The beginning of a new adventure...

Hello everybody,

For all of you who do not know me yet, my name is Joni Koch, I am 20 years old and about to stay in Buenos Aires for 6months in order to have one of the best international experiences possible while being in university: studying abroad.

I arrived in this massive city last friday after a long flight that included all the prejudices; crying babies, delays, running to gates, and no space to put your legs properly. But the flight was fine, and I arrived in Buenos Aires around 9.30 am. I started this adventure with 4 other students from Tilburg University that I met because of the exchange program (we found out that we were all going to Buenos Aires for the coming semester). These exchange-mates are: Jelle, Bjorn, Marieke and Rik. Rik and Jelle will both be studying at Universidad Torcuato di Tella, Marieke will go to Universidad Católica Argentina and Bjorn and I will study at Universidad del CEMA. Their company made the flight a lot better!

Upon arrival we were picked up by the hostel where we booked our first nights in Argentina. It was well arranged, but on the airport I found out that I was really in Latin America. The guy that picked us up, spoke absolutely not a single word of english. So here we were: 5 students from tilburg university, that have had only 1 year of spanish, in a country were even the lady behind the 'international assistance-office' doesn't speak a word english. In really crappy spanish including hands and feet we were able to get what we wanted, but still it startled me. How on earth will I ever be able to live here for 6 months!

Our hostel is fine, great actually. The only thing to complain about is the cold. When coming from 30degrees+ in Holland, 7 degrees feels a bit cold. Especially when almost none of the buildings have a heater inside, but we'll get used to it. Besides that, in a month or so the winter will end and spring will begin. I heard that spring is the best period of the year to visit Buenos Aires, so I am really exited.

My first days were filled with getting to know the area where we are staying and the city as a whole. Buenos Aires is fantastic! It is the perfect mix between the size of a city like Manilla, the cosiness of a city surrounding the mediterranean sea and the glamour of a city like Bangkok. Sounds great right? Well, it is!
Besides that, We have (of course) also had a first glimp at the going out-scene of Buenos Aires and I must say that The Netherlands is nothing compared to this. First of all, there are only clubs here (so hardly any pubs) and the timing is very different. A club doen't start to get busy before 2am and a party will therefore last until at least 6am and sometimes even longer. It is therefore very common to take a short nap before going out (as Marieke calls it: 'the disco-nap'). Besides that, positive discrimination is very normal here. Usually girls hardly have to pay to get into a club while guys do haha! As we would say in dutch: 'die kan je in je zak steken' haha! Furthermore, the music is really good and people are dancing everywhere! I could definitely get used to this ;).

But of course we also have to focus on the important stuff and the reason why we`re here. I am currently following an intensive spanish course in order to get used to the argentina way of pronouncing their spanish and to refresh my memory again. The course takes 4 hours a day, 3 weeks in a row. So let's hope that my spanish will improve rapidly. Although, I must say that I have already experienced some improvement (woehoe!). After these weeks my classes will start, which will be entirely in spanish so if it hasn't improved much by then, it will anyway.

Besides following the spanish classes we are also searching for an apartment here. Today I got my first positive reply and I hope to stop by the place soon.

I will keep you posted!

Besos, Joni