Living La Vida La Plata

A lot of people are asking me about my living situation because, after all, staying with a host family is a huge part of my cultural experience. I feel like I've lucked out. The house I'm staying in is very large, with a modern kitchen and an outdoor patio and grill for asados (typical Argentine barbecues.) Best of all, it is located in the center of town, meaning I can walk almost anywhere.

My host "Mom," Nuria, is only 28. She is single and technically lives alone, but that's never really the case. Her sister,Coral, lives down the street with her boyfriend Valentino, and they stop by all the time. I also have a roommate,Pablo, who is an exchange student from Spain, studying Law. Recently we had another addition to our house: a Beagle named Tonto (meaning silly). Here are some pictures of our happy family.

Nuria and Pablo showing me some moves on the dance floor.


Tonto being tonto.


Me with the honor of cutting the parillo.

La Plata: First Impressions

It's been a long time since I last posted, and a lot has happened since I arrived in La Plata two weeks ago. The first week was orientation. All of the new interns (there are five, including myself) stayed at a low-budget hotel and were shuttled around for different activities. We also had many things to discuss like safety, working with an NGO, living with a host family, cultural differences in Argentina, etc.

But despite the structure of orientation, I was able to see a lot of La Plata. It's a college town, much like Ann Arbor (where I spent 6 years of my life.) The city swells up with students in the Fall, bringing along with them a thriving local music scene, political activism, and intellectualism. I arrived at a great time: the beginning of Fall (remember the seasons are the reverse of the Northern Hemisphere) because the weather is perfect (about 70 F and sunny most days) and there are lots of things to do now that all the students have arrived.

While Buenos Aires is a very interesting and fun city, I am very glad to be living somewhere more tranquilo like La Plata. There are so many tourists in Buenos Aires, its hard to know what's the "real" Argentina and what's not. Here in La Plata, I will have a chance to see how Argentines really live. This is a picture of Argentines hanging out, something they love to do. Notice all the grafiti on buildings. I will post about this later.

Proceso de Aprendizaje

I arrived in Buenos Aires yesterday afternoon. The flight took off one hour into what turned out to be a monstrous snowstorm. But after a little de-icing, all system were go and I am now enjoying ninety degree weather.

I was able to practice my Spanish casually with the woman sitting next to me on my flight. Then I was forced to practice Spanish with my taxi driver at the airport. Generally, the people are very nice and patient with gringos like myself.

The purpose of this post is to explain some things I have already learned about the country in a very short amount of time.

1.) There are stray cats and dogs EVERYWHERE.



2.) There is a huge Israeli population in Buenos Aires. I went out to a concert with some people at my hostel and a band was playing Jewish music all night. It was pretty unexpected.



3.) Fake money is a real problem here. An American girl who went out with us apparently had a fake 100 peso note she thought she received from a bus driver. For this reason, people are very reluctant to take large bills, and when they do take them, they always check their authenticity. (A word of advice: do not do what she is doing, unless you want everyone to know you are a foreigner.)