9 days in and I’ve covered Buenos Aires, TEFL teaching and
mucho español!
I arrived in Buenos Aires
at 5am, Wednesday 22nd July and was able to spend the next 3 days exploring
the city with Molly (friend from Newcastle University) who joined me some hours
later. We walked for miles discovering
the cities exciting and incredibly diverse barrios
(districts): from the brightly coloured un-kept houses of the
football-fanatics hub, La Boca, to the shining high-rise financial district
that observes all.
There’s a lot of
history in Buenos Aires and one thing in particular grabbed me: the Torres
Monumental. A Big-Ben style tower given
to Buenos Aires from the British immigrant community (though reminded me very
much of the Carillon Tower in Loughborough), it combines the emblems of Argentina
and the United Kingdom. However, glaring
it in plain sight is the monument and eternal flame to remember the fallen
during the Falkland/Malvinas Islands war - a sad reminder of the underlying
discontent that exists between the populations.
Saturday 25th and me and Molly met with 15 other
English-speaking people age 19-27 from mainly UK, US, Ireland but also Romania,
Czech Republic, Holland and New Zealand to start our training in a centre
(called The Borough) 2 hours southwest of Buenos Aires, near Mercedes. We’ve had two days of training in how to
teach English as a foreign language (TEFL) and are now in the midst of our
Spanish Immersion camp. We’ve had workshops on Argentine Tango, Folklore dance, Guachos and football.
Argentine food has also become a large topic of conversation - some incredibly important aspects are mate tea made from fresh leaves and hot water and shared among
friends and family, and an asado
being a massive BBQ of all cuts of beef and finally, dulce de leche, an incredibly sweet, moreish, caramel-like spread
served at any opportunity – breakfast, tea-time, dessert...!
Finally as an English person it seems inappropriate to not
mention our favourite topic of conversation...the weather! Arriving in my summer dress to Buenos Aires I received
a few odd glances from everyone else, heavily bundled up in winter coats and
scarves! It was cold, yes, but the city
was not as cold as expected...an English autumn! As I write this at The Borough I am sitting
outside in the sun with t-shirt and jeans on, but just this morning I was
wrapped up in so many layers I could barely reach for my coffee to warm my
hands...quite the contrast!
And that completes the first of many blog posts to come;
more of a sketch than anything else but hopefully gives more of an idea of
what’s going on here.
Adios mis amigos :D xx
