Yesterday was my first full week in Buenos Aires but these past seven days have felt like so much longer. Throwing myself into everything that I need to learn to get around BA and enjoy the city is to be honest, exhausting. I have to be patient with myself and realize that each day there are little victories. And as much as everyone at home says how lucky I am and how they wish they were here, I want anyone considering traveling abroad to understand that it is a lot of work. The payoff is great and perhaps the biggest reward is that as a result of having to navigate such a different set of rules, customs, and language, you will know so much more about yourself as a person, what you can handle, what scares you, how you cope with the stress of being far from home or struggling with tasks that were previously simple such as taking a bus or going to class. You gain a level of self-sufficiency that allows you to know that almost always, you can do what you think you cannot, it just might take a few tries. I considered myself a pretty independent and self-sufficient person before I went abroad last summer and came back knowing that I can handle much more than I thought. I know that being in BA will do that for me as well. Roll with the punches.
Aside from my philosophies on life, yesterday I went to La Boca which is a working class barrio in BA known for its colorful houses and tango. It's on the port and has a bad reputation for being a place you don't want to be after dark, especially as a foreigner and as a woman. During the day however, La Boca is full of tourists looking for a photo with a tango dancer or to take pictures of the iconic bright houses.
I walked around with my camera and did my best to notice the unnoticed. I snapped quiet pics of the old men sitting on a bench with their white hair and canes and the man dressed as a devil enjoying a cup of mate outside a restaurant, the alleyway leading to someone's apartment. To me, these seemingly unimportant people and places are often where the best stories lie and the most interesting characters reside. There was so much color in La Boca, so many murals and paintings and different decorations. My eyes overloaded on the richness and vibrancy of the sheer volume of color that surrounded me and I wished that other parts of BA had this same kind of visual intensity.
After crashing back at my homestay, I went out for my first major night in BA. I left the apartment at 12am. This was leaving early. Meeting up with some friends from IES, we walked to the bus stop to wait for the 39 line heading to Palermo SoHo or as I call it, Bar Land. As we walked along Santa Fe avenue, we passed little kids eating ice cream with their parents or families in the middle of dinner. Saddest sight on the walk to the bus stop was a group of Argentinian girls who weren't any older than 14, dressed in far too little clothing and all clinging to their cigarettes. I wanted to throw a blanket over them and tell them to value their childhood! BA goes hard, even at 14.
Going out in BA when you don't know the ropes is a lot like being a freshman at college. You don't know where you should go, or much of how to get there. You fumble with what you say, the dumb questions you ask, and you reek of new kid on the block. But that is just part of the game. A fun night later spent at an outdoor bar, I quietly rolled into my homestay at the ripe old hour of 5am. Crawled into bed and opened up the Hulu. Hulu isn't available to those outside the US.
BA struggles.
Off to shower and make friends with the butcher on the corner.
besitos
-j
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