Day 0.5/1 Arrival in Argentina

July 28, 2014

Day 0.5/1 Arrival in Argentina

27 July 2014

Today was a very successful first day in Buenos Aires! One of the travel/homestay coordinators from Universidad Torcuato di Tella picked me up from the airport and dropped me off at my homestay. My homestay apartment is the penthouse of this entire building, taking up three flights along with its very own terrace. My host mom greeted me at the door with a peck on the right cheek, which was exactly how the Ticos did greet friends and families. My host mom looks exactly like Claire from “Letters to Juliet,” what’s better is that her name is Clarisa and she owns a little café named Clarisimo. Qué lindo! My family is extremely sweet, Catalina (Cata), Mariano, and Papá are all super willing to help and speak words and phrases in English when I don’t understand something. This is the fourth homestay I’ve been to and the only one in South America. Normally, I tend to be reserved for the first few days due to my fear of making horrible grammatical mistakes, but this time, having been in Costa Rica only two weeks before really helped my adaptability and linguistic comfort. The biggest communication problem so far is trying to understand the Argentine accent—the people here do not speak Spanish. They omit their s’s and my host brother mumbles. Fortunately, chatting with Cata after dinner really helped me get a better sense of the accent. We traded travel stories and watched Argentinian game shows together; it was quite a bonding session!

The weather report

It is sunny yet chilly in Buenos Aires, around 5o degrees Fahrenheit. Everyone here seems to think it’s absolutely freezing. Coming from a steamy New England summer, my body is quite shocked but it’s definitely a milder winter than the ones we have in the United States. The trend here seems to be oversized coats, stylish pants, and UGG’s or tall boots. I wish I had brought UGG’s slippers to walk around the house in. But hey, that’s what shopping is for, right?