Bienvenidos!

Welcome to my Argentine travel blog! Yes, that means I am officially legit. I will be living and studying in Buenos Aires, Argentina from now until November, so if you'd like to keep up with me and follow along, I will be sharing my great South American exploits right here, just for you!

I am studying abroad through International Studies Abroad (ISA) and will be taking Spanish language, tango, and Argentine cultural classes at the University de Belgrano in Buenos Aires. I am living with a beautiful family that came highly reccommended! Ana is the head of the household and she has a boyfriend, a 17 year old daughter, and a 19 year old son who will be my Latin surrogates for the next few months. I am so thrilled to meet them soon!

My plane leaves tomorrow afternoon, and if I were smart I'd be trying to catch some sleep right now, but currently my brains are about as jumbled as the contents of my carryon spread all over my bed. Tonight is the last night I'll spend in America for quite some time. This I realized as I strolled through the Oceanside Harbor today "for the last time," ate my mother's magic potatoes "for the last time," and watched So You Think You Can Dance "for the last time." How morbid?! But could it be that tonight I'm choosing to highlight my "lasts" not in a last ditch effort to cling to all that is American, but maybe to prepare for the vast sea of "firsts" lying ahead of me? I'd love to list off the millions of personal goals I want to achieve with this trip, but somehow that doesn't seem right. Recently I've often found myself asking "What should I expect?" And there is so much that is wrong with that question!! Words like "expect" and "should" beg the assumption that I should have presupposed standards for what is about to unfold for me. Isn't the whole purpose of assimilating into a foreign culture to dispell those exact presuppositions?

So I guess, here's to not knowing! Here's to fudging Spanish vocabulary, and misreading maps, and "What did I just eat?" meals! Here's to new friends, and a new home, and a brand new sense of self. I'm welcoming it all: love, fear, adventure, and that vast and enticing unknown.