My entire excursion began yesterday morning at approximately 10 a.m. when we left my home in Rockville, MD and traveled the 45 minutes to BWI airport. After making various plans with my peers from the program on our UNCUYO facebook group I was under the impression that I would be the only person traveling from the DC metro area... but alas I was mistaken! After about a half hour of waiting in gate C20 I met Annabel, a fellow Marylander who was going to be traveling to Mendoza through the IFSA-Butler program. Granted I only found this out by stealthily eavesdropping on her conversation with her father. Unlike myself Annabel is well traveled having been in Wyoming the week before for a wilderness EMT training course. At least I know I will be safe around her! Our flight to Dallas was short and sweet but I sat next to this 16 year-old boy who didn't really understand the idea of me taking a nap on the plane and proceeded to talk to me about his video game and scary movie collection the whole plane ride, at least that was until I put in my headphones and he got the idea.
Once we arrived in Dallas (which was ridiculously huge) I got separated from Annabel and had to take the shuttle train to my gate where I met this lovely woman who was headed back to El Salvador and found herself quite turned around, I tried to help her as best I could but I knew as little as anyone how to maneuver around the airport. Finally I arrived to where I was supposed to be after asking almost everyone, surprised that most of them responded to me in spanish when I asked where the Buenos Aires gate was located. Once I was situated I spotted Annabel and another girl I had recognized from the facebook group Coral. We all got to talking until more and more girls from our program began showing up. It got to the point where it looked slightly ridiculous how many females were all sitting in a circle in our gate. All the girls were fab and had great personalities that I could tell, some of them kind of knew each other from their home universities but I was completely unfamiliar with everyone. I broke out of my shell relatively quickly and we all began laughing and chatting away trying to spot any familiar guys who might be in our program. (Not that we had any idea but we figured any guy walking around dressed for winter with a lot of luggage might be a good bet to be in our program).
We started boarding the plane at around 7:30pm Dallas time which was fine we were all beyond confused since the announcer was speaking in Spanish to all of us boarding the plane. Once I stepped onto the shuttle that was to take us to Buenos Aires I was completely overwhelmed; the plane was HUGEEE and had four or five sections to it-needless to say I looked like a moron who had completely overpacked knocking into people left and right as I moved down the aisle. I eventually found my seat next to a pleasant, though tired looking gentleman. He could tell right away that I was not from Argentina and we got to talking about all sorts of things mostly related to Argentina. He offered to talk in Spanish to help me practice but I quickly declined explaining that my Spanish would improve eventually but slightly in denial that I was just embarrassed. He gave me some pointers as to how to behave to fit in culturally and of some places to check out while in Buenos Aires for our short trip. He told me about his wife and his travels as an employee for the Cisco Network (the human network).
As I drifted in and out of sleep I began to realize that I may have some extreme difficulty adjusting to slumber on a plane no matter how comfortable the pillows and blankets may have been. Before I knew it though, there was only twenty minutes left before our landing and my nerves set in for real. We all exited the plane all 16 of us who eventually met outside of the landing and then we made the intimidating trek through customs. Of course I had accidentally left my survey sheet on the plane(we needed to give them this information to prove we had a place to stay while in the country). I hustled to fill out the forms and got back in the outrageously long line. Once we got through customs, which happened to be way less intimidating than I had expected we met our bus driver in the lobby holding up a sign for Universidades Mendoza. We proceeded to stand in the lobby for a while waiting for the rest of the group to catch up to us before boarding the bus. Once we got on the bus we realized that we were actually the last to arrive as we met up with most of the rest of our program.
We checked into the program with ease and coincidentally Annabel and I were given our shared room keys first which was a huge relief because after a night of traveling and sweating while lugging our suitcases around a shower and a nap were much needed. So we both showered in our lovely hotel room and then decided to skip the nap and tour some of buenos aires. Our first stop was to exchange our dollars for Argentine pesos. The process was surprisingly quick except that our banker was frustrated with my lack of comprehension and Annabel had forgotten her passport so I had to get her money converted for her which was hardly a problem. Then on our way back we stopped by for some Capuchinos with chocolate which were incredible and our two drinks together were only $32 pesos which is about $4 in U.S. dollars. The barristos could tell we were American so we gave up on trying and they seemed highly entertained by us (which was fine with me). Afterwards we meandered back to our hotel room before our lunch was to begin.
Lunch was an incredible presentation of three courses, to start we had freshly cut tomatoes and basil with mozzarella cheese, followed by an incredible steak with fried potatoes and mixed garden vegetables, followed by a bowl of mixed fruit and great Argentine coffee. My new mantra for this entire trip is to try everything, even if I know I am not a huge fan of a certain thing, I will eat it out of politeness. Lunch was a great opportunity to meet some new faces and catch up on all our various travel stories. And now it is after lunch and I think I am headed for a nap to catch up on my lack of sleep and then for orientation at 5!! It seems like I've been here for months already and it has only been half a day. I am thrilled to see what's in store for the rest of the week.
Keep ya posted
MB
Thanks for the update! Definitely embrace the adventure! Can't wait to read more & see pics! Happy birthday!
ReplyDelete