First Impressions: I wouldn’t call it “culture shock,” but….

Hello dear readers! I’ve been in Buenos Aires for a full two weeks now, so I guess it’s time that I put some of my first impressions into words. I’ll cover a couple different topics related to my adjustment to the porteño (Buenos Aires) lifestyle, as well as some points of personal reflection as I set goals for my time abroad. A heads up that this is kind of a long post. Let’s get started!

 

PART 1: My *literal* first impression

I got to Buenos Aires late on a Sunday afternoon, after spending the weekend in Santiago, Chile. I shouldn’t have been surprised by the warm, humid breeze, since the weather was the same in Santiago, but I guess I was still getting used to the whole “February is Summer in the Southern Hemisphere” thing… Anyways the drive from the main international airport (Ezeiza), which is about forty-five minutes outside of the city limits, was kinda slow since so many people were coming back from weekend trips in the country (el campo). As the setting sun cast a warm glow over the highway, I noticed a few things:

First, there were a lot of cars parked on the side of the road. Why you may ask? Not because hundreds of cars simultaneously broke down on the same highway, but rather because people had pulled off into the large, grassy areas on the side of the road to set up picnics, soccer games, and other social gatherings. The taxi driver explained that many car-owning city-dwellers venture outside of the city limits on summer afternoons to enjoy the fresh air and escape the noise of the city. Families, couples, and friends all got the message to pack up their lawn chairs, soccer goals, and grills to spend some quality time with the people they loved. Watching the picnics felt a little like crashing someone’s suburban backyard barbeque, but the experience still made me smile as I thought about how something like this would never happen in the States (USA).

Something else I noticed on that drive was that the guy driving the black sedan next to us was sharing mate with his friend as we waited in the stop-and-go traffic. Sharing mate (a bitter hot tea) is a very meaningful Argentinian custom that I read about a lot before coming here, but since I’ve only tried it once (briefly), I’ll write more about it later.

At one point, I caught a glimpse of a motorcyclist who was weaving his way through traffic (‘cause nobody got time for that). But instead of riding with another person…he had his arms wrapped around a dog. Because why not?

 

PART 2: Some other things I’ve noticed

Over the next few days, I was surprised by how much Buenos Aires reminded me of Madrid. I haven’t been in a while, but I spent parts of my high school summers there, taking language classes and exploring the city by day, and sleeping on my family’s couch by night. Before arriving in Buenos Aires, I heard a bunch of references to it as the “Paris of South America,” due to the abundance of European-style mannerisms and architecture. And from what I’ve seen so far, those references were pretty spot on because sometimes I forget that I’m walking around a city that sits far below the Tropic of Capricorn. While Buenos Aires is filled with the normal traffic, construction, and smells of any major city, the plethora of cafes and plazas feels very European. I’ve definitely spent dozens of hours just wandering through the city streets, probably looking like a crazy person because I’m smiling so much.

Something else that I’ve noticed, since it’s summertime and all…is the lack of air conditioning. It’s definitely been a bit of an adjustment, albeit one I was expecting, but I’ve gotten into the rhythm of blasting my ceiling fan, leaving the window open (my room is on the tenth floor so it’s safe!), and using the built-in window shutters to keep the hot sun out during the day.

I’m super grateful that I live so close to the city center because it means that I can walk almost everywhere….but because I can walk most places, it also means that I am still learning how to use the public transportation system. The colectivo (bus) routes cover the majority of the city and the Subte (subway) is generally a pretty reliable way to get around. I still have trouble locating the colectivo stops (since the signs are regularly attached to the sides of trees and kiosks) and I can never get my Sube card to work the first time I tap it, but I’m working on it! I’ll have to use public transportation to get to class, so I’m sure I’ll get better at it in the weeks to come.

I think that the thing I struggled with the most during my first week was getting my Argentinian phone number set up. I’ll spare you the gritty details, but the process involved three trips to the Movistar store: one in which I realized that I’d forgotten to unlock my phone, one in which I had to present my original passport to register the phone number, and one in which my host mom went with me because I couldn’t figure out how to communicate that my data still wasn’t working. Data and phone plans are expensive for many Argentinians, so the majority of people (at least to the best of my knowledge) use a pre-paid option, in which you recharge your balance at one of the numerous corner stores that boast a “kiosco” sign. The pre-paid plan wouldn’t have been too hard to wrap my head around, but then they tried to explain to me a system of bonuses, where as soon as you added money to your SIM card (el chip), you would have to send a text to a phone number to get triple, quadruple, quintuple the credit on your chip…and I got lost. Check it out for yourself – maybe you can explain it to me better.

 

 

PART 3: On learning lunfardo and (attempting) to communicate with porteños

Argentinian Spanish (or more specifically, porteño Spanish) is notorious for its heavy accent (“yo” is pronounced like “joe”) and elaborate slang, lunfardo. They also use the word vos instead of tú when referring to someone in the second-person (equivalent of “you”), which no other Spanish dialects use. From my experience, I’ve observed that many Argentines tend to speak rapidly, often blending their words together (not true of all Argentines, obviously). I feel embarrassed a lot of the time because I have to ask people to speak slower and to repeat themselves so much. I’ve taken Spanish classes for over half my life at this point, but so much of the time I feel like an incompetent mute who is being exposed to a new language for the first time. I know that language acquisition is a process that takes time, so I’m trying to cut myself some slack, but it’s still hard sometimes.

For my “Cross Cultural Engagement” class at Tulane, we read a piece that featured some strategies for adjusting to life abroad. The strategy that resonated the most with me was about asking questions. I’ve asked so, so many questions over the past two weeks. If I don’t understand something on a menu, I’ll ask. If I didn’t catch a set of directions because I accidently zoned out, I ask the speaker to repeat themselves. Today at dinner, I realized that I had no idea how to print out homework assignments from my laptop, so I asked one of the Argentinian students who I live with to help me. In terms of getting lost during classes, its super common for students to form study groups, so I plan to take advantage of that tradition. Hopefully I’ll meet some new Argentinian friends along the way!

 

PART 4: Looking forward

It feels like the more I learn (about Buenos Aires, porteño identity, you name it), the more questions I have. What is the Jewish-porteño community like? Has La Boca always been a dangerous neighborhood? What do indigenous cultures look like in Argentina? Questions on questions on questions. I plan on visiting museums and doing internet research to answer some of these questions, but I really hope to get the majority of these answers from conversations with the people I meet on this adventure. I probably won’t figure out all the answers, but that’s just life, right?

I have a couple goals for this semester. Some goals are more trivial, like going to Patagonia and learning how to tango. Others are a little more of a time commitment, like learning how to speak Spanish fluently. My biggest goal is slightly more personal, but I’ll try to put it into words. If you don’t like cheesy self-help shit (or cursing), now might be a good time to peace out.

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You decided to stay? Good.

I’ll have more on this goal when I can find the words to adequately describe it.