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Published: February 3rd 2009
I made it to Buenos Aires alive and I already have something to write about. Let me start by saying that if you ever have the chance to fly during the Superbowl (literally the flight was boarding during the last quarter), and you don't care about missing it, DO IT. There was no one on the roads, we made it to JFK in about 25 minutes and the airport was like a Budweiser commercial, completely deserted except for little crowds of men gathered around TVs in complete silence and camaraderie. I also have to mention something I've never seen before, since I've never flown out of JFK but this really floored me: Ipod vending machines. Let me say that again. Ipod. Vending. Machines. These exist; I swear. And if you've never seen them before, it may be hard to imagine, but I saw them with my own eyes and I had to report back on it.
My 11 1/2 hour flight wasn't nearly as miserable as I was expecting and I managed to get a couple hours of sleep after bawling my eyes out during a screening of The Secret Life of Bees (what kind of plane movie is that??). The girl sitting next to me was my age and had been visiting the states with her family for a few weeks, since the seasons are reversed down here and most Argentines go on holiday during January when it is really hot. She was a sweetheart and happens to live really close to where I am staying so we exchanged email addresses and will hopefully see each other again!
Which brings me to the main point of this entry. I am staying in the coolest place ever. After I was picked up from the airport, they brought me to the LIFE office in Recoleta, which is a beautiful neighborhood with tree-lined streets and for some reason, a TON of pizza parlors. Maybe it's that way everywhere down here... We'll see. I was gross and exhausted from my flight and wearing a sweatshirt in 80 degree weather and in no shape to meet anyone but I walked into the office to a room full of young volunteers from all over the world sitting around talking, hanging out and doing office work. And they were speaking English. And they were all good-looking and really friendly and introduced themselves right away and I was super excited. So here I am in the Real World, Buenos Aires, house. I am living in one of the rooms above the office. I have my own bedroom with a terrace and there are 2 other girls from England right now sharing a room who are leaving in a week. Two more will be coming after they leave, and so it goes... We share a bathroom and the kitchen in the office downstairs and people come and go all the time, and there are always volunteers downstairs so the house is rarely empty. Except now. Everyone is out on the street at night here til all hours, apparently, and I am sitting in my room writing this because I am too exhausted from flying to go to the bar that the British girls invited me to.
Some things I am already super pumped about:
1. The weather. Although it happens to be raining right now, it was a gorgeous 77 degrees all day today and I am LOVING it.
2. The men. Hot damn. Good looking men everywhere. And women too. The people here are just beautiful.
3. The food. I have already walked by a whole bunch of really nice restaurants and looked at the menus in the windows and the food IS really cheap. My dinner tonight was about $4.
4. How friendly the people are. Everyone talks to me on the street, and I don't feel threatened like I do in NY. They are just being genuinely nice.
5. I am not struggling as much as I thought I would to understand the accent here. At least not yet. I am doing ok, and the good news is that everyone in the office speaks English and the few people that don't can understand me and vice/versa.
Tomorrow morning I am getting an orientation and some more information on my role here at LIFE. I hopefully will also get a cell phone. Right now I will be getting some more sleep. I'll take some pictures for the next entry!
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Robyn
non-member comment
yay!
So exciting, Sarah--can't wait to see photos. I have seen those iPod vending machines before. Ridiculous!!! Glad you had smooth travels :)