Bienvenido a Buenos Aires

           The past week has been a tumultuous one—emotions have gone from high to low to high again while I orient myself in an alien city with a foreign language and a range of new peers. However, the adjustment has been easier than I had anticipated for IES has made a valiant effort to keep their students busy while they acclimate to the culture. The group has been ushered on walking tours of various neighborhoods of the city, we’ve been fed copious amounts of food, and we even all learned how to tango.

           I could write for hours about Puerto Madero or Recoleta or Palermo, but while everything has been exciting and new and different, one experience has stood out in my mind.

         La Boca is a neighborhood of Buenos Aires that boasts a successful soccer team, La Boca Juniors. La Boca is laced with European influence, as many Italian immigrants have settled there. La Boca is famous for its zesty appearance as nearly every building is of a different color, making the region a popular tourist attraction. The barrio is littered with stray cats and tangoing street performers—countless opportunities to whip out your phone and take a picture (as long as you’re mindful of pick-pocketers!) Although the character of the neighborhood is certainly enhanced with a resolution to please the tourist, I still highly enjoyed being there because it was so obviously different from anywhere I had been before; this unique blend of South American culture with European heritage could really only exist in Buenos Aires.