World´s Worst Blogger

That would be me. Even I’m impressed by how much I’ve managed to suck at blogging. Oh well. Sometime soon (I promise this time) I’ll write about all of my trips. Also, I finally put together a Picasa account. Check it out if you have time: http://picasaweb.google.com/cassiegare

Also, to make this post at least slightly worthwhile, I thought I’d add this email that I recently got from the State Department´s American´s Abroad ListServ. I think this pretty nicely sums up my time in Argentina, which has so far been characterized by flooding, farmer’s strikes, smoke, and now ash. Enjoy:

This message is being issued to inform American citizens residing in or traveling to Argentina of conditions in Argentina related to a volcanic eruption in Chile.

On May 2 the Chaitén Volcano in southern Chile erupted sending a plume of ash and steam 35,000 to 55,000 feet into the atmosphere. The eruption’s thick column of ash and smoke is moving east across the Patagonia Region of Argentina to the Atlantic Ocean. Media reports indicate that the ash cloud is fast moving and could reach Buenos Aires.

So far, Chubut Province, which includes the popular tourist attraction Peninsula Valdez, has been most affected by the ash. Provincial civil defense authorities post regular updates on conditions in Spanish at the following web site: http://www.chubut.gov.ar/dgdc/. Information in English may be obtained from the American Embassy’s web site at http://argentina.usembassy.gov.

Because of the ash fall and flight patterns through the affected areas, some airlines have cancelled flights, including some flights in and out of Buenos Aires on May 8. People with flight reservations are advised to check with their respective airlines to see if they can expect cancellations or delays.

Ash in the atmosphere can present health risks. If you have a respiratory ailment, special care should be taken to avoid contact with ash. Monitor local media for public health advisory notices.

The State Department offers the following tips for travelers in areas affected by volcanic eruptions:

* Wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants to avoid skin irritation.
* Use goggles to protect your eyes.
* Use a dust mask or hold a damp cloth over your face to help breathing.
* Avoid driving as ash can clog engines and cause cars to stall.
* Clear roofs of ash as it is very heavy and can cause buildings to collapse.

Up in smoke

Buenos Aires for the past few days:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7355723.stm

Disgust. Discuss amongst yourselves…

Academically Absurd

I know everyone’s been thinking - where’s Cassie? What will I do with my life now that she’s allowed her blog to fall into disuse? Well, my apologies to all currently relying on me as a procrastination crutch. I bet you’re wondering what I’ve been doing with my time instead of staring at my computer screen. The truth is, much as my grandfather feared would happen before I left, I’ve fallen in love and run away to live with a gaucho named Antonio in the Pampas, where we plan on raising cattle and a herd of our own youngins sometime in the near future…

Sorry. It’s just that my attempts at sarcasm en espanol usually fail, so I’ve got to take every opportunity I can get. Anyway, the real reason I’ve been elusive is because, after a 3+ month hiatus from academic life, I actually started classes between now and the last time I posted. And, much like was the case when I started college, I came to Argentina worrying about all of the wrong things: Will I have friends? Will I like my host family? Will I be able to communicate? As usual, the social things came easily and the whole school thing turned out to be kind of a shock to my system. In other words, actually having to do work - and, moreover, work that’s in Spanish - has hit me like a ton of bricks and, sadly, has precluded my initial travel blog enthusiasm.

But worry not, faithful reader(s). I’ve decided that it’s worth writing about my academic experiences, mostly because they’ve actually been fairly amusing (or, at least, I think that they’ve been fairly amusing). First, a word on the academic system here. In Argentina, as in many other parts of the world outside of the US, public = good, private = bad. This isn’t to say that the private universities aren’t nice; it’s just that to have a degree from the public university garners one a lot more respect than one from a private school, mostly because the public university is free. Yes, you read correctly (let’s not get into the other things that are free in Argentina, ahem health care ahem). There’s an assumption, therefore, which may or may not be correct, that students from the private universities bought their education because they weren’t able to handle the rigors of the public school. Whether or not I can handle the rigors of the public school has yet to be ascertained.

Through FLACSO, the program I’m studying with in BsAs, we can choose to take classes at 3 universities, as well as elective courses at the Ricardo Rojas cultural center. La Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) is the huge (read: 300,000 students) public university, with sites located all over the city. UCA, or la Universidad Catolica de Argentina (or something like that; it has a kind of long and Catholic-y name that I can’t fully remember and am too lazy to look up) is the relatively pristine private university that sits along the river in Puerto Madero. Aside from those two, we can also take classes at IUNA, which is an institute for the arts, and through FLACSO.

To put it bluntly, choosing courses here sucked. Pair the inefficiencies of Argentine bureaucracy with trying to fit classes from multiple schools into your schedule and you have a giant headache. After much internal debate, I finally settled on taking 1 class at FLACSO called “Seminar on Argentine Reality” (Pablo laughed when I told him this, and then probably laughed to himself even more as I tried to explain in Spanish what is meant by Argentine reality), and 2 seminars at UBA - one entitled “AIDS: Social and Political Implications and Professional Interventions”, and the other called “Analysis of the Social Practice of Genocide” (how uplifting!). I’m also taking an intensive Spanish class at UBA’s language lab which has been, surprisingly, fantastic. Even more fantastic is the fact that the class will end in mid-May, meaning I’ll only have class two days a week.

Anyway, simply because I’m so fascinated by academia here, I thought I’d include a few anecdotes/thoughts from my first weeks of class…

AIDS

The coolest thing about my AIDS seminar is seeing how Argentines learn/think about AIDS. For example, on the first day of class we had to write down the first three things that come to mind when we hear the words “AIDS.” This past week our professor put us in groups, passed out the lists we had written, and had us discuss what we thought (this class is in the social work school so it tends to be relatively nurturing…great for me, since I can use all of the nurturing I can get). None of the Argentines in my group could understand why someone, presumably an American, had written down “Africa.” They were fascinated as I explained that, in the US, AIDS and Africa are inextricably bound; here, AIDS is presented as a much more local issue.

To really give a sense of this course, I think it might be best to describe my first day of class. Let me preface by saying I was absolutely terrified going into class - I had imagined what I assumed to be the typical “UBA class” - hundreds of militant students sitting on broken chairs/the floor, surrounded by Marxist graffiti splattered over the walls, debating the degree to which they despise American cultural/political/economic imperialism. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the social work building is relatively new and clean, and to discover that my class was filled with about 35 friendly Argentine girls (and one mulleted, mate drinking guy). After introductions, etc, the professors decided we should play a little game. Everyone sat in a circle and was given a card with a different activity on it. Our task was to describe the activity to the class and then say whether we thought there was a high risk of transmitting AIDS associated with that activity. Not bad, right? Well, my card had two men having sex with a condom. Usually, no biggie. However, my limited Spanish vocabulary made this slightly more challenging. Thankfully people were pretty nice as I stumbled over the words “dos hombres, van a tener sexo…con…condon?” Oh well, at least I wasn’t the one who had to describe what a dental dam was to the whole class. Point 1 for the dumb gringa!

Thankfully, we soon moved on to the ways to transmit AIDS. Shockingly to me, none of the students knew a lot of the basic things we had learned in 8th grade sex ed class (see what happens when schools forgo comprehensive sex education?). Never one to come unprepared, Pablo, our ponytailed docent, whipped out a wooden penis and decided to give a demonstration of how to properly put on a condom. Clearly my preconceived notions of “conservative” Argentine society, at least in BsAs, were mistaken.

Genocide (my course titles read like a Human Rights Watch pamphlet, no?)

My genocide seminar is, like my AIDS class, offered under UBA’s Facultad de Ciencias Sociales (Faculty of Social Science); however, as it is part of the Sociology department, it’s given at a more “classic” UBA building on Marcelo T. de Alvear. Marcelo T. is what I had imagined earlier - packs of potentially militant students sitting on broken chairs/the floor, surrounded by Marxist graffiti splattered over the walls. Tom had warned me about the building before I got there - Imagine the worst inner city high school you can think of. Then make it five times worse - but I was still impressed with how run down it was. I was also impressed by how many images of Che the students had managed to scrawl on the walls. You can’t walk three feet in Marcelo T. without being offered 4 fliers about some event - Rally for a unified school building! Debate the Ministry of Education’s new policies! Meeting of the student Marxist association! The propaganda doesn’t stop in the hallways. My classroom was covered in posters, fliers and graffiti, mostly with communist undertones. I did, however, manage to get a decent seat on my first day and was amazed that I actually could understand the entire lecture and a good deal of the discussion section afterwards. This class will definitely be tough - I’ve been told, but refuse to believe, that our final paper is expected to essentially be a thesis - but I think worthwhile. And, of course, I’m kind of riding on the fact that my grades while I’m abroad don’t count.

What’s funny about UBA is that there’s usually some speculation beforehand that class for any given day will be canceled because, more often than not, someone is protesting. This past Tuesday I was kind of disappointed to find out my 4 hour class hadn’t been canceled for the professors’ paro (literally, stop). However, instead of discussing the material of the day, we devoted the first hour of lecture to debating the value of striking and protesting - apparently these things happen more frequently than I realized. Then, as soon as we got on track with the lecture, we were interrupted no less than 3 times by various student groups wanting to pass out info on their latest endeavors - debates with the administration, fighting for better resources, etc etc. I absolutely couldn’t believe it when one group came in to lament the fact that the School of Medicine has been without gas for a few weeks. Absurd.

Idiomas

Just a few words on my language lab, mostly because I find it endlessly amusing. Four mornings each week I brave the sweaty Subte and trek over to the lab. It’s actually not too bad, mostly because I get a kick out of walking by the Casa Rosada (the Argentine version of the White House, except the presidenta doesn’t live there) and Plaza de Mayo every morning. Class is two hours long, and while not especially exciting - although I do love our impromptu lessons on Argentine slang - I’m infinitely entertained by the people in it. There are about 12 students in the class. Classes at the lab are open to everyone, so about 8 of us are Americans from FLACSO, and the rest come from all walks of life. Take, for example, Connie, the crazed German lady who speaks Spanish faster than I speak English (which is fast) and likes to go on rants about God knows what. Then there’s Nigel, the middle aged British man who decided on a whim to move to Argentina for 6 months every year after selling his business, and who I suspect to be extremely loaded. For a while we had this Japanese man studying to be a lawyer, but I think we scared him off. And lastly, my absolute favorite is Milos. Milos is from Montenegro and fulfills every stereotype you’d imagine of a Montenegran (if you have any stereotypes) or Serbian living abroad. First, he is enormous; I think his arms are the size of my head. There’s also a lot of confusion about among the Flacsitos about what exactly Milos does. For a while I thought he owned a soccer club, or worked as a recruiter, but then he told me he sold soy and wheat. The other day, however, he claimed to be in meat sales (whatever that means). All I know is that Milos is fantastic. He takes all of his notes in a “Vinny da Pooh and tziny freends” notebook, wears a designer man pouch, and cracks odd little jokes under his breath during the whole class. Sadly, Milos is leaving to go back to Montenegro in a few weeks (he’s coming back to Argentina in August because he’s “following the summer”), but hopefully not before taking us to the Boca game he promised to bring us to.

And, friends, that, more or less, is school in Argentina. I’d also like to note that I attempted to go to a class at UCA, but was immediately turned off when my “Compared American Revolutions” class started discussing the 13 colonies and watched clips of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette and that bad Pocohontas movie with Colin Farrell. I don’t plan on writing much more about school, unless something of particular note happens, mostly because I don’t think it’s terribly exciting. Also, I plan on making a habit of being a better blogger in the future. Expect a post relatively soon on some of the trips I’ve taken so far!

Besos!

Random Argentina Fact #6: Speaking of the Coppola family, If you follow the film world, you might be aware of the fact that Francis Ford Coppola is currently living in Buenos Aires while filming a movie about Italian immigrants in Argentina. Well, the other day my host mom informed me that he lives in our neighborhood! Apparently he’s been spotted a few times in Plaza Serrano, so I’ll keep you posted if we have any run ins.

Random Rant: Mascotas - Por que?

I don’t like animals. It’s not that I wish them harm (I mean, come on - I’m a vegetarian), it’s just that I’d rather not deal with them. I guess it all goes back to the dog I had growing up, the one whose head my dad had to wedge tightly under his arm so that I could pet him without being bitten. Let’s just say that when, at the age of 4, I returned home from a week at Flo and Lou’s to find out Skates was “no longer with us”, I was not exactly what you’d call devastated.

What does this have to do with Argentina….? Oh yes, everyone here has some sort of pet, everything from schnauzers to turtles named Penelope. A day rarely passes when I don’t happen upon a dog walker on the street, attempting to wrangle 12 dachshunds while nimbly eating a choripan. Even my host family had 2 cats when I first moved in, though Tito and Ina sadly left us last week to go live in a factory (?) due to my host mother’s allergies.

In general, I have no real problem with animals; in fact, when I don’t have to live with them, they can actually be kind of cute. There are, however, several irksome pet-related habits that I have observed in my three weeks in Argentina:

1. No one cleans up after their dogs. It is only now, after nearly having tainted my shoes on several occasions, that I can fully appreciate those little signs all over our parks and streets reminding us to pick up after our animals. Gross gross gross.

2. In contrast to the increasing trendiness of owning ugly little rat dogs in the US, Argentinians really seem to love big dogs. Pit bulls, rotweillers - name a giant dog, and you’ll probably see it that same day. Though I’m not normally afraid of dogs, there’s something about a loose pit bull roaming the street that freaks me out. It kind of makes me regret not getting a rabies shot before I left the US.

3. And speaking of rabies, there are an incredible number of feral animals here. (Ugh - even the word feral grosses me out. Vom.) A few weeks ago, I went to the Botanical Gardens with some friends for a nice picnic. Sadly, there was nowhere to sit because the place was overrun by angry feral cats. According to my host mom, people like to just abandon their cats there - apparently a big problem, since I’ve seen a lot of signs about how abandoning animals is a crime and yada yada.

Even worse than the feral cats are the homeless dogs. It’s just that they’re mangy and needy, but also that for some reason (they must know that I want nothing to do with them), they love to follow me around. Last weekend, a group of us decided to pack up and go to Mar del Plata for the weekend, as a kind of “end of summer/everyone in the US is on Spring Break so we have to get a tan, too” beach trip. As we were walking into the bus station in Retiro (Sidenote: More to come in future posts about the omnibuses in Argentina, but to make a long story short - I am in LOVE with the buses. If I could, I would buy/rent one and travel around the continent on a micro), one particularly mangy scoundrel (ha!) decided my friends and I looked like a friendly bunch. Not only did said dog follow us into the station, it also proceeded to follow us throughout the station, including a trip into the women’s bathroom with me. Let’s just say I got some nasty looks while waiting in line for the toilet.

Dog #1 must have been an indication of the rest of the trip, because my next run in with a stray dog (we’ll call him Dog #2) was fairly similar. Not only did Dog #2 follow us from the hostel onto the beach, he also planted himself squarely between Maia and I as we attempted to tomar el sol at 8 in the morning after a 5 hour bus ride. A few words about Dog #2 - first, he was extremely restless, at one point deciding to dig a hole, i.e. douse Maia with clumps of wet sand (pobrecita!). He also, much to my chagrin, had an open, oozing wound that made me suspicious of any diseases he was likely carrying. And lastly, Dog #2 seemed totally oblivious to our hints that we didn’t want him around. Despite Tom’s chasing him away, he just kept coming back. It wasn’t until more people showed up at the beach (we were really really early, apparently), that we finally got some peace.

So in sum, I just portrayed myself as a total prissy prima donna and now need to stop complaining. Ha. No, in all seriousness, Buenos Aires is lovely and amazing and fantastic in spite of its animal problems, and I promise that not all of my posts will be crazy rants about totally random things. I just felt it necessary, and not completely out of character, to insert a little ridiculousness into the ole blog.

Random Argentina Fact #5: “Random Argentina Fact #5″ will be postponed until further notice because really, this entire post is a random fact. It may also be useful to note that I’ve been reading Dave Eggers recently, and I fear that his writing style, for better or worse, may be infiltrating my own. Please advise if it becomes a problem.

Buena Onda

So after a week or so in Buenos Aires, I feel like I’m finally starting to get settled here. The first few days were just completely bizarre - picture freshman orientation in all of its glorious awkwardness, but set in a hotel in a foreign country where everyone is of drinking age. Overwhelming is probably the best word to describe it.

After two days in the hotel I moved in with my host family, which was, and still is, a huge adjustment. There is just something inherently awkward about moving into someone else’s house, regardless of how welcoming they may be. I imagine that my host family will definitely make for some good stories down the road. Gabi, my mom, is incredibly sweet and a great cook. It’s funny though because they are probably the least typically Argentine family you could find in this city. Case in point - not only does my family not eat meat (a rarity in the beef capital of the world), they also avoid anything with “lots of calories”. That means no real sugar, only arroz integral (brown rice), and no classic Argentine fare like dulce de leche or lomo. I really can’t complain though, especially since some of my friends claim not have seen a green vegetable in days. Plus I’m learning lots of food words, a fair amount of which are different in Argentina than in the rest of the Spanish speaking world.

My host siblings are also an interesting pair. Marina is awesome - she’s really artistic, takes capoeira lessons, and is into a lot of the same music as me. She’s definitely a hippie, though, which is surprisingly not uncommon here. She had a bunch of friends over the other day, and most of them had some sort of piercing/dreadlock combination going on. (Sidenote: The Argentines LOVE dreads, mullets, and rattails. I don’t mean to be culturally insensitive, but never before in my life have I seen so many terrible haircuts. It’s really disappointing, too, because a lot of guys will look really foxy until they turn around to reveal a single dread dangling over their shoulder. Gross.)

My favorite word to describe Pablo, my host brother, is angsty. I mean, to be honest, I’d be frustrated too if I were living at home at the age of 20. But the thing is that living with your parents until you’re in your late 20s is totally normal here. So really, I have no good explanation for why he’s so brooding. He doesn’t like to go out, either, which is weird in a country where the average weekend night ends after sunrise. Basically he’s just really awkward with me, which is annoying but sometimes entertaining. I think that once my Spanish gets better I’ll be able to joke around with him more, since I another problem is that I have trouble understanding him sometimes since he tends to mumble.

My first night with my family, Pablo and Marina took me out to get ice cream, which, by the way, is amazing here. American culture is, like everywhere else, really pervasive here, and as a result the two of them know a lot of really random things about the US. For example, when we were out for ice cream, they asked me if high schools in the US really had “nerds” and “cheerleaders” like on TV. They also asked me why American kids like to “drink with cards”. Apparently one of the Americans who lived here in the past liked to play drinking games, a really foreign concept here, where the point of drinking is not to get drunk. It was also really entertaining to try to explain to them what a redneck is. I guess they heard the word somewhere and wanted to know what it meant.

The house I’m living in here is also really cool. It’s very open and colorful, with a huge garden in the back. I live upstairs in a really cute little room (sans air conditioning - I look like a leper from all of the mosquito bites from keeping my window open at night) with its own bathroom and lots of light. I actually have a surprising amount of privacy, and was also pleasantly shocked to find out I have Wifi here. Even better than our house is the neighborhood. I’m in Palmero, which is the largest barrio in Buenos Aires, and as a result is divided into smaller sub-barrios. Mine is called Palermo Hollywood, a name that I have a lot of fun telling people. A few years ago, a few television and movie studios set up offices right around the corner, leading the area to become a lot posher. There are a ton of really nice restaurants all around us, as well as a few trendy hotels. (Another sidenote: Last year, the Bush twins stayed at Home, a hotel on my block, for a few days. My host siblings said that there was a ton of security all over the place, and that their dad got really mad at all of the commotion and started yelling at the security and photographers. Bush is really unpopular in BsAs - one of the first things my siblings asked when I moved in was if I was a Democrat because the last kid to live here was a Republican and they thought he was an idiot. In contrast, nearly everyone here is obsessed with Obama. I wonder if the Obama reggaeton song had anything to do with it.) I’m also conveniently about 6 blocks from Plaza Serrano, a plaza with a ton of bars, clubs, and stores, as well as a “hippie” fair on the weekends. It’s nice because a lot of times people will meet up there, meaning I can avoid spending money on a taxi if it’s not too late.

Que mas…overall, I’d say I’ve been having a blast. I’ve definitely met some really chill people from a bunch of schools, and Buenos Aires itself is absolutely incredible. It’s also nice/comforting to have Tom here. Once my orientation ends and he has his apartment set I think we’ll get to hang out more, since right now we’re both all over the place. I’m also planning a few trips, one possibly to Uruguay this coming weekend. It’s super easy to take a ferry across the river, and apparently the beaches in Punta del Este are amazing. There’s also been some discussion of going to Mendoza and Valparaiso, Chile over Semana Santa. I really was hoping to head down to Patagonia then, but it’s super expensive and hard to find a place in a hostel at this point. Hopefully I’ll get to go at some point before I leave, but if not, I guess it’s an excuse to come back to Argentina

There’s so much more to say, but it’s hard to get it all down. I think I’ll just end instead with some random facts/musings, since that seems more appropriate anyway. Nos vemos!

Random Argentina Fact #2: Above, I wrote that people live at home until they’re in their late 20s. While doing so might be cost effective, as one might imagine it creates some awkward dating situations. During our orientation this past week, we were told that it’s not uncommon or frowned upon to visit a telo with your novi@. Basically the telos are glorified motels where people go to have sex without being disturbed. Some telos, however, have themes and/or optional costumes. Que interesante…

Random Argentina Fact #3: No one here sweats; it’s absolutely bizarre. While I sit on the non-air conditioned Subte schvitzing away, all of the Argentines around me look impossibly chic and beautiful. Even worse is the gym (again, no air conditioning - sensing a trend?). None of the Argentine women seem to break a sweat, although to be fair they also seem to barely work out. everyone sits on the equipment texting on their cell phones. It’s actually kind of disconcerting to be the only red-faced person in the place. I guess I’ll have to get used to being the gross gringa everywhere I go.

Random Argentina Fact #4: The infrastructure in BsAs is alarmingly weak. It’s been raining on and off for the past couple of days, and when it pours, the streets flood like crazy. I’m talking major floods - people walking in water up to their waists, cars destroyed, etc. There’s essentially no drainage system here, sending a lot of the water into the Subte stations. Today I got off the Subte, only to find myself standing in water up to my ankles. I also saw water spouting out of cracks in the station walls - always a good sign. Even weirder is that, 2 hours after a major flood, the sun is usually shining and it seems like nothing happened.

Peace Out, U.S.A.

Vale. After a surprisingly productive couple of weeks working/bumming around DC, I’m finally getting ready to leave for BA. It’s only, what, about a month after everyone else has left for their respective study abroad sites, and a paltry two months since I last sat in a classroom. As much fun as squatting in the top bunk has been, it’s about time that I get get a move on.

This isn’t to say that I’m not sad to leave. It still hasn’t registered that I’m not going back to Georgetown next week, and that I won’t be seeing my friends and family for a full five months. I also have yet to do very much to prepare for my trip. There’s a very good chance, for instance, that I’ll get off the plane and find out that I can’t access my bank account or make a phone call. Oh well, I guess it’s all part of the adventure…?

Speaking of adventure, here’s what I know about my trip so far:

–> I will be in Buenos Aires from February 21 until about July 19, with some flexibility depending on my exam schedule. (P.S. If you have some free time and some extra cash, come visit!)

–> My host mother’s name is Gabi, a child psychologist in BA. I’ll be living with her and her daughter Marina, 17, and son Pablo, 20. Gabi sent me a letter last week and sounds so so nice (hopefully I’m not jinxing things here). She also told me I’ll have my own “bright and spacious” room with two windows and my own bathroom. Hot. Oh yes, and I can’t forget to mention - their last name is Schwartzmann. Typical.

–> There are about 100 American students in my program, 15 or so from Georgetown. We all will be living throughout the city, and can take classes at FLACSO, the program’s headquarters, as well as Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) and the Catholic University, la Pontifica Universidad Católica Argentina (UCA). Classes will be all in - ahhhhh - Spanish, meaning I’m going to be like the American equivalent of that awkward Scandinavian exchange student we all went to high school with. The FLACSO staff seems really energetic, though, and everyone I’ve talked to has raved about how supportive they are. The three cultural coordinators on the staff are all students and, based on the email I got last week, are quite foxy if I do say so. Did I mention that everyone in Argentina is supposed to be beautiful?

And, other than the fact that I need to take a chauffeured car from the airport to the Hotel Lyón once I get in, that’s about all I know about my trip. My host mother didn’t mention which neighborhood they live in, so I have no idea where exactly I’ll be staying after orientation. I also have yet to choose my classes or make any travel plans, though my friend Tom, who will also be studying in BA, and I have discussed a few places we’d like to go. I figure, however, that the fewer expectations I go in with, the better off I’ll be.

While I still have access to a reliable Internet connection here in New Jersey (woot woot NJ), I guess it’s a good time for me to note that I have no idea what I’m doing with this whole blogging thing. I think I’m just going to write whenever I get a chance and/or whenever something strikes my fancy. Hopefully I’ll stick with it throughout the trip - we’ll have to see.

On that note, welcome to my blog. I hope you enjoy your stay.

EDIT: Anyone who knows me well won’t be surprised to know that I’ve decided to include some random trivia in every post. See below:

Random Argentina Fact #1: A phonetic study conducted by the Laboratory for Sensory Investigations of CONICET and the University of Toronto showed that the accent of the inhabitants of Buenos Aires is closer to the Neapolitan dialect of Italian than any other spoken language. In other words, yo soy screwed.