Estación Once: Being in Buenos Aires, the site of today's world headlines

Today began another normal day, after a long and awesome weekend (which I will potentially post more about later), of what I suppose I ought to consider my normal routine now: wake up, finish some work, get ready, gather my things, and head for my bus stop. Ride the often overcrowded colectivo, get off at Anchorena, arrive at NYU's Academic Center. Print things I need for class, check emails, etc.

Except this morning, while in the computer lab (in my time here I never plan on taking my laptop with me, unless absolutely necessary) and I check my emails getting an alert via NYU with subject title, "Alert: Train Crash Feb. 22 - Buenos Aires, Argentina," so I read on:

Warning Alert -- Transportation 

Major train crash at Once Station in central Buenos Aires, Argentina, injures hundreds of people 0830 Feb. 22. Expect major rail disruptions.

This alert affects Buenos Aires
This alert began 22 Feb 2012 13:23 GMT and is scheduled to expire 22 Feb 2012 23:59 GMT.

 - Incident: Train crash
 - Location: Once Station, Buenos Aires
 - Time/Date: 0830 Feb. 22
 - Killed (Injured): 0+ (300+)
--------------------------------------------------------
This was at 10:30 this morning, when the number count of those who had passed away was still nonexistent, and the injury count was surely a quick guesstimate. As I sat with my mouth slightly agape while reading this, another girl asked a friend in the same vicinity if she had heard about the train crash. I butted in saying I had just read about it. It didn't seem like it really happened. I was in my 100% secure safe zone from the city that NYU has provided us. Estación Once (pronounced [ohn-say], as in the word for eleven in Spanish) is about 25 blocks from the Academic Center (located in Once, a southern barrio of Buenos Aires that we are viciously and repeatedly advised not to go near at night) and is a very large train station primarily for commuter trains to and from the suburbs of the city.

Wednesday's are my long days, where I have class from 11:15 AM to 8:30 PM with only two hours to spare in between. So I pretty much remained within American student realms and amongst our porteño professors. Surprisingly enough, it only came up in one of my classes today, Intro to Latin American Studies, where as structure for the course we begin each class talking about current events in Central and Southern America. There was an attempt to draw lines from Argentine transportation systems to poor infrastructure to lots of other things ultimately to be blamed from colonization, I'm not quite sure, it was vague and far-fetched if you ask me. And then directly afterwards my professor said he really did recommend the trains though, because they're nice and safe. Or at least, most of the time, I guess.

My thoughts are with those who are waiting at home right now for their husbands, wives, mother, father, daughter, son, sister and brother to come home, and having to accept that they won't.

   

A screen shot of BBC World News homepage. So strange to think I'm somehow in the midst of it all... (despite still being very far away). A friend of mine currently studying abroad in Florence asked via Facebook to make sure we were all right. She's in Italy. In Europe. And the news is there. And she knows people currently in Buenos Aires, in Argentina, in South America: me, my friends. Crazy, flat world, international community.

A side note that may not pertain to many readers, but some still: life can be really, really strange when I find myself in a city that made the above world headlines, and then moments later you find out someone you went to high school with had their life taken away MUCH TOO YOUNG, and it instantly brings you back home. So beyond my thoughts and prayers going out to the families of those who passed in today's train accident, they also go out to the Ehr family: Alex Ehr was in my grade, and I honestly did not know him that well. This summer, the majority of the Brookfield East High School community found out that he had been recently diagnosed with cancer, meaning that there must have been rapid progression until his passing today. Almost everyone in my grade who I am friends with on Facebook has been posting about him today (which is how I found out, which may seem strange to those not of the Millennial generation) which lead me to do the same, particularly because of this sentiment: it is strange to be connected with death in these various, international ways.

I wish everyone well, and thank you for those who checked up on me. Today has been a solemn day, that's for damn sure.