Typical of my life my journey here was not exactly as easy as I had hoped, but I got here and managed, so really its all good in the hood (please excuse my weird phrases I might still be a little tired). When I got to Atlanta they actually delayed my flight to Buenos Aires for an hour and then after they loaded the plane we were delayed for another hour. I was stuck in the South for a grand total of 6 hours.....needless to say when the plane took off I was exhilarated.
I did have a few moments of doubts sitting in the airport in Atlanta though. Everyone around me was speaking beautiful perfect Spanish and it was then that it hit me I was heading to a place where they didn't speak English. That sinking feeling crept into my stomach and I was nervous (this rarely happens so take note, that's why its in red). Luckily there was an older couple who were practicing saying things out of a phrase book like "Hola" and "Comos Estas" (that is exactly how they were saying them with a thick southern accent). It made me feel a lot better. If these two people could just get up and go with only a phrase book then I should be fine, right?
My plane ride over was fairly uneventful which is always good. I actually sat next to a little old Argentine woman who didn't speak any English. I helped her with her headset and watching movies and she let me borrow a pen to fill out my customs papers. Really nothing super exciting.
When I got off the plane in Buenos Aires I went through the immigration line ($140 but I can enter Argentina anytime I want in the next 10 years and not pay a cent!) and then went to collect my baggage. Waiting for my baggage a little piece of me began freaking out again. Now I realize I had been one of the first people to the Atlanta airport waiting for my flight which naturally means my bag went on to the plane first so it would be one of the last ones to come off the plane. I get that. But when I got off the plane in Buenos Aires my phone wouldn't work and then my bags weren't coming out. I simply sat on my carry on and thought in my head, "Well this is typical basically worst case scenario has occurred I have no luggage and no way to contact anyone." Almost as I thought those words in my head though my luggage came through baggage claim. I grabbed my bag and headed through customs.
Then I found my transfer cab company. We headed to my apartment and I still hadn't called the woman giving me my keys because well my phone was not functional. The cab driver then pulled over and said "We're here!" I looked out the window and realized that he had brought me to the wrong address. Thank God I had the right address on me so I could correct him. Then I arrived at the apartment where, by some miracle the woman was waiting to give me my keys. She let me into the apartment and showed me around (pictures to come). After showing me around she called my coordinator and had her delay my initial orientation meeting so that I could get settled.
Naturally the first thing I did was Skype my mother. She was home and I knew she hadn't heard from me since I boarded the plane in Atlanta the night before. Technology really is funny. I couldn't use my phone to text or call her but because I had a computer and internet access I could call her, hear her voice, and see her face. My mother really is great at being a mom. Now granted, sometimes she drives me nuts. However when you are in a foreign country and you've just had quite the experience in getting to your apartment and you global phone isn't working there is no one else I would rather have for a mother. After a brief conversation I got picked up by Vanesa my program coordinator and she brought me to a coffee shop nearby and we had our orientation meeting.
It was great. She gave me a map, told me places to go, gave me the low down on different things, invited me to drinks that night with a bunch of the other program participants. I really just felt a million times more comfortable after leaving the meeting with her.
When I returned to my apartment my mom had already begun working on my phone problem, which got fixed eventually by the way, so shout out to Skype and my mother for helping me with that. I showered and was going to take a nap. I turned on my TV thinking, "Let's watch something as we fall asleep" only to find that all but two of my stations were in Spanish. It was like watching Telemundo on every channel. I began laughing like a crazy person. I don't know why I thought it was funny but regardless I got up and got dressed and headed out to find a grocery store.
When I got to the grocery story I picked up all of the essentials....bread, butter, sugar, soda, chips, beer(a local beer though because while on dialogue I learned that one of the best ways to prevent local illness is to drink a local beer your first day in the foreign country, shout out to Pinkie and Trish). I digress. The grocery was fairly uneventful except for the part where the cashier, a small Chinese man, began to yell at me in Spanish about whether or not I would bring the bottle back and pay the bottle deposit on the beer bottle. It took me one or two tries to understand because I was not expecting the man to speak Spanish, I was expecting Chinese or some form of broken English. I guess that shows my own ignorance and sort of egocentrism(that's right I just used egocentrism in a sentence properly). Well here are some pictures of the food I bought:
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| The local beer. Not bad....its actually fairly similar to Tiger Beer (from Singapore). |
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| The spoils of my first trip to the supermercado. |
I am going to take those comments about your mother as a compliment even though they imply that I may be a little persistent when it comes to getting what I want, or let's say need. It never hurts to be prepared and even then it sometimes doesn't go as planned but no major issues only the phone which as it turns out is really too costly to actually use there !
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