.  There were about 12 people attending, half local and half travelers (from Ireland, Wales, New Zealand, and the U.S.), everyone between 25 and 35–it was fun!

Playing fútbol – I joined a club called Buenos Aires Fútbol Amigos that organizes 5-on-5 indoor soccer matches, also oriented toward introducing locals and travelers.  Two goals in my Argentine premier (muévase, Messi!).

Walking around and seeing the sites – Today I visited the famed Recoleta Cemetery (resting place of Eva Perón and other famous Argentines) and attended the San Telmo street market, complete with live tango street performances and infinite quantities of mate gourds.  I also sampled some delicious empanadas, one beef and one caprese.

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**A hint to travelers, if you read that you can pay the reciprocity fee for entering Argentina “at the airport”, that means you can use one of four ancient PC’s equipped with two ink jet printers and dial-up speed Internet located below the staircase you descend on the way to the Customs clearing booths to pay online via the tax department’s web site.  Better to take care of this piece of business before leaving home.