5. Quotidian life

After reading Bowles “The World of Tangier,” I just think about the entire group of “international,” apparently wealthy students at NYU who talk about their favorite places to travel. I’m not a “hater,” or anything like that, but he talks about places and describes the settings in similar fashions to the group of people previously mentioned. Taking a referral from Gertude Stein, who is part of this social “hipster” elite none-the-less, Bowles immediately embarks on a trip to Tangiers, where he finds, and potentially brags, about inherent beauty and un-touch-ability of the place, and more importantly, how no one else seems to know about it (except Stein). Although I wouldn’t mind a trip to the Riviera, for Stein, and seemingly also for Bowles, “anyone” can go there, but not Tangier. Settled in a perfect “center” of the world to the world-class travelers, Bowles expresses his love for the hidden gem. Using his pretentious writings, one seems to connote how although he shows his love for Tangier, and with that, eventually grows to understand the place as a home, not a travel destination, he still distances himself from the “common people.”
 
Noting how the city has changed from once it had been, a city of antiquity, otherness, and a more-defined “culture,” Bowles (similar to an NYU city “hipsta”), grows weary over the fact that it no longer stands as such. Instead, in the face of modernity, the city slowly looses its foreign roots and becomes just like any other city that uses tourism to its advantage—a commodity. I believe that Bowles over-generalizes the idea of the Muslim culture and uses it to simplify the culture of the people in Tangier. Commenting on how the people once wore extravagantly colored clothing and how inexpensive the living costs in the city would be for an American or “Western” traveler, he suggests that in this change towards the modern, the alterations in wardrobe or living costs seem to belittle the true culture at-hand. However, as we have seen previously, people such as Bowles, who I think fall into the category of a middle-ground between third-order and fourth-order tourist, try to “conserve” the culture in their writings, but at the same time, try to go “native,” like Orwell. But, because of the preconditioning in Bowles’s upbringing, we see a culture clash with the Tangierian people and the tourists, and as Iyer proposed, traveling goes two ways, for although the anthropologist might try to preserve a defined culture, he or she inevitably changes it simply by creating a presence. 

Lets be honest, a big part of study abroad is going out at night, especially here in Argentina. We go out here as much as possible because we are eager to get outside of the world of the University and socialize with Argentine people. Everything starts later here. We eat dinner around 9:30, and go out around twelve. Buenos Aires seems to be the real city that never sleeps. On the weekends I wake up late and try to explore the city. This weekend I went to two beautiful and famous neighborhoods in Buenos Aires: San Telmo and La Boca.

During the weekdays I wake up early for school— no matter how late I stayed up the night before. My options for breakfast are weird non whole wheat frozen toast with a very strange cheese spread, very bad cereal, and some kind of fruit. I always go for the fruit and sometimes eat nothing else which I later profoundly regret.  I go downstairs in a very old fashion, slightly scary elevator, usually forget my keys and can’t get out of the building because doors here locks from the inside and outside, go back upstairs, then back down, then walk twenty minutes to the Academic Center with my backpack on my side and arm cradling the small pocket, paranoid that someone will rob me. Every morning I walk by a line of about 40 people on the sidewalk and realize incredulously that they are waiting to enter a bank, or perhaps use the ATM? I walk and walk and walk passing at least three men a day who probably should model and then I pray I didn’t already pass Anchorena, the street of the academic center. I soon discovered that grabbing coffee here five minutes before class like I usually do in New York will not work out because the waiters are very friendly and very slow. Twice a week I go to ballet class with my friend at a dance studio next door to the academic center and in between we get lunch or study in the Academic center or in one of the restaurants nearby which are always filled with us NYUers.

I come home around 9:00 before dinner and eat with my homestay mom and my roommate. She sets the table formally every night: tablecloth, dishes, salt and pepper, olive oil and balsamic, one sliced tomato, a very small bowl of lettuce we are supposed to share, and a main dish. Then I help her clean up and talk to her awkwardly for about five minutes until I escape back to room.

On the weekends I like to go to Parque de lash eras, right next door to me. It is a grass park that extends at least 8 blocks and is slightly elevated from street level. There are tons of young Argentines in this park sitting in groups drinking Mate (an argentine tea which you drink in a special cup…photo above is a picture I took of two ladys on the street in San Telmo drinking Mate). It also seems to be the hang out place for all the acrobats of Buenos Aires since I always see them practicing their tumbling, walking on a tight rope tied between two trees, and suspended in the air within a long cloth that they tie to a tree.

So far for me the hardest adjustment is the heavy on carbs and light on vegetable diet (I don’t eat meat) and…..maybe the dog poo on the streets? 

So far in the semester, it has been somewhat difficult for me to maintain a concrete routine for certain daily rituals – like waking up in the morning, showering, eating breakfast, and least importantly, sleeping. This is mainly due to the fact that, currently, on Mondays and Wednesdays my first class is at 1:45 pm, while on Tuesdays and Thursdays, my first class is at 9 am. In addition to that, there have already been two holidays during these (less than) three weeks of class and subsequent, mandatory make-up days and events.
 
That being said, and average day for me here begins with groggily waking up, getting ready for the day, and then heading downstairs for “breakfast.” I love breakfast and am a firm believer in the idea that it’s the most important meal of the day, but Argentina doesn’t agree. My breakfast everyday consists of tostadas (toast) with butter and jam, coffee, fresh orange juice, and a piece of fruit to go. I like this food, but it just isn’t enough to sustain me. By 10 am on Tuesdays and Thursdays I’m already hungry and have to run to the market or empanadería (EMPANADAS!) across the street and buy something. I am so thankful that empanadas are plentiful and cheap here because I honestly don’t know what I would do without them.
 
After breakfast, I catch the bus to school, which takes about 10 minutes, if that. Though they can sometimes be unreliable (it’s frustrating to watch FIVE of the same number bus going the other direction at the same time when you’ve been waiting for 15 minutes), they’re fast, super cheap (about 28 cents per ride!), and can get you practically anywhere in the city. Once my classes are over, I either go home, slowly do my homework and possibly go to a café for a while, or I go on some kind of mini-adventure. So far this has ranged from going to bookstores, vintage stores, museums, monuments and the like.
 
Then comes dinner, which is the complete opposite of breakfast. I usually eat at 9 or 9:30 pm, which is completely normal here (and suits me well), and it lasts for more than an hour because my host mother loves to have conversations over dinner (The perfect opportunity to practice my Spanish!). First I usually eat a big helping of soup, then a main dish – last night I had these delicious meatballs in yellow rice. And at the end of every dinner, my host mother offers me a banana with dulce de leche for dessert, and by offer I mean insist until I give in. The food is amazing, but it’s a little too rich to eat every day. I really have to figure out how to ask for more vegetables in a polite way.
 
On the weekends, I go and see new things in the city with my two very good friends. We make a point to see something new every weekend, and so far it has been great. Saturday nights are special too; since we don’t get dinner we find different, cheap restaurant to eat at each weekend, by which I mean we get full meals and wine for about $14. As for Sundays specifically, I love going to a fería (fair) to pick up souvenirs or just people watch.
 
As for other aspects of life here that don’t occur daily, I have mixed feelings. Laundry here is a little more expensive than in the states, about $5, but everything is washed and dried for you and then ready for pick-up at the end of the day. Also, I’ve found that other things here can be surprisingly expensive. For example, sunscreen, extremely important since it’s summer right now, is about $14 for a cheap Argentine brand. Sometimes it depends on the product, but it also depends on if the product is imported. Argentina has high import taxes, so provided you can actually find the thing you’re looking for, you might have to pay serious money for it. I recently found this out when my Apple laptop charger stopped working properly. Here, a new one costs $200 (US), whereas they’re only $80 back home!

The crystalline sunset searing through the U-Bahn illuminated the various activities each Berliner preferred to speed along their journey home. There was a subtle difference in the mannerisms and dress of each person on the train from your average New Yorker, each of them bundled in the upteenth layers against the cold, and yet handling the bracing chill with such grace that even I, with my experience in northern Minnesota, was envious of. The subway car was smaller than the ones that populate the Manhattan underground. Practical, and devoid of superfluous advertisements, the little trains sped along like clockwork up and down the U1, U2, U8, or what have you, opening its doors only when prompted to by a passenger, delivering small loads of passengers onto the platform in a whir of mechanical gears. They flooded out along the train as if it were an IV punctured at regular intervals, spewing the lifeblood of Berlin at all hours of the day. So like New York. And yet, so clean, so practical…so NOT New York. It all made sense. They worked on the honor system: you pay for a ticket and you do not have to swipe: you simply board and when asked, you show your validated ticket. I must be bad luck, for every time I am on the train I am asked to show my ticket. Good thing I am a generally honest person and buy my transportation wherever I go, and because I am an honorary student of Humbolt University, I get to schlep to the nearest BVG station and pay 30 Euro less than the average person for the monthly pass. Lucky, lucky me. 

Toilets here make sense as well. Why waste more water if you only went number 1 instead of number 2? There are separate buttons for each here, with another button to turn the water flow off when everything is swept away in a gush of water. And I don’t even need to mention that here I have yet to see more than maybe 10 cars in my field of vision at any time. There are so many bikes and bike paths, and they are respected possibly more than cars. You get a sixth of a Euro back for recycling your bottles, when 2 or 3 Euro buys you a large sausage, a side of fries, and a can of soda. Everyone brings their own grocery bags to the super market, or you have to pay 50 cents for either plastic or paper. Lights are not left on all night: they are on timers, and turn off when not needed. Ecological? Absolutely. Its fantastic.

The ecologically beautiful social infrastructure has inspired me to be more fanatical in renovating my wasteful premises. To save money, I have also invested in a clothesline and multiple curious devices called "clothespins" and begun washing all my clothing by hand. Though it adds perhaps 2-3 hours of chores to my weekly routine, it is relaxing in that it is simply a time where I pay more attention to the labor that goes into creating a home for myself. What is interesting in this is that I find it as a mirror image of my internal development in the new routine of becoming a Berliner: just as I strip out all the cigarette ash, sweat, and dirt from my clothing I am beginning to strip the pretension out of my past life in New York, living more honestly and more true to myself in this new environment. I am learning to become more myself, less superfluous in the way I live, and more in the mindset of the pursuit of things that truly make me happy. Art, dance, and German. Lather, rinse, repeat. 

On a final note, I have not seen such quality food here for the prices I have come to expect from Berlin grocery stores. When I began to prepare for the next two weeks in Berlin, I cannot describe to you the amazement that I felt when I came away spending only 50 Euro total. FOR SO MUCH FOOD. I felt like I was stealing. Or dreaming, one of the two. This city is beautiful, and she is creating for me a change in mental perspective on how living as a community of human beings that respect their environment should live like. I realize I am still in the honeymoon phase, but I can legitimately say that I would be happy living here. The cold needs to stop being such a presence though for me to make any concrete decisions. I feel as though I am finished with New York: I need a change in mentality. I am sick of being associated with the stigma of what an American is: loud, disrespectful, domineering, promiscuous. I feel ashamed of my country. And while Berlin is not necessarily home yet, she, as in the words of the mayor of Berlin, “Berlin is poor, but sexy.” I could live with that.

My school week, unlike most people’s, starts on a Tuesday, as I have no Monday classes. Thus, Monday is the day that I try and either get my life together, relax and do barely anything, or run errands I’ve been meaning to run, or sometimes a combination of all three. Usually, I give a tour of an exhibition not too far from my apartment from 11-12, and then head to San Lorenzo market to buy my groceries. I have found that it both has the best prices and the freshest produce of any grocery store in Florence. I try to buy my cheese, meat, and vegetables there, but sometimes I do not make it there before it closes, in which case I have tried several different grocery stores, such as Conad, Meta, Il Centro, and Despar. From experience, I have learned that both Il Centro and Despar are rip-offs, and that Conad and Meta are the least expensive for different products.

Once my beloved Monday is over and my week has to actually begin, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I wake up around 10-10:30 in order to catch the 11:25 bus from San Marco to school. If I want to try my luck and sleep for an extra 20 minutes, I catch the 11:45 which gets me there just in time for Italian class. Once on campus, the trek across campus through what people have nicknamed “Death Valley” is quite arduous, but I feel that it combined with the 6 flights of stairs to my apartment is helping to even out all the pasta and bread. Lately, I have been trying to buy a lot of vegetables as to avoid all of the carbs that are so readily available here. It just so happens that the carbs are the least expensive, but the vegetables are worth it to add some variety and vitamins into my life.

Cooking in my apartment is a bit of an exercise. Living with 11 other girls means dishes pile up very quickly and easily, and, from first week’s experience, we learned that we can’t have more than one appliance on at a time, or the power will go out. When it comes to doing laundry, the same is true. Having the washer going at the same time as the oven = blackout. From this, I have learned to do my laundry on Mondays when everyone is at class. Apparently dryers are not a big thing in Italy either. After I take my clothes out of the washer, they go directly onto drying racks, and I have to leave them for about half a day or more for them to get dry, which is frustrating for someone like me who always leaves her laundry for the night before traveling. This has resulted in some unfortunate trips where I have had no pants to bring because I didn’t realize that Gaia, our cleaning lady had started my wash cycle over again, on the normal Italian cycle, which takes about 3 hours. To be fair, Gaia has to put up with a lot from us, and as my roommate says, she is our disapproving stand-in Italian mother. She cleans our rooms and makes up our beds once or twice a week, changes our sheets once a week, and cleans our kitchen more often than she should, our massive piles of dishes not making her the happiest of Florentines. I have on more than one occasion done all the dishes just because I felt bad for the way we had left it, thinking that perhaps I could make her think a little more highly of us messy American girls.

My roommates alarm never fails to wake me up with a voice that repeats, "It's 7:30 time to wake up." None of has figured out how to change the tone of the alarm, or maybe we're all just too lazy to care. We follow the same routin every morning. Wake up, get our malaria pills and vitamin, go downstairs, eat breakfast, take pills, and read updates on the computer while trying to wake up for the busy day ahead of us. 

I was told countless times before coming to Accra that life here runs at a different pace than I might be used to. I was told there would so much time on my hands I could take up to three naps a day. I was told that I would start up so many new hobbies with all of the free time, such as reading, writing, and blogging. For the first two weeks this is exactly what I did. Classes were still struggling to start as professors cancelled or delayed, community service and internship positions had yet to be assigned, the internet was in and out as well as the power and water. There wasn’t much to do but read and journal. Nobody told me that the first two weeks here were the exception. The first two weeks were to get our feet wet before throwing us into a hectic filled schedule just like in New York, except everyone is moving in slow motion.

Most of my days run 8am-8pm with an hour long break thrown in the mix things up. I don’t have time for even one nap unless it’s Friday or Sunday afternoon. I’ve stopped reading regularly because it only makes my lids grow heavy before 11pm. The same goes with my journal, you can visibly see where in the sentence I began dozing off through my dwindling handwriting and incoherent sentences.

My roommates and I have made it a goal to go to the gym Monday-Saturday. It’s how we start almost every day. Whether it be an aerobics or strength conditioning class at 8:30am or a five mile afternoon run on the treadmill, we have all turned to exercise as a source of some “me” time. The service at Pippa’s Gym is great and we’re already on a first name basis with most of the employees.

Pippa’s is something I do for myself. Most of that free time I had during the first two weeks disappeared when I started community service. I work with a nurse/midwife at the local Police Hospital for a foundation called Eve’s. Eve’s focuses their attention to informing young girls and women about reproductive health and pregnancy. I’ve fallen in love with the foundation and with my boss Miss Okra. I usually spend about 10 hours a week there spanned across 2-3 days depending on the week.

As much as I enjoyed the lackadaisical first few weeks here, I absolutely love how involved and comfortable with the community I’ve become. Classes always tend to fall to the back of my mind when I’m interacting with so many people and learning about their life and their every day. Being integrated into the community is a class in itself. Each day is a struggle for the cab driver to understand left from right, for me to get used to the constant honking, and for my patience to grow a little bit thicker. Every day is a learning experience despite the fact that I’ve fallen into a comfortable and routine like I do in New York. Having a busy routine only makes Accra feel more and more like home.              

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. 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.)

Every day here in Abu Dhabi I make a list of all of the things that I need to do.  As the day progresses things get added, accomplished and crossed out, and if any are left at the end of the day I delegate them to other times in the week.  I usually do the same thing in New York and I would consider a busy day to be 10 or more items.  Today the list had 23.  Needless to say, my life in Abu Dhabi is hectic.  But I love it.
 
In general, I wake up at 7:45 to grab a quick breakfast before I have class for a couple of hours.  When my courses end I head straight to hail a cab so that I can be punctual to my new internship at a high-level consulting firm. I stay there for five or so hours doing tons of research and sitting in on incredible meetings, learning constantly.  I then head back to NYU and go straight to either the gym to lift weights and run, or to a nearby hotel to play squash.  I’m training for a ten-person 242km relay race that NYU-AD is sending a team to next weekend in Jordan.  We are running all of the way from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea- in under 24 hours.  I honestly don’t know if I will make it back alive.  When I’m finished working out I head to dinner with some friends and usually hang around a bit to talk with various people.  My nights are then filled with readings for school, research for my second internship I go to once a week at the German Government office, writing grant proposals for my NGO, applying to summer internships or preparing case studies for the interviews, and emailing teachers and family back in the states.  Sometimes I throw in a friend or two- just to insure I’m not a hermit.  I try to get to bed, with the entire list finished, by 2:00am and look forward to the next day where I’ll do it all again!
 
Obviously this intensity can be exhausting, but I really thrive off of it and it has all enabled me to gain so many interesting insights on Abu Dhabi and the UAE- Academically, politically, economically, and occasionally the culture will sneak in.  The weekends also tend to be more relaxed, but with a fieldtrip to Oman this weekend for my Anthropology class and then the race in Jordan next weekend, I don’t think I’ll be able to take a breath until the second week of March.  Luckily, Spring Break will come soon after that and I think my itinerary in Thailand and Sri Lanka will be the perfect combination of craziness and relaxation to allow me to rejuvenate. 
 
This morning in one of my classes a friend looked at my list and asked me about my plans for that day.  After my exasperated explanation she asked, “Are you Superman?”     I wish.

There have been many times here when I have started off my day with a bowl of “Special K Noir.”  That is to say that, in France, the eating of REALLY GOOD dark chocolate flakes first thing in the morning is acceptable, nay, encouraged!  I remember when I first laid eyes on a box of this precious stuff that my Host Mom had left out for me.  It was late in the afternoon and though I normally eat cereal at all hours of the day, I made myself wait until the morning to have this particular cereal.  I wanted my experience to be just as French Kellogg's had intended. It was very easy getting up the next day due to my intense anticipation of the chocolaty goodness.  I poured the “demi-écremé” milk over the cereal into a hand-painted ceramic bowl, grapped a big metal spoon and walked back to my room.  I don’t think I even sat down before I took my first bite.  It was heaven.  In a bowl.  With Milk. 
 
Luckily my roommate hadn’t arrived in France yet so I got that whole first box to myself.  Unfortunately for her, I’m not good at sharing my cereal so she tends to not get that much now anyway.  When we walk to school together in the morning (which is not every morning because I tend to be running late) we now like to grab apples from the kitchen and eat them on the way (I no longer reserve mornings as the only time I can eat Special K Noir - I actually tend to not have it in the morning unless I am awake early).  During our walk we talk about our conversations that we had had with our parents or friends the night before.  We talk about people from home who will probably never be more than abstract concepts to the other person. We talk about the weather.  We often talk about the baby who lives upstairs and who cries ALL THE TIME.  By this time, we’re at school (a mere 12 minute walk).  We split off and I go to work in the library while she goes to class.
 
On the days when I have to be at work at nine (thankfully only Wednesdays and some Fridays), I am late.  Luckily, most of the time, France is late too.  That is to say that many things do not actually start on time here so my getting to the library at 9:10 instead of 9:00 is usually met with a “c’est pas grave!” and a “oui!” when I ask if I can go get coffee before starting to work.  

At NYU Paris there are two coffee machines that vend a sugary liquid with what tastes (and feels) like very little caffeine.  Thus my daily routine is to start out with two coffees at once (one sugary “cappuccino” and a shot of espresso).  I take the cappuccino first and drink it a ways down before pouring in the espresso shot and going back to the library to start actually working (around 9:20).
 
So far, French mornings agree with me.  A bit of chocolate followed by a quick walk and coffee?  I think I could get used to this.

The great thing about moving, and I've moved a lot, is that the mundane gets a little more exciting. It just hits a slightly different chord in my brain, as if the neural clusters activated shifted just a tad to let you know- new! This is why the subway only now begins to bore, the smell of dirty clothes begins to reek, and that neighbor who complained to the management about my slamming my door becomes a problem that exists in reality.

The rose-colored goggles are wearing thin these past few days as the naturally foreign concepts of reality and responsibility begin to tap upon the everyday door. As I already mentioned, I had a “noise complaint” in our apartment building (our housing is mixed with locals), which I find interesting considering I don't even spend more than 3 hours in my own apartment every day. And speaking of complaints against me, I received a forty Euro ticked on the subway for purchasing the wrong ticket (it said “student ticket!) and my pleas of misunderstanding were met with the dismissal, “Well, you must read it in German!” This and other every day reminders keep pressing the constant brain-chatter of my mind to repeat, I really need to learn more German.

But please, let's not focus on the negative. I've always been a firm believer that beauty exists in both the “mundane,” “everyday,” and “cliche,” and this trip will hopefully only expand my conception of beauty. There are many things I come to love in routine. At home, it was locking the door every night and falling asleep on the couch while D sat at his computer programming. This always made me feel safe. Here, I am beginning to develop other routines. The laundry tokens we must buy are very expensive, so I do my laundry in my sink and dry them on the radiator. I feel rustic. I go to the gym and wander around in the locker room naked until I ask, and almost understand, the women who direct me on the proper way to approach the sauna (naked and pre-showered, if you want to know). It's the most relaxing thing I have done here and I felt like I belong.

Lord knows I can't decide on whether I desire stability, routine, and peace rather than adventure, drama, and mystery in my life. So far here, I've had (created, maybe?) a good mixture of both. I'm almost disappointed that I'm settling into my space here, in this apartment we decorated with objects and tapestries from home, and doing my homework as I would any other place. However, as soon as moments like these begin to arise something jars me- maybe I go outside, maybe I just smile- into the realization that my life isn't actually boring! In the right lighting, everything looks artistic. And if for a moment it isn't, I can change it. 
 

My new routine has barely been established as of yet, we’ve had only four days of classes thus far and already two vacation days for Carnival. Coming back to Buenos Aires, I finally feel very established with my way around the city; I know the places to go, but more importantly, the places to avoid. Despite this, I am still learning the intricacies. Just today, I got incredibly lost on the bus, forgetting that there are two routes the 39 bus can take (which would beg the question, with over 740 bus lines, why not make it into two?).
 
I live in a different homestay than last semester with an older woman named Mavi who epitomizes the aging Porteña. Physically, she’s thin, incredibly tan and dresses like the 1990s. Her personality is judgmental and she loves to scold and pry into my business. I have a suspicion that my bedroom is a converted maid’s quarters because it’s behind the kitchen and has no window. It’s stifling in the summer and I’ve been sleeping with my fan propped on a chair facing directly at my naked, uncovered body. Needless to say, it’s been a rough adjustment from my previous homestay where I had a ceiling fan, balcony and friend in my “madre,” but I’m learning to cope.
 
The gym here is among my favorite people-watching locations and I can say with confidence that porteños’ way of exercise is far different than in the US. Today, despite every cardio machine being occupied, I was the only one breaking a hard sweat. Most treadmills were taken with people lightly strolling, some of the hardcore people at a light incline. Women and men have clearly come to scope each other out, taking careful consideration in matching their scrunchies to their sports bras or not doing too many reps consecutively and risk breaking a sweat. The thin, attractive population of Argentines mystifies me because their exercise regime is quite leisurely.
 
The diet here is far more basic and less varied than in the United States; it consists mainly of different combinations and preparations of bread, meat and cheese. Discovering that I’m a celiac over break, my diet here has changed drastically because all of the quick and common foods have wheat, for example – empanadas, sandwiches, tarts. Needless to say, the meat culture here is incredible and divine steaks can be found for $40 pesos (about $9 USD). Let me clear some misnomers about Argentine cuisine: no it is not spicy, Argentines are quite sensitive to spicy food though they use a lot of salt; no it is not the same Mexican food, I wish sometimes it were though.
 
My favorite part of life in Buenos Aires remains the leisurely lifestyle, the hours spent idling in cafes without waiters bothering you to order more or leave or just sitting in the park chatting into nightfall.
 
The picture is one I took at a neighborhood parilla where we got a steak, chicken, fries and soda for about $10 USD per person. 

Many people say “Florence is a small city.” I agree with this statement compared to New York City. However getting around everyday has been a lot harder than any MTA Subway system. In my daily routine I have to give myself at least 30-60 min of travel time. Its easy to walk anywhere, but that is at least 20 minutes from my house. Everyday I struggle to force myself out of bed at around 9 AM and wake up to a simple Italian breakfast waiting for me. The only exception is on Thursdays when I have to wake up at 7 to get to my 9 AM Marketing class. My home-stay family has already been awake for hours, so they just leave me and my roommate the pot of coffee, cereal and some Nutella which we eat with bananas.

I try my best to explore the city with my free time in the morning, but so far the weather in Italy has been below 30 degrees with rain and snow. I still haven't had the chance to climb to the top of the Duomo. However I don’t need to worry about this because my schedule is as simple as the Italian life style, I am very relaxed here. When I get to the top of Via Bolognese, I usually get an 80 cent cappuccino or chocolate croissant from our campus cafe. That gets me through my beginner Italian class and then I catch the bus back to the city center for my photography class. By the time I am done, I am starving because my snack food and fruit won't hold me over. On my way home I'll stop at the famous Pugi Pizzeria, where you can get your fresh pizza by the slice and have an amazing lunch for under 3 Euro.

Living in a home-stay takes away a lot of the pressure of everyday life. I don’t have to worry about what I am having for dinner, or how much it costs.  I can always count on having my 3 courses of food at 8:30 PM each night. After using four different keys to get through the bolt lock doors, I come home to a clean room with folded laundry. I am very grateful for this and I wish I had this luxury back in New York. Although I am very comfortable, the daily in Florence is very different than any in the US. The way of crossing street, catching the bus, ordering food, pushing doors, recycling, and conserving electricity is hard to adjust to. I will always find myself in a situation where I am not doing it “correctly” (according to my italian home-stay father) therefore people will label me as an foreigner.

Italians don’t host many guests in there homes, so cafes and bars are places where people hang out with their friends. After class, I found a few favorite places to spend time with my friends. We recently fell in love with La Carraia Gelateria, and the cafe Volume. Both of these spots are on the other side of river, but so worth the distance. Volume is where we can do our homework, eat and listen to live music. I love it here because after it’s daily happy hour, “Apperitivo” the study lounge turns into a bar where you can meet locals over cheap glasses of Italian wine and fresh olives and mozzarella.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment my first day in Florence I was terrified: would the apartment be old? Small? Dirty? Would I like my roommates? I quickly pushed open the door; I couldn’t wait to find out. To my surprise, the apartment appeared to be decked out in modern, Ikea furniture: glass table, stainless steel appliances, funky light fixtures, denim couch…this will definitely work for me, I thought.
Laundry on the other hand is a whole other story. I mistakenly assumed that the washing machine and dryer would work exactly like the ones I use at school. I put my clothes in and three hours later the buzzer went off. I opened the door and began taking out my clothes. I pulled out a sock and noticed that it was blue. I pulled out one after another, each one a different shade of blue. ‘O god,’ what did I do wrong? Assuming that the dryer would magically fix my now blue wardrobe, I stuck everything in and shut the door. I checked on my clothes an hour later and noticed that my clothes were SOAKED. I had no idea what to do next, so I piled the drenched clothes into bags and carried them into my apartment.  Next thing I know, my entire room was covered in water.  I was tired and cold and this was the last thing I wanted to be dealing with. I decided to lay my clothes outside to dry overnight. I would take everything to the closest Laundromat in the morning. From now on, I’ll follow instructions. Lesson learned.
When I’m at school, I always follow a schedule. My oversized red planner is my Bible. But my first week in Florence was anything but organized. At first, the thought of not being on a schedule made me anxious; I was convinced I would be a total mess. How would I survive? Two days passed and I realized how obviously wrong I had been.  Maybe this would be a great chance to ‘go with the flow’ and take each day at a time. So far, most of my days consist of taking the bus to class, climbing through the grounds of Villa Pietra to get to class, going to the gym, and dinner with my friends. Luckily, I found a gym that’s three blocks away from my apartment. I can definitely live like this for a semester.