I'M SO EXCITEDDDDDDDD

Botanical Garden - Buenos Aires

I am very happy that I took this course because it provided me with the time and the motivation to research Buenos Aires. Over the weeks of the course, I feel as if I have developed at least a moderate level of familiarity with Buenos Aires, which is excellent considering that I knew very little about the culture of the city beforehand. I will admit, at first I was a little distraught about Abroad At Home because during the first two weeks, I was unhappy with the massive amounts of readings and even more, the endless negative perspectives that the readings conveyed about travel. Yet, after the entire class expressed dissatisfaction with the readings, the course took on a much more liberal and positive form that I began to enjoy.

Over the past few weeks, I have only become more excited about traveling to Buenos Aires. Initially, I had very few expectations of the city aside from a very limited set of generalizations about Argentines and their culture. As a result, everything I have learned about the food, the music, the cinema, etc., has produced a more tangible imagining of the place. Although many of our readings discussed the negative aspects of pre-existing expectations of place, I feel that I have learned about Buenos Aires on so many different and diverse levels, that I have gained a more democratic and variable understanding of what the city might be like.

There are so many things I am looking forward to next semester. First of all, I can’t wait to see the city. All I want to do is walk around the streets of Buenos Aires and soak it all up. I have learned so much about its different cultural aspects, but I still have no real perception of what the city looks like, how it is aligned, how the streets feel, or even how the air feels. I can’t wait until I am across the world in this completely foreign place. I want to feel and experience the city physically, rather than through words, images, and other forms of media. There is something so exciting about constructing a city in your imagination, and then being presented with the opportunity to experience it first hand.

More specifically, I look forward to eating Argentine meat (because it is supposedly SO amazing, even despite my usual preference for non-meat options). After my tango lesson here in NYC, I am also excited to learn the dance in Buenos Aires, and to attend my first tango show. I look forward to drinking yerba mate, and to experiencing the hopping nightlife that I have heard so much about. I can’t wait to read in the botanical gardens, learn about gauchos, drink Argentine wine, meet new people, travel to Rio de Janeiro for my break, meet my home stay family, see stray dogs, witness political uprisings, visit museums, take pictures of street art, party all night long and then go straight to intensive Spanish class the next morning, become completely immersed in the futbol obsession, participate in community service, go grocery shopping, go shoe shopping, eat empanadas, eat blood sausage (not), and improve my Spanish.

I am only concerned about being unable to speak Spanish well enough, and the possibility of being placed within a home stay that I don’t like.