Jonathan's Semester in Argentina: Tigre, First Class, and More

Time for a most needed update. On Thursday we had our first of what will be a total of two CIEE//FLACSO excursions. Early Thursday morning (8:00AM) we boarded a bus to Tigre, the delta that lies just north of Buenos Aires. We took the bus to a port of Tigre where we boarded a boat to the island where our hotel was. The boat ride was a little longer than an hour.

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The delta reminded me of the James Bond Glastron boat chase through the Louisiana delta in Live and Let Die. The boat ride was nice. We passed many commercial boats, as it seems as if a few tanker routes go through the delta. Our hotel was nice. We had a beach, a pool, some pool tables (albeit crappy ones), and plenty of time to hang out. Actually, most people, including myself, felt at first as if it was a little too much time to hang out. We were given an extensive packing list and schedule and were asked if we had any fear of heights or if we could swim before we left, which made us think that we were in for two days of jam packed activities. Well we got there and the message was just "go have fun" (diviértanse). After we realized that there was really nothing planned for the day and a half that we were there except for meals and a tango show on Thursday night, we had fun on the pool and on the beach. Only half of the group was at our hotel. The other half was at a similar hotel having pretty much what I heard was the same exact experience. However, apparently they were told that the river was toxic and that they couldn't swim in it while we were told that it was very clean water. Very conflicting messages. Good thing I didn't spend too much time in it anyway. The best part of the trip was the bonfire that we had on Thursday night. The rasta bartender ended up making a decent fire. I'd give it a B/B+ on the Ehrlich scale. Anyway, Friday we were told that CIEE would not be providing for our transportation back (after the boat to the mainland) and that we had to find our own way home to BA on the train. Some people went into the port of Tigre on the mainland, but apparently there was not much to see, so most of us just went home. I definitely thought that I was going to get pick pocketed when I got to the train station (Retiro). I wasn't. Anyway, that was the trip to Tigre. It was fun to spend time with people from the program in a non-orientation setting.

Things that I learned from Tigre:

http://www.deltamedic.com.ar/ (pretty cool. Or at least I think so)
Los Gardelitos, a Buenos Aires rock band that sounds like Chuck Berry

Anyway, that was Tigre. Last week I also had my first class. It was La Estructura de la Economía Argentina (Argentine Economic Structure) at la Facultad de Ciencias de Economía de la UBA (that's the economics school at University of Buenos Aires, which itself -- just the Econ faculty -- has a total of about 30,000 students). The class was not too big. I'd estimate that there were about 50-60 students. Most were my age, but many of them also have jobs while they are studying at university (especially the econ students). The class was interesting. I understood most of what the TA was saying. The professor of the class is the Director of the Argentine National Bank, so I'm not quite sure how often he is going to show up. The TA talked mostly about Argentine Development and the jump that is needed for developing and super-developing countries to become fully developed countries. Point being, there was little discussion about Argentine economic structure. I am enrolled in two other econ courses here, and I intend on taking one, so we shall see who will be the lucky winner. I will have the rest of my classes this coming week. The atmosphere in the classroom was pretty similar to the US, which is apparently not the case everywhere in the world according to my other study abroad buddies. It was strange being in a class not in the US while the lecturer is taking about the US (when she says "our country/nuestro país," she is talking about Argentina! Crazy! The one thing that surprised me was the lack of texting in class. Argentines are just not as attached to their phones as we are.

The post continues...
I have been thinking about a lot of things that I don't want to forget that I want to write down, so we continue.

Maybe you thought that people from New York are bad drivers, maybe they thought that people from New Jersey are bad drivers, maybe they thought that Bostonians are bad drivers. Well it seems as if once you get outside of the US bad driving jumps to a whole other level. I've heard that in urban parts of the world like Vietnam and other parts of SE Asia there just are no traffic laws -- or at least no regard for them if they do exist. Argentina is a step above that (if it is in fact true). However, I just want to point out the fact that Argentines are not the best drivers (worse than in the US), and that there are no stop signs here. People sort of stop at intersections without lights, and sometimes the person who got there first gets a semblance of right of way. Traffic accidents are apparently very popular here, but I have yet to see one.

Stay tuned. I still have to write an entire post on the public transportation system here, but there is just too much to say about it -- it deserves a day of thought all on its own.

Ciao.