iLlegamos!

Let's see... the past few days have been a bit of a whirlwind with traveling and so on. We (Kathleen, Alex, and I) left Richmond airport Wednesday night and flew to Atlanta. We had just enough time to get to the international gate before they called people to start boarding. (Who knew the Atlanta airport had a subway to take you from gate to gate? Well, Alex did, since he seems to wiki everything in sight.) We boarded the plane, and of course, where should I be, but in the middle of the middle, the only row that's not by a window or an aisle. Fun. This flight was 10 hours from Atlanta to Santiago via boredom, cramped seats, and awkward neighbors. The poor guy I was sitting next to was the epitome of whipped by his wife. He kept offering to help, but she just fussed at him. On the other side was a small, morose woman who I can only guess was Brazilian from the fact that I couldn't understand a word she said. After a fitful night's sleep - scratch that, maybe three hours of sleep - we got to Santiago. Three hours of walking around the tourist shops and the duty-free stuff, we got on the plane to Buenos Aires. Aerolinias Argentinas has a reputation for stunning flight attendants and free-flowing wine. It's well deserved. I didn't have any of the wine, since I wanted to make a good impression on the people we'd be studying with for the next 5 months, but the attendants were indeed gorgeous. Also, the view of the Andes from the air is worth every penny. I've never seen a land more ruggedly beautiful and inhospitable. We got to Buenos Aires and had to got through customs and immigration (which proved to be easy enough, if long). A couple of guys drove us from there to La Plata, where we went directly to the hostel. Frankville is humble, but only costs the equivalent of $12 a night. After a nap, we went out to dinner at around 9:30. Way late to us, and way early to everyone around us. We wandered around aimlessly until we found the restaurant district, which is a booming place. Argentina has plenty of economic troubles, but you wouldn't guess it from the way people eat out. We ate at a place called Vitaminas, where my enormous plate of raviolis (I've never had better) and a glass of wine cost me 20 pesos. That's maybe 6 bucks. (100 US dollars = 385 Argentine pesos.) When we headed back to the hostel, we met up with Phil and played Kings until we all knew each other very well. We chatted for a while with some of the others, mostly Argentines, staying in the hostel and headed to bed. By this time, it was 4 in the morning, which it turns out is completely normal.

The next day we met up with Diego to go over our program, went out to lunch, and Kathleen and I went shopping for more warm-weather clothes. We went out again that night with 5 guys and 1 girl from the hostel for pizza. What characters!
Yaco y Jesus are both 21 and from Patagonia, and have just moved to La Plata to try and get their band off the ground. Apparently Patagonia is very content with the status quo, conservative, and one of the worst places try and break out of the mold. They're moving into a house not far from where Alex, Kathryn, and I are living, so we should be seeing a good deal of them.
Melina, at 18 is the youngest of the group. She's beautiful, flirty, and smokes like a chimney. But then again, they all do.
El Mexicano is loud and chatty. It's hard to catch names, and I don't know his or the other two's. This guy's from D.F. (Mexico City, like Washington is abbreviated to letters) and likes to compare cultures. We had a fairly long discussion of what makes the west coast and east coast different, and what the south really means. I don't know if it's typical of Mexicans are versus South Americans, but this guy spoke at least three times as much.
El lider is quieter, but what he does say is very astute. He seemed to be the natural leader of the group, deciding where to eat, and that we were going to walk to La Plaza Moreno afterwards. He's got a eyebrow piercing, which seems to be pretty common.
The last guy, I'll call him El Bajo can't be more than 5'2". He says he's 24, but he looks 15. He didn't say all that much at dinner, but he smiled and laughed easily.

I'll write more about Claudia's house and our observations later, but it's almost lunch time now. (Breakfast at 12, lunch at 2, and dinner at 10 - my stomach's confused.)

Abrazos para todos y besos para Mateo,
Emily