Hello everyone!
We are sorry for the delay in posts, but the week between dropping our truck off in Houston and leaving ourselves for Buenos Aires was stressful, exciting and somber. We were so excited to start our adventure but also very sad to be leaving all our friends and families behind. We were comforted that we would be able to text anytime we want.
Our journey to Buenos Aires started in Denver on November 13th with a midnight flight to Florida followed by a 7 hour layover and a flight to Toronto, don’t ask us why this was the cheapest flight pattern we could find. We were received in Toronto by another 8 hour layover before finally heading in the right direction to Santiago, Chile. In Chile we only had to stop for an hour to refuel the plane before starting the last flight to Buenos Aires. We landed in Buenos Aires at 4:00 pm on November 15th making it a 40 hour trip. Hauling all our bags and our exhausted bodies through the airport we ordered an Uber. Our ride to our Airbnb at the center of the financial district was uneventful other than noticing the mobs of people coming back from their siesta. When we finally found our new apartment, we promptly crashed for the next 17 hours. We slept from 6:00 pm till 11:00 am the next day and it felt so good!
Once recovered, we began to explore our new home. Our place is a tiny 9th story apartment in the center of downtown. Because of this location, we are able to walk to everything we need. We can walk to plenty of restaurants and shopping, but more importantly, we are only a 10 minute walk to our Spanish school. In terms of amenities, our place has everything we need, just miniaturized. It has a full kitchen, a sitting room, a dinner table, a full bathroom and a reasonably sized bedroom. We are extremely pleased with it!
For the first two days here, we mainly recovered from the craziness of leaving the States and started to gather our bearings about the city around us. We found a nearby supermarket where we can buy a majority of our food and a couple of great restaurants that serve the best empanadas we have every had! So far Colter has had empanadas for 2 lunches and a dinner. Also, the food here is so cheap due to the recession in Argentina. For example, a dinner for the two of us consisting of 5 empanadas and 4 beers only cost $10 USD! We have also found a great lunch place for only $2.50 a person.
On the day of writing this, we just started our first day of Spanish class and we love it!! The Expanish school is so organized and welcoming! Nikki and I were tested on our Spanish knowledge and placed into our respective classes where we joined 5-8 other students from all over the world! We are in classes with people from Germany, Switzerland, Brazil, Australia, Holland and many other countries. Also, the age range is very wide, from 18 to 50. Our schedule so far is 4 hours of Spanish lessons in the morning followed by a lunch of empanadas and then a cultural event held by the school in the afternoon. The school hosts 4 cultural events every week that is free for all students. For example, tomorrow we are taking a tango dancing lesson!
In terms of getting around Buenos Aires, we have found it very easy so far! Colter’s Spanish is sufficient for everyday things like going out to eat or asking for directions, but these 3 weeks of Spanish lessons will really help! We are able to walk to all the necessary things, but we can easily take a bus or a subway to see other parts of the city, like Palermo and Recolota, which is our plan for this next weekend.
Moving forward, we plan to write at least one blog every week to keep everyone up to date! We love and miss you all!!
Colter and Nikki
Nikki and Colter's South American Travel Blog 