The Longest Day EVER!

Well, I'm exhausted! It all started with a 2 hour flight from Denver to Dallas-Fort Worth. That flight actually wasn't too bad and before I knew it, the pilot was announcing that we were getting ready to land. The real battle began on my flight from Dallas to Buenos Aires. At first, I thought that my initial culture shock would come after arriving in Buenos Aires, but in fact, it was on the plane ride there, where at least 75% of the passengers were speaking Spanish around me. The directions on board were in Spanish and English which I thought was actually really cool. But then came 10 hours of misery as I sat, and sat.... and sat some more. It was terrible. It was impossible to get comfortable and every time I got sleep the plane would hit some turbulence and I would jolt awake, convinced that the plane was about to crash. Finally after what seemed like the longest day of my life, we arrived.

TOUCHDOWN ARGENTINA!

On to the next nightmare: Customs.
There were only about two tellers for a whole plane full of Americans trying to get through. The poor woman who was questioning me started asking me about visas which of course made me panic and launch into an explanation of why I don't need a student visa yet in barely passable Spanish and led me to pull out all of the documentation that I had. I couldn't understand her, she couldn't understand me and it took a minute before she could explain to me that she was just asking if I had one so she would know what to mark on my passport... Oh, my bad... I hadn't slept OK!

Another hour and a half later, and I was still waiting to have my bags checked. Everyone around me was getting impatient, and I was getting restless because I was worried that my IFSA-Butler contact would leave without me and that I would be stranded alone in this country with people demanding my student visa... this is where my mind goes. Luckily I met a nice Brazilian man (whose name I couldn't even pretend to understand, let alone spell) who couldn't speak English or Spanish very well, but we made due with a little bit of conversation. I even helped him fill out one of his customs forms. I'm such a giver. After FINALLY making it through "security" (let's face it... the guard wasn't paying attention to me) I found my IFSA-Butler contact, said goodbye to my Brazilian friend and met up with a few more students in my program. We waited around the airport for another hour and a half for the rest of our program to arrive and then we finally got to our hotel where we ate lunch, had a two hour break (i.e. NAP TIME) and then met up again for orientation and finally dinner.

Just so everyone knows, I am coming back to DU 15lbs heavier than when I left... if I'm lucky. God, that food was good! I've never experienced pizza and flan quite like that before. There must be something magical about the food here, because when everyone arrived, we were all grumpy and exhausted, but by the time we left we were laughing and having a grand ol' time! There are so many different types of people here, but we are all united by the fact that we are all experiencing this for the first time together.

I am already in love with this country! I can't wait to see what else is in store!