We're here!

The flight from Dallas to Buenos Aires was a little over 9 hours, and went very smoothly after being rescheduled. (At the Austin airport, the Continental woman told me I would miss my connection and was therefore flying American and through a different city. “Your flight leaves in 30 minutes. Run!”) It was about a thirty minute cab ride from the airport through the suburbs, then shantytowns, then city center to our hotel in the capitol district. Our rooms are beautiful! Pictured below is Paloma, my wonderful roommate whom I met in Legal Spanish first semester, in front of our room's kitchenette.

Most of the other students arrived today—there are three rising sophomores, two rising juniors, and five rising seniors, all with different internships in the city. Everyone is really nice and we’ve already had some adventures dining and walking around the city together. Right now we just order a lot of food based on trial and error. Paloma and I had very strange sandwiches at lunch today—called “de miga" and made on white bread with the crusts cut off, they are apparently very Argentine. We ate weird potato and tamale casseroles for dinner and scored on some empanadas (something I understand) for appetizers. On weeknights, we’ll be cooking for ourselves—we already bought two mangos and three avocados for three dollars!—but the kids who did this last summer encouraged us to go out on weekends as much as possible because the food is so good and the Argentine peso is so weak against the US dollar right now (1 dollar is 3.75 pesos). A cappuccino costs 5 pesos or 1.34 USD!

After dinner we walked to the Congress building, two blocks from our hotel. Below are Dan, Nico, Paloma, and Chris. It was especially beautiful at night even in a light rain...I already love Buenos Aires. It reminds me of a cross between Paris and Mexico, and Paloma commented that for her it was New York City mixed with the Dominican Republic, so depending on where you’ve been, it’s Latin and very cosmopolitan.