It’s 11PM. My flight to Santiago, Chile leaves in 9 hours. I haven’t packed yet. And, I haven’t even eaten dinner.

But, I just had one of the best experiences in my two months in Buenos Aires, and I have to write about it: I finally went to a tango lesson!

A friend of mine recommended that I take lessons from one professor, so three compañeros and I hopped on a bus and took it to an unassuming little studio on a corner. We knocked on the door, and fumbling our words, tried to say that we were looking for the tango class. After the woman at the door realized what we were asking, she let us in to this exclusive tango haven. We waited awkwardly for the teacher to arrive, chatting with some of the veterans.

At long last, a petite older man walked in, parting the sea of attendees as he approached us. He asked us who were; we dropped some names; and our lesson commenced.

He began by asking us if we had ever taken a tango class before, so we told him about our one experience at IES (it was part of orientation week). He asked us to demonstrate what we learned and quickly halted our hilarious attempt. “Let’s start from scratch.”

He told us that first we need to dance with our shoulders, the woman’s hands on the man’s shoulders, to be exact. The man needs to guide the woman, which he can do with a little pressure on the shoulder. He’d nudge my right shoulder, and I would instinctually turn to the right–and the same on the other side.

For those of you who have followed my blog from the beginning, you know I have a problem with “letting go.” This time, I was determined to be a follower for once and let go. AND I DID IT. I cleared my head, occasionally closed my eyes, and let my partner guide me around the dance floor. What a freeing feeling! We danced and danced, engraining the basic steps into our muscle memory. Much to our surprise, he praised our progress, assuring us that he wouldn’t say “está bien,” if it were wrong.

He told us that tango is something you have to feel in your soul, your alma, so we need to get out of our heads, listen to the music, and let our bodies move with the fluid melodies. Although we were supposed to be serious and not laugh or talk, that class was so much fun! I’ve had a very stressful day filled with midterms and last-minute planning, and tango-ing put me completely at ease. I still feel so peaceful right now. Not many things can completely clear my head–I swear my brain is always moving a mile a minute–but somehow tango managed to do that. While I was dancing, all I thought about were the steps, my partner, and the music. I read once that some people compare tango to finding your zen. I completely understand that now. I may have finally found my gateway to tranquility.

I swear I’m in love. I’m in love with tango. I’m in love with my teacher. I’m in love with this wonderful feeling.

*Disclaimer: This was written a week ago, but I had no Wifi, so I couldn’t post this until I got back from trip.*

More blog posts to come this week: I’ll try to give you a glimpse into my vacation of a lifetime to Chile and Peru, but it’s hard to describe an indescribable exp

Location: My apartment, Buenos Aires

Hey everyone! Sorry that it’s been so long since my last post…I never want to take a break from running around Buenos Aires to reflect! So, I’m going to try to cram in a few of my adventures in this post to catch up.

I didn’t know this before I came here, but Buenos Aires is home to a world-renowned circus-type show entitled Fuerza Bruta (“brute force” translated). Since its creation in 2005, this “post-modern theatre show,” as it’s described, has spread to major cities around the world, including our very own NYC! Its goal is to encourage interaction between the performers and the audience, creating a unique experience each time. The best way I can describe it is a demented version of Cirque de Soleil. The show went something like this: they packed all of us in a fairly small room and we stood as the acrobats circled around us, screaming, chanting, singing, banging drums, and doing flips in the air–it’s crazy! Throughout the show, seizure-inducing lights danced around the constantly changing canvasses, making me feel like I was in another dimension. The performers got up close and personal, encouraging us to join them in exploring our own “brute” sides. My description doesn’t do it justice, but it was one of the most intriguing experiences that I’ve had in Argentina so far–definitely a must-see in B.A.

Besides that incredibly insane show, I’ve been exploring some other cultural hubs around Buenos Aires. One of these is the MALBA, or the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires. It’s pretty small, but it currently has a really interesting exhibition by Le Parc Lumière, a French artist. An inventive thinker, he wanted to create art that wasn’t static. He wanted his art to evolve and breathe. Thus, he put together an exhibit that plays with lights and glass (picture and video below). The piece consists of a dark room with lights from every angle reflecting off of different pieces of glass. It was kind of like an out-of-body experience; I was mesmerized, like a child during her first snowstorm. It’s amazing how something so simple can be so thought provoking.

Another museum I visited with my anthropology class is the Museo de la Plata, which is a natural history museum filled with fossils and indigenous relics. We’ve been learning about the founder, Francisco Moreno, and his controversial collection of native human remains. He used to display the skeletons of hundreds of indigenous people throughout the museum, but a fairly new law forced the museum to remove this part of the collection and guard them in another room that’s closed to the public. Now, the museum has become a taxidermy showcase. It’s interesting to see such a variation of creatures all in one place, but throughout the whole visit, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had stumbled into someone’s creepy basement and discovered their secret fetish. There were dinosaur bones, stuffed birds, preserved insects, and even one human mummy still on display. It appeared outdated, but that was part of its “charm,” I suppose. It definitely served as a stark contrast to the sleek and modern MALBA.

As you can gather from reading this, Buenos Aires is an eclectic city that never sleeps, so I have the privilege of discovering a new side every week. It’s incredible. There’s much to come ahead, including my first writing assignment for my internship at the Buenos Aires Herald.  Stay tuned!
IMG_0887.MOV

Location: Recoleta, MALBA, Museo de la Plata

Before I launch into my experience in Argentina’s countryside, I want to clarify my last blog post. There are two places you can take classes through IES–at the IES center itself and at local Argentine universities. My last post was referring to my trial run of classes at a local Argentine university (USAL). While I will not be taking classes at USAL, I will be taking a full semester’s worth of classes at the IES center–all in Spanish. I’m not just taking an incredible four-month hiatus from the real world.

Now that that’s out of the way, I’ve got to tell you all about my taste of Argentina’s roots at La Estancia–a ranch in the countryside. First, a little background: Argentina has a blended identity–one part “civilized” immigrants and the other native cultivators of the land. The gauchos are, in essence, the quintessential cowboys that lived along the frontier. Two weeks ago, we got to experience this more serene side of Argentina.

It was great to escape the smoke-filled airs of the city for a day and relax in the sunshine at La Estancia. We watched the animals roaming around the farm, listened to traditional gaucho music, and sampled the typical Argentine “asado.” The music was passionate and melancholy, and seemed to evoke the national sentiment of the gauchos. The food was…an experience. They had a lot of bread, of course, and A LOT of meat. There was chorizo, chicken, beef, pork, and the one I had been waiting to try…morcilla, a.k.a. blood sausage. Three years ago, I wouldn’t even have allowed that to touch my plate. But, I turned over a new leaf a few years ago, and now I’m on a mission to taste (almost) everything once. I apologize to anyone who likes morcilla, but it was definitely one of the most disgusting foods I have ever eaten. It tastes a lot worse than it looks in this picture. Bleh! The texture was like paté, and the taste was indescribable. I’m glad I can check that off the bucket list, because I don’t intend to repeat that experience.

To close out the day, we watched the Doma India, who is, in essence, a “horse whisperer,” do acrobatics with his horse. It was very intimate and intense–the connection this man had with his horse. Apparently, he’s world-renowned, so it was a privilege to see a private performance.

While the day trip was wonderful, I continued my string of embarrassing touristy mishaps that night: It was 11 PM, and my friend and I were hungry. We just wanted a quick, cheap dinner, so we decided to check out a cute little Italian place near her apartment. We sat down, opened the menus, and then immediately looked at each other wide-eyed–“Uh-oh.” Thinking that we were grabbing something cheap, I had only brought about 150 pesos–the equivalent of $15 in the states. Everything on the menu had three (Argentine) dollar signs. But, we couldn’t just get up and leave–that would probably be a faux pas. We were stuck, so we ordered one meal and one water bottle to share (yes, you pay for the water here), and laughed our way through dinner. I’m pretty sure our faces were as red as the sauce by the time we left. Stupid Americans. Naturally, we drowned our embarrassment in delicious gelato and retreated to our beds.

Sorry that this post was so long, but there is even more to come! I finally started my  internship and spent a wonderful weekend by the waterfalls of Iguaz

Location: La Estancia, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Woah. I attended my first classes at a local university this week–at Universidad del Salvador, to be exact. They were rough…

I tested the waters with an Informative Journalism workshop and what I thought was International Business, but was actually International Negotiation. “Negocio” means business in Spanish, so I assumed that “negociación” fell under the same umbrella. Nope–it’s different.

The journalism class seemed promising. I understood the theory discussion, and I loved the professor. He was engaging, easy to understand, and would probably receive a chili pepper on Rate My Professors (which doesn’t hurt). But then, he told us to write…and that’s when I probably looked like a deer in headlights. My Spanish writing level is probably closer to 4^th grade than the required 8^th grade level for print journalism. So, you can imagine how well that assignment went.

Next, came the International Negotiation class. This class is for fourth year students studying International Relations. From what I could understand, there was a lot of background knowledge I was lacking, so I crossed that class off the list.

Even with all the aforementioned blunders, these classes gave me a great glimpse into the life of a 20-year old Argentine. While there are many similarities between Argentine and United States universities, there are some distinct cultural differences worth mentioning:

1.     “Only God deserves an A” here. The emphasis is not on achieving a perfect GPA–it’s on passing the class and understanding the material. On a grading scale of 0 to 10, a passing grade of 5 equals success.

2.     Professors aren’t expected to be at a student’s beck and call. On the contrary, many run out of the classroom as soon as they’re done teaching. And–they arrive after all the students–usually late.

3.     While some professors back in the states like to foster a laid-back atmosphere, here it’s extremely informal. The two professors I observed didn’t prepare a colorful presentation with interactive clicker questions. They wrote a few things on the board and talked to us about the topic, with students interjecting throughout the lecture.

4.     If your professor provides you with a notes packet, take the time to thank them. In Buenos Aires, you fend for yourself. Here, students bring a notebook and pen and write down everything, because this will become their bible for test prep.

5.     Students aren’t expected to spend their life-savings on books here, either. They can pick up a photo-copied text in the student center for FREE. I’m 100% in favor of this custom.

Thus, instead of killing myself to try to measure up to an impossible standard, I’m going to try my hand at some competitive internships and local dance or music classes. Maybe I’ll master the tango after all! Next week, I have a series of interviews with both Argentine and American companies, so I hope to find a good fit and really get a taste of what it’s like to work abroad.

I’ll keep you posted! ¡Ciao!

P.S. The above picture is from the USAL website, because I forgot to take one when I was scrambling to find my class.

Location: Universidad del Salvador, Callao Street, Buenos Aires, Argentina

“El tango es uno” translates to “the tango is one” or “there is only one tango,” and it’s one of the most well known sayings about the Argentine dance. Essentially, it means that there is a certain way to dance the tango, a certain feeling, a certain characteristic that sets it apart from all other dances. I finally got a taste of that this past week!

Another common saying is “para bailar bien el tango, hay que aprender a caminar bien,” which translates to “to dance tango well, one has to learn to walk well.” Our instructor kept repeating, “You’re just walking. Don’t think too much.” That explains why I wasn’t the star of the class today… He said that tango is another language, and you have to learn to feel and trust it–no  translating, as he put it.

With that being said, I think I did pretty well for my first try! Tango truly is magnificent both to watch and to dance. It’s an important flavor of the Argentine culture–my favorite next to dulce de leche. After this trip, I’m either going to come back a master bailarina or 20 pounds heavier.

Fingers crossed that the first one comes true 😉

P.S. Sorry that it’s taken me so long to post–the Wifi in my homestay is very spotty, so I haven’t been able to post to my blog. I’m on a mission to find a go-to cafe where I can enjoy a little cup of caf� con leche and access the Internet much faster!

Location: Caminito in La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina--home to the famous colorful buildings and people