The Wheels on the Bus Go Round-and-Round: Mi vida cotidiana acá en Buenos Aires

(The Art of Travel, post 5, Quotidian life)

Despite today marking the end of only my second week of school (and it wasn’t even a full one, due to having off for Carnaval), I can still say there is a sort of rhythm to my days here, albeit they are not quite down to an exact schedule yet. Mondays and Wednesdays are my busy days with my hardest and longest classes, so my normal school day is as follows: get up and finish some work at home while having a quick breakfast (usually just yogurt or toast), take el colectivo to school (I finally have my bus route down), get to school and use the computer lab to print things, check email, etc. Sometimes things don’t always go as planned, however. For example, this morning I had to walk to school because I couldn’t afford the bus. And by couldn’t afford, I mean I had plenty of cash on me, but no monedas (coins), which is the only form of money the bus accepts. Buenos Aires has a severe coin shortage which is incredibly frustrating and acts as an unnecessary stress in my day-to-day life. Then continues a long day of classes with a quick lunch of snacks / something to go in between, and finally home, usually pretty late, where an amazing home cooked meal awaits me before I go to bed. My Tuesdays and Thursdays make up for those hectic days, however, as my only class occurs at 5:15 PM. This gives me the whole day to relax at home for a bit and do any errands (a trip to la lavendería, grocery shopping, etc) and then explore the city.

I haven’t yet used this time as well as I could. I’m finally starting to know my neighborhood and the area around school pretty well and already have a favorite heladería (ice cream shop) and café, but there’s so much more in between and beyond my two main locales. So generally that’s more what my weekends are for.

My roomie / friends and I make it a point to go to at least two new places every weekend, be they parks, cafés, museums or bars, located in either the city, a different province, or (soon enough) a different country. I’m eager to see so much of South America, but I feel I have to get to know my own city first.

And in this city is la vida porteña, something I’m still very far from assimilating into (partially because of my duties here as a student). I love drinking maté and eating dinner later, now. I’ve had some nights of going out to eat and staying for hours. I officially know how to do a beginner’s tango (for my blog here, I plan on doing a post about that experience: it was beautiful and unique). But I still don’t know many locals and thus cannot more legitimately participate in those activities. I hope to meet some soon, and add spending time with them and learning about porteño life from the inside into my daily routine.

(I took the picture above in el Jardín Botánico de Buenos Aires, which is only three blocks from my homestay. It’s insanely beautiful and very large with several exotic plants, and, more importantly, several stray cats! It’s even nicknamed the ‘cat garden’. This is a picture of a porteña women I encountered one day, who went around with a bag of cat food feeding all the strays. This little black kitten, who my friend and I named Carlito, befriended us that day; he was one lucky kitty to be given food and water by such a generous lady.)