Blogs
My intro... a bit late
I’m staring at the itinerary Continental emailed me today, but it still feels as fake as ever. In three days I’ll be on a plane. Four hours in one chair followed by fifteen hours in another somehow gets you to the other side of the world or Buenos Aires.
My name is Liz. I am a junior in Gallatin studying Social Justice. Buenos Aires as a study abroad location is the result of a series of narrowing criteria. My own lack of time, likely from a lack of motivation, narrowed the entire world down to eleven cities; by the time I decided I needed to study abroad the only due dates I had not missed were for the NYU abroad programs. Then my own stubborn need to feel like the past year and a half of Spanish classes have not been in vain, eleven became two, Madrid and Buenos Aires. In the end, I checked the Buenos Aires box because, although I have never visited either city, Buenos Aires somehow feels less accessible, I guess. It seems there are more opportunities to visit Europe, get to know that continent, than South America. Buenos Aires fits the criteria, but in the end it did come to down to a choice.
But honestly, I’m trying to keep my expectations low. I know it will be different. There will be a lot of Spanish speakers with funny accents all in one place. It will be hot. And I leave it at that. If you are sensing apathy, I promise it’s a front. I’m actually terrified, and my reaction is to think about it as little as possible. I don’t know if four months is enough to get to a know a place so foreign as anything other than that. I doubt I will be seen as or feel like anything but a tourist. I guess that’s ok, but terrifying.
My entire 21 years have been spent in San Francisco and New York. I have memories of only ever living in one house. The only time I have spent abroad was a failed attempt at a family vacation to France in sixth grade. In a few days I’m going to be about as foreign as I’ve ever been in my life. I have no idea what to expect. About all the research I’ve done is Wikipedia Buenos Aires once, and even then I was too lazy to read through the whole thing. Well, too late now.
it's so difficult to
it's so difficult to understand something like an email with your itinerary as being the ticket into an entirely different universe. i think modern technology, or other effects of globalization, have made travel into something different than what it "used to be" -- reading wikipedia entries, checking boxes on a screen... we're able to "see" places without being there. i think the feeling of your ticket being fake is totally relatable. i tend to have little expectations, too, but i don't think that's apathetic. i think that's a great attitude to have going into a journey -- because no matter what you expect, things will be different. there's an amount of imagination that's so important (and i think necessary) in traveling. it's like waking up in a dream within a dream. what's the benefit of being "realistic"?
i found your process of
i found your process of elimination regarding abroad destinations quite amusing. i for one took japanese in high school so that equates to four years down the drain as prague somehow made its way to the top. i took steve's class last semester, "abroad at home" (you study the site you're going to the following semester) and i found it interesting when comparing your expectations to mine, especially after having taken steve's class. you really cannot understand what a place is like until you are there. i could completely relate to your wikipedia experience because as much as you look at pictures and study a place, it still remains foreign and seemingly unreal until you are there. hope your spanish has been thriving thus far.