So, here I am! After years and months of daydreaming about this, planning it out, and worrying, I am finally here! In typical fashion, my preparation process was crazy and involved lots of fretting and very little sleep. I almost missed my flight due to car difficulties followed by a wild and wooly cab ride from Brooklyn to JFK (and a tour of all 7 terminals), but ultimately, I made it, and the flight itself turned out to be really easy and relaxed. The huge Aerolineas Argentinas plane had this cool blue lighting everywhere and all the windows were shut, so it felt like nighttime even though it was about 3PM, and I barely even noticed when we took off. I also had the amazing fortune of getting an aisle seat next to an unoccupied middle seat, thanks to  some Yale rugby bros asking to switch with my window seat, which for an 11 hour flight was fine by me.

The airline food was actually really good, although after no sleep and no time to eat anything all day, I would have scarfed down anything. The free white wine didn’t hurt either…

I arrived at EZE in Buenos Aires at 4:20 AM, and after a very breezy customs process, met up with the driver from Connecting Worlds and was successfully delivered to Elibet and Roberto’s apartment in La Recoleta.

Elibet is the mother of my sister-in-law Marianne, (married to my brother Ben), and Roberto is her adorable husband. This family connection is one of the many reasons why I chose this program, since Lujan, where I will be living for the next four months, is right next to Carlos Keen, the town where Elibet and Roberto have a weekend house. Elibet plus Marianne and Ben and their family know Lujan well, so I knew I would have some connections once I got here.

So far, I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here with them and how awesome it is that they’re hosting me! I feel a little homesick and jumbled up showing up here alone, and I can only imagine what it would be like if I didn’t have this connection! Not to mention that they are amazing people and so incredibly nice and fun to be around. I am in good hands!

I am staying here in their apartment just for tonight, and then tomorrow, the program begins and I will go to Hostel el Sol (which I think is pretty close by) to meet up with the rest of the group from Connecting Worlds.

After arriving at the apartment around 6AM and crashing until 1:30PM, I finally feel more caught up on sleep. Elibet arrived from New York today, too, a few hours after me, after visiting Ben and Marianne and the boys for a few weeks. We had lunch in the kitchen with Roberto, and then Elibet and I went down to a café on the corner (La Monet) with LuLu, la madre de Elibet, para tomar un café.

Lulu is a riot and absolutely fabulous. She is 87 years old, and acts like a lovestruck teenager talking about her boyfriend and all their drama. Her old boyfriend, Ángel, apparently died about a year ago, although she seems to have moved on, and I don’t think the family was a huge fan of his anyway…

She has a new novio now, and it sounds like he had to fight off some other dude to win her heart, so she’s pretty much killing it no matter what. It was awesome sitting at La Monet and feeling the warm breeze, chatting with Elibet and Lulu like we were old girlfriends, and watching all the people passing by. Calle Quintana is beautiful, with towering trees dripping with green (especially striking after nothing but WHITE and dirty snow back at home). After our café, Elibet and Lulu encouraged me to take a little walk through the neighborhood and down to the park, so I did just that.

Walking along alone in a totally new city was kind of surreal, but I did feel totally safe, and it was nice to have some time to just hear myself think after the past few weeks of craziness leading up to my departure. The park is only about three blocks away and it was gorgeous. A pretty little church in the middle with a market set up and winding all through the park, which is made up of rolling little hills, trees and flowers. I wandered around for about an hour, stopping to watch some bands and sitting on the grass for a while trying to tomar el sol to catch up with the Argentines in an attempt to cancel out my February pastiness. I must have blended well enough though, because I was only approached twice, once asking if I wanted to make a donation and once asking me directions, both times in Spanish, so I guess I didn’t stick out like a total gringa. Everyone here is pretty European-looking though, so with my height and my light hair I don’t stick out like a sore thumb quite as much as I thought I might.

After a dinner of empanadas from el Sanjuanino and some prosecco with Elibet and Roberto, I think it’s time for sleep on my first night in Argentina!

Hasta Pronto,

Anna