Meat, cheese, bread, repeat.

I'm a vegan. I also don't eat wheat because it makes my stomach do all kinds of painful backflips. I'm basically screwed in Argentina... home of the biggest beef lovers on earth. People think I'm insane, but I'm used to that growing up being me.

I woke up to the smell of meat cooking in a slow cooker at 11:45am. I realize why they don't really do breakfast here. Nobody is awake! I left the party early last night and others stayed out until 7am. Argentinians eat dinner so late in the night - way past my bedtime - at 11pm or so and then dance the night away. I decided I wanted to walk around the city center and my hostess, Andrea told me that we are in the middle of the town... the city center has a microcenter which is mostly pedestrianized and bordered by the street where we live. The only thing is that I was going out walking at 2pm and they told me that everything would be closed. 

It reminded me of Toulouse, France when I went down to visit my friend Cary who was living there while I was living in London. I remember her telling me that in Toulouse, Sunday is the day you spend in bed with your lover. Nobody gets out of bed to go to work or to do anything really. Argentina seems to be similar although there were many people out and about, there was just nothing open. I found where all the people were... down at a huge park called Parque de Lastejas. People had these little easels set up everywhere that children could sit down and paint on for some amount of money. It was brilliant. I love seeing that. Some people were drinking wine, some were playing Pokemon Go like zombies, but for the most part, people were just sitting in little groups on blankets and talking to one another. I walked down a tree lined street and then up onto a bridge where I could see the museums and art in the park, the play structure where the kids were playing flanked by men holding these super tall sticks with multicolored bags of cotton candy hanging off of them, and the people all sitting together talking, laughing and just having a Sunday together. I guess here on Sunday you spend it with your lover, but you just get out of bed as opposed to those lazy Frenchies. :)

As I wandered around Cordoba and clocked nearly 15,000 steps, I saw that Argentines love their children - especially babies, and love their dogs - especially French Bulldogs and poodles, and LOVE their meat, cheese and bread. The only storefronts that were open were panaderías and heladerías. People seem to love ice cream too. Another no-go for me. It appears to me that people here are not particularly warm and friendly and embracing like in Mexico for instance, but rather they are just amicable and nice with an air of reserve and dignity. I must say though, my hostess Andrea is an exception to that as she is so warm and wonderful. I feel so lucky to be living with her. Maybe it just takes a while to break through to see the warmth beneath the cool exteriors.

I walked and walked aimlessly through the city occasionally referencing a map that my program director sent me in my welcome bag. I stopped into a bread store and bought a croissant and ate it because I figured with my choices of bread, cheese and meat - butter and bread won't kill me - although meat really might. I've never eaten red meat in my life and I actually don't think that my body would know what to do with it.

I pretty much fell in love with Argentina today though. People are stylish and beautiful and walk everywhere and love to be outdoors in the sun and seem to just enjoy life so much more than most other places. It's now 7pm and of course I am starving for dinner but my hostess won't be making any food until closer to 10pm - something that will comprise of wait for it... bread, cheese and meat. Guaranteed. Luckily she bought me all kinds of beans and rice and veggies and told me that her kitchen was my kitchen and that I should just make food for myself because I'm pretty sure the thought of cooking for me stressed her - and all Argentines - out.

So far so good. The food is obviously a big difference for me, but overall I feel like I am going to seriously love this country and this city!

Argentina día cero

Saturday Aug 6, 11:00am  - Day Zero

I just arrived in Argentina!

My very first South American adventure and sixth continent I'll explore.

I am sitting in the domestic terminal at Buenos Aires airport where I'll catch my connection to Cordoba... the city I will live in for 5 weeks and study primary care and social medicine while living with an Argentine family. My love, Carlos will come down in September and I will meet him in Buenos Aires for my sixth week in this country. We rented a little condo in the middle of downtown Argentina. My friend Pedro, who is an Argentinian medical doctor who is getting his PhD at UCSD and I work with on several projects, has told me where I should stay in BA and we followed his advice and booked on air b n b. This will be my first time air b n b-ing in a foreign country as well. Hey!! I'm in a foreign country!

Besides Mexico, which I go down to work across the border most weekends, I haven't actually left the country in a long time. (Long by my standards anyway). According to the faded stamps in my passport, my last international adventure was when I went to Honduras to work at a medical clinic for 5 weeks in December 2014/Jan 2015... That means I have been in America for a year and half which seems like a LONG time for me.

I feel a familiar greasy, wired, under-slept yet hyper aware and also floating in a weird state of consciousness after the 22 hours of travel to get here. I cannot wait to take a shower and lay down at my new house. I hope my host family is happy to just let me veg out and not make me tell them my life story because I don't know if my brain can do that much Spanish right this second... I can certainly get by and communicate and understand what I need, but at this point, I am just wiped out and don't know if a chit-chatty conversation is going to be a fluid as I would like it to be.

I feel like I totally underprepared for this Spanish accent which sounds much more like Portuguese than Spanish to my ear at this point, although I'm sure I will adapt soon enough.

My first impressions (although I've only seen two terminals in the airport) is that this place is cold and they love meat, bread and cheese, and they all speak like they are making love to the words as they swish out of their mouths. There is something very European about this place too... not just because of the mix of cultures as you always see in the extranjeros line of the customs hall at any major airport in the world. It is something else here. The way the Argentines dress and carry themselves... The countryside visible through windows... the light. It reminds me of England in a way but also France. I haven't put my finger on it, but I'm sure I will.

3:30am - technically DAY ONE

Just got home from a night out with my hostess, Andrea. Andrea speaks clearly and slowly but always in Spanish and we have gotten down with some cool conversations about international and local politics, service to humanity, healthcare and more. She was pretty nervous about what to cook for me so I told her that I would just cook for myself and made a bunch of beans and rice and veggies. I am comprehending about 70% which is great but definitely leaves some gaping black holes in conversations at times - or so I thought.

I keep on imagining what would happen if I thought I understood but really I wasn't getting it at all. I thought she invited me to come to a party with all her brothers and their wives outside of Cordoba but I wasn't totally sure. Maybe she was just telling me that she was going... 

I awkwardly asked again and went in and got dressed even though it was already 10pm and I was totally ready for bed. I have this "just say yes" travel mentality that has almost always proved to unlock amazing adventures for me so I had to just say sure and jump in her car. We drove for quite a while and pulled off at a gas station where she jumped in the back and her brother Sergio took the wheel. Watching Cordoba go by I realized that the Europeanism here is also accented by a Southeast Asia feel. There is a blatant disregard for the law and the rules and a laissez faire that you find in SEA and actually Mexico too. Many areas are falling apart and graffiti is everywhere.

We made a few more stops and then ended up in a countryside kind of area at a club for Lawyers that was hosting a birthday party for a friend. We walked around and every person there kissed me on the cheek instead of shaking hands and didn't even question who I was or why I was there.

We sat at a table with nine of us. Andrea, her brother Sergio, another brother and his wife who was an amazing dancer and didn't stop shimmying even when we were sitting still, Andrea's cousin and his pregnant girlfriend who is a school teacher and teaches English, Andrea's other brother who runs a Malbec vineyard and hooked us UP with the most amazing wine, and his girlfriend of 11 years who he hasn't married because they don't believe in marriage. Everyone chatted in the swishy, beautiful way that Argentines do. "Zsho" instead of "yo" and the rest of the sentence just tumbles together like softened meat falling off a bone. 

Maybe it is just this family and their group of friends, but the impression I got throughout the night is that there is not really such a machismo man's world kinds vibe here. The men were all understated and just kind of holding the space for the women to be the bold, beautiful, shining lights in the room.

It made me think of Eva Peron and I wondered if that was a cultural thing or maybe just a coincidence, but the women here are strong and fierce and funny and loud and uninhibited and it inspires me to no end!

After a few hours of sitting and talking and eating and drinking, a man and women wearing these traditional looking Andean clothing - that looked Peruvian by looking at Carlos' photos from the region - walked through the room with a bowl smoking and another bowl full of herb looking things. They handed out the herbs - which I believe are sage and had everyone stand in a circle and put the sage on the burning coals causing a crazy smoke bath throughout the whole hall. Pregnant women and children covered their mouths and ran outside, but everyone else watched as the couple started doing this dance with scarves... First big scarves, then they switched to small scarves and then handed out scarves and flags to everyone in the room to swing around and dance to. I had NO idea what was going on but one of Andrea's brothers explained to me that this was a Pachamama celebration. It's a folkloric Bolivian earth mother celebration. He pulled up the Wikipedia page for Pachamama and showed me. I tried to skim it in Spanish but the Malbec was making my brain swim so I just got the gist and danced around with everyone instead.