Opening Up to Argentina

In about 4 hours, I’m leaving for Argentina. I’ll be there for about 5 months to “mejorar mi español” and take in the culture. I couldn’t be more excited. I decided that the best way for me to prepare to go abroad consists of a three-fold approach. It goes as follows.

1) I do some dutiful Facebook creeping on acquaintances who have done the Georgetown summer program in Argentina. Honestly, I can’t even stretch it to say they’re all my friends, I just happen to have a Facebook friendship with them and be fortunate enough that their photo albums and taggings from Argentina bombard my newsfeed. This informal research has been highly informative. I’ve learned a couple things.

Namely, Argentina is beautiful, Buenos Aires is fun, and there is much learning to be done outside the classroom. In short, it has confirmed many things that I already know. Yet it has made me even more eager to depart. I would talk about all the places and photos that I saw but I don’t want to deprive myself of fodder for further blogging just yet. See, I want to keep looking through the photos but I don’t want to fill myself with too many preconceptions or images before I go. I’m afraid I would take the wonder out of the sights I will be seeing. So I restrain myself from looking too thoroughly, and creeping too well. The latter was very difficult for me. (Don’t judge, we all do it).  For this same reason, I exercise caution in the second part of my preparation.

2) I sift through a couple guidebooks about Argentina that I purchased. I also read through all the literature that the CIEE program has provided me. This is both easy and helpful. For instance, I can now tell you that Argentina has climates that range from near Antarctic temperatures to weather befitting its subtropical terrain. Just as well, I have learned that Argentina is a highly homogenous country where Catholicism is the main religion. On this note, Buenos Aires is actually short for Puerto de Nuestra Señora Santa María de Buen Aire (no wonder this mouthful is truncated). Anyway, some of the best advice that CIEE gives is to keep an open mind. Thus, although I may peruse these guidebooks and know a handful of facts, I’m ready to head to Buenos Aires and explore. I don’t want to know everything about the culture or the country before I go. This is why I only skim the guidebook material and only partially creep on Facebook. Or maybe I’m just lazy. Regardless, I’m open to experience and this blog is a literal blank slate.

And this brings me to the third step of my pre-departure preparation. 3) I read other people’s blogs about traveling to Argentina to get an outsider’s perspective from the inside. This could and should be particularly helpful to me since I am looking to replicate this feat and improve upon it. What I’ve learned about blogging is that if you write like you know what you’re talking about, people will think you know what you’re talking about. Simple enough. So I’ll be trying to do that. Damn. I meant I’ll do that. Well, whatever, the truth is I have nearly no idea what I am talking about… yet. And that’s the beauty of it.