Introduction

Why Buenos Aires?

There is a panic that sets in just after graduation from college that tends to elicit two particular reactions among those it strikes. I fall quite squarely within one of those categories. Rather than opting for grad school, where I could continue to loaf around between classes and the dining hall, I've gone ahead and signed up for a months-long excursion abroad on the pretense that it will change my life and give me direction.

In reality, every move one makes is life-changing. And to be honest, I have no more direction now that I've been here a month than when I came. But I suppose as long as I'm sleeping until noon in another country rather than in my parents' basement, it's something to be commended. Right?

Well in any case, I'm here, and I took a certain path toward my arrival:

After months of abstract schemes involving places like Thailand, the south of France and good old Florida, a nudge from a certain friend sent me headlong into a plan to head to Argentina. Her motives were as elementary as mine: to go somewhere new and write. After a few discussions and a bit of research, it seemed that for a long-term stay fueled by only a few months' savings, Buenos Aires was the most logical destination.

Who I'm Here WIth

I packed up and moved in with two friends made the last time I escaped across borders. Liz and Eriks were both part of a program that sent American students over to Oxford University for three months of lectures, tutorials, reading and papers. Also involved were late-night visits to interesting food vendors, unapologetic banana-throwing, frantic 5am paper-writing, whirlwind jaunts to London/Paris/Wales/etc and soccer in our dorm rooms at 4am.

Liz and I were roommates and quickly became best friends despite the fact that she originally feared that I was mentally imbalanced because of my affinity toward Creedence Clearwater Revival and I feared that she was going to try to introduce me to Jesus (both long stories, clearly.)

Eriks was the guy with the S on the end of a perfectly good non-S name who was growing his hair out for Locks of Love and frequently wore (and still wears) a bright pink shirt that says Snak Club. We three were part of a wonderful group of seven friends, and it seemed only natural to invite him along on our more grown-up, less lecture-infused journey.

What's Happening?

We all have return flights out of Buenos Aires for various points in the future. Eriks in mid-April, me a week later and Liz in mid-May.

It was a huge gamble to come to a city we'd never visited in a country -- continent, even -- that was unfamiliar to us all. So it comes as no big surprise (to me, at least) that our plans are all up in the air. I'm currently thinking of taking off somewhere on my own in January, and the other two are considering moving somewhere outside of the city for the rest of the trip after that. My reasons and theirs will surely be covered in later posts.

For the time being, we're surviving. Some days are spent wandering the streets of the different BsAs barrios, others in cafés sipping tea and doing writing exercises with Liz, and others being absolute slugs searching for TV shows in English while wasting time on YouTube and gorging on cheap cookies.

So I guess we ended up running towards life, after all. Sure we're technically jobless and our [laughably low] rent allows us to stay that way, but we've still bitten off a big chunk of the real thing. At the end of the day, it's a pretty good time.