If you are or have been reading this blog to find out exactly what it feels like to study abroad in Buenos Aires: stop. I’m sorry if I’ve deluded you into thinking that I can perfectly convey what this experience meant to me and to those of us who studied there. I lied. But I did try. Throughout all my blogs, I have attempted to give glimpses, poignant memories, and emblematic experiences, which I believed to have defined my time in Buenos Aires.
But I am sorry. I apologize for not saying this sooner. Although, to be fair to myself, I had not come to this realization until I was already stepping onto my plane-ride back to the United States. I should have issued this following caveat. No words can precisely detail what the last five months have been like. Reflection and anecdotes are illustrative, but not encapsulating. Though stories, both told and untold, may communicate aspects of my experience in Buenos Aires, the whole experience is something that can only be fully understood as it is lived, rather than described.
Now that I have been back home for two days, I have recognized that I have left part of myself back in Buenos Aires. It’s not that I am not excited to be home. I am. I missed my country, my friends, and my family dearly. But with my return back to the United States, I have realized that I have passed through yet another transition in my life. You see, there never was and never again will be a time in my life of such pure, unbridled freedom as my five months in Buenos Aires.
My responsibilities were slim. Take care of yourself, do well in school, sponge in all the culture you can in five months, and come home alive. I’ve done all that with aplomb. I’ve reaped the benefits of living and learning in the city that never sleeps. My Spanish has improved tremendously, my world-view has been broadened (trite yet true), my opinions have been challenged (and some, changed), and my personality has further evolved.
I owe the city of Buenos Aires, its people, and my friends who were there with me, an enormous debt. A debt, much like the federal debt, that cannot ever be paid off. In this sense, I have left a sort of IOU in Buenos Aires – and probably some forgotten items as well – but I have also brought something extra home with me. I have brought the wisdom from my experience back with me; the memories of my exploration compiled in my journal, in my blogs, in my photos, in my head, and in my heart. These are traits, no, treasures, which I will exhibit proudly, just as proudly as I will fly the Argentine flag on the wall above my bed at school.
So while a piece of me and the footprints of my wanderings may remain in Argentina, I have come back to the United States better than I have left it. The challenge now is to harness what I have learned (primarily outside of the classroom) and put it to good use in my life. In broader terms, there were parts of Buenos Aires that I hated. And parts that I loved. There are things that Argentina can learn from America. But there are also lessons that America can learn from Argentina. I have had the privilege to learn these. And that is interculturalism at its finest.
As I draw to a close on this final Argentina blog, I want to offer yet another apology. I have rambled quite a bit in this last entry. Perhaps it’s because some reflections, particularly the most thorough and comprehensive ones, cannot achieve the same lucidity as the recollection of those that center upon one single event. For this reason, I am struggling with this last blog post. Or maybe I’m just making excuses. How can I do justice to my last 5 months, to the city that gave me so much?
That’s not the right way to say it either. I’d have erased that if this were pencil and paper. Buenos Aires is not a city to me. It’s not the organized chaos of those familiar one-way streets and those two-way avenues mixed in. It’s not the home of Teatro Colon or the widest road in the world (cough, Nueve de Julio). It’s not the grid of lights that almost brought tears to my eyes from outside the plane window as I watched it recede into the night. Buenos Aires is not physical to me.
It is mental. It is emotional. Its buildings, its streets, its layout are all shaped by the people who live there, and the people who lived it with me. Buenos Aires, to me, is an abstract construction. A once-in-a-lifetime fantasy that will never be the same again because the circumstances, the people, and the juncture in my life, will never be exactly as they were during those 5 months. Buenos Aires, the city, will exist forever on the map. Buenos Aires, the experience, lived for 5 short months, 5 beautiful months. Now, it is my job, my solemn duty, to ensure that this experience will live on perpetually in my head and in my heart.
