Our Student of the Month in December is Jena Sorensen. Although she returned to the US before we had a chance to interview her, she kindly told us about her experience in Buenos Aires through e-mail. Read on to find out more:

Tell us a little about yourself:

My name is Jena and I’m from Seattle, Washington in the United States and I’m currently studying Fashion at New Mexico State University.

Which course did you take at BridgeArgentina and why did you decide to take this course?

I took the intensive language course at BridgeArgentina for ten weeks. I wanted to study Spanish in another country while receiving credit for my Spanish minor in college.

Why did you decide to come to Argentina?

I chose to study with BridgeArgentina because of this strong desire to live and experience the culture in Buenos Aires – there were no other options for me. I wanted to study in Buenos Aires or no where! I love South America and the city of Buenos Aires seemed too appealing and exotic to pass up.

What do you like/dislike about Buenos Aires?

I loved the cultural diversity in Buenos Aires in the people, food, languages, and buildings. I felt like I was in Europe with the French architecture, eating Italian food, while speaking in Spanish. It’s such a fascinating city that is so busy and chaotic, but still beautiful and charming.

I disliked how busy everybody was in Buenos Aires. It didn’t seem like a South American country to me. Everybody was working, the people weren’t very family-oriented, and I easily became overwhelmed with the noise, traffic, and amount of people everywhere at all times.

Where did you stay (host family, hostel..) and how was that experience?

I stayed with a host family and really enjoyed it. I was able to talk to my host family every night at dinner, they were helpful with me in my Spanish, they always suggested things for me to do, and I liked the comfort of having a family in such an unfamiliar place.

Do you feel that your level of Spanish has improved? How was the experience of being immersed in the language?

My Spanish level has definitely improved. I studied Spanish in college in New Mexico and I was able to apply everything that I learned in the United States in my classes and in life in Buenos Aires. Immersing myself in the language was exactly what I needed, but so difficult. I would easily get frustrated with not being able to effectively communicate my personality or my opinions, but over time I learned more and more and improved my Spanish better than I could have in my normal Spanish classes in the United States.

What are some tips that you’d give to other people coming to Buenos Aires?

My suggestions to students going to Buenos Aires would be to have a plan of what you want to do, see, and accomplish during your time there. Argentina has so much to offer!  Connect with English/Spanish clubs when you arrive, stay at a hostel for a few nights to make tourist friends, go on the walking or bike tours to get suggestions for where to eat, shop, and travel, and plan to visit all the tourist, as well as local sites, because there’s so much to do and you want get the most out of your stay in Buenos Aires. And of course, enjoy it! Buenos Aires is a one of a kind place.

This month we had the pleasure of having a very special student at BridgeArgentina from Japan, Sae Nobehara. Unfortunately we weren’t able to sit down with her before she returned home, but she kindly agreed to answer some questions by e-mail. Read on to find out about what she had to say:

Tell us a little about yourself:

I’m Sae Nobehara from Osaka, Japan, 29 years old.  I have been working as a nurse for almost 7 years in Japan. To become a nurse was my dream, so I like my job. But I thought that I needed to take some rest because nursing is hard and intense sometimes.  I quit the hospital, and I went to Canada to learn English in 2008.  I decided to go abroad because I thought I should do anything I want, which was learning another language.

After I came back to Japan from Canada, I worked at the hospital again. Then I became interested in Medical English, so I went back to Canada to take a health care and medical English course in 2010. While I was taking that course, I also learned a lot of differences of the medical environment between my country and a developing country. I wanted to know about it more, then I went to Cusco, Peru  to volunteer  as a nurse after I finished my health care course. I stayed in Cusco for 2 months. That was amazing experience for me, and that was a start to studying Spanish.

I stayed in Argentina for only a month (I went to school for three weeks and went traveling for a week.)  I came back to Japan and went back to work now.

Which course did you take at BridgeArgentina and why did you decide to take this course?

I took  group lessons in the morning for three weeks and Private lessons in the afternoon for two weeks. I decided to take these courses because I wanted to improve my Spanish. I learned a little Spanish in Peru, but it was not at a real school. So I wanted to learn Spanish from a  professional.

Why did you decide to come to Argentina?

When I was looking for the country where I can learn Spanish, the national flag of Argentina was really attractive for me. I think it was  the one of a big reason why I choose Argentina.  And I felt that Argentina seemed a little bit different from any other country of South America, so I was interested in Argentina before I came.

Another reason why I chose Argentina is that I’ve never known anyone who has been to Argentina. I wanted to go to somewhere I really don’t know because I love to know new things.

Where did you stay (host family, hostel..) and how was that experience?

I stayed with host family in Buenos Aires. My host mother was Cristina, she lives alone at lovely apartment. I was really comfortable with her even my Spanish is not good enough. I can’t speak Spanish very well and she doesn’t speak English either, but she always tried to understand what I wanted to say. She was very patient with me.  Talking to her everyday was very helpful for improving my Spanish.

I remember,  when I had trouble(I was robbed of my i-phone), she helped me a lot. She was sad and mad like something happened to her. It made me relieved.

Do you feel that your level of Spanish has improved? How was the experience of being immersed in the language?

I think my level of Spanish has improved. Although I learned Spanish at Bridge Argentina for only 3 weeks, I learned a lot and I really enjoyed learning Spanish there.  Also I really appreciate my Spanish teachers and all the staff of Bridge Argentina because they always cheered me up.

Spanish is a third language for me. Learning another language is not easy, but learning another language and studying abroad broadened my horizon.

I will continue to study Spanish in Japan because I don’t want to forget everything I learned. Actually I found a Spanish class here! It was not easy to find a Spanish class in Japan, so I’m so happy.   I hope I could use my Spanish for a patient who speaks Spanish in the future. It would be great to work as a nurse with my skill of language. It is my next dream.

What are some tips that you’d give to other people coming to Buenos Aires?

My image about South America has completely changed after I came to Buenos Aires. When I came to Buenos Aires, I was feeling I was in Europe or somewhere.  There is  the culture which has a harmony between Latin America and Europe. It was really interesting.

Lowe comes to BridgeArgentina from Colorado, where he is the Senior Business Analyst for the global mining company, AngloGold Ashanti. He’s taking Corporate Spanish immersion classes in order to improve his Spanish for work. I met with him to talk about his experience studying Spanish in Buenos Aires and working in Argentina.

Although based in Colorado, Lowe tells me that over the next year and half, he will travel to Santa Cruz, Patagonia about once a month, where his company has a mining operation. This influenced his decision to improve his Spanish so that he could communicate better with his team. Despite the fact that most of his collegues in Patagonia speak English, he wants to build upon the Spanish that he learned in high school and, so far, he really sees the effort paying off. ”People appreciate it when you try to speak their language, even if you are making a lot of mistakes, you are still making an effort to communicate and meet them in the middle, and they pick up on that” he tells me.

Lowe sees that his recent efforts to learn Spanish have also helped in team-building and constructing a general sense of comardery between himself and his team in Patagonia. He fondly recalls one meeting that was conducted half in English and half in Spanish, but somehow they managed to understand  each other. “It helps that this field is so technical, we can understand each other through the common knowledge we share.”

When Lowe isn’t in class, (did we mention that he studies Spanish from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day?), he goes out and explores Buenos Aires on foot. With his hotel being at only a few blocks from the school, he’s gotten to know quite well the downtown area, as well as the nearby, trendy Puerto Madero and the historic Congreso neighborhood.

One thing that Lowe wishes that he had had the time to do before coming to Argentina, is to memorize a lot of verbs and vocabulary for every-day life.  Just having 50 verbs and 100 or so nouns memorized would have helped him alot. Although, this approach may not work for all,  I usually tend to forget words three seconds after hearing them! Lowe also advises student to just jump in to learning Spanish without any fear, you’ll definitely make mistakes, but you’ll also learn a lot.

This month I sat down with an exceptional student at BridgeArgentina: Tré, from Sarasota, Florida, came to Buenos Aires to study Spanish and get her TEFL certification. The first time I saw her at Bridge, I was in awe:  she was speaking  on the phone in Spanish and using  Google translator at the same time to quickly look up words and phrases she didn’t know. Her bravery was very impressive…I still remember the panic attack I had the first time I called someone in Spanish. “Google translator has been a life saver,” Tré tells me, “I highly recommend to download a translation application on your iPhone, no matter where you are traveling.”

Tré is part of this group of brave Americans who are taking advantage of the sagging market in order to boost up their job skills and have another chance at an adventure in life. She had been working as an optician for many years when the economy went bad and caused her to think about a new direction in her life. “Spanish is getting stronger in the US, so I thought I’d come here and study it,” she tells me.

She’s been taking our intensive TEFL certification course, and intensive it is. “After 15 years of not being in the classroom, this experience has been exhausting and almost like a full-time job.” Yet she has a smile on her face as she adds: “but it’s a good reason to travel and gets your foot in the door in many corporations.”

Tré tells me that she likes Buenos Aires, but she would love to see some beautification and clean-up projects happen. “The architecture here is so beautiful, but the city reminds me of New York City around 15 years ago, before it was cleaned-up.” The best way, she advises me, to get to know the city and appreciate it for what it is, is to walk around during different times of the day and observe the neighborhoods’ changing personalities .

I ask her about some things that are a must to try while in Argentina. “The Bonafide mint chocolates!” she exclaims as she pulls out a secret stash from her purse and pushes one into my hand. I must admit, it was my first time having one and they are indeed delicious. She also suggests that visitors do things that Argentina is well-known for, like checking out a polo match, tasting the different wines or enjoying the historic cafés around the city.

She also tells me that Buenos Aires is a great city for single women: “If you ever need a boost to your ego, Buenos Aires is the place to come, men are very open about giving women compliments. In fact, I’ve started many interesting conversations that have led to coffee dates this way.” This is also a time when the iPhone comes in handy again…headphones in, wolf-whistling men out.

Before I even met Carolina, BridgeArgentina’s student coordinator, Pablo, told me this about her: “Tiene un accento mas porteño que yo.” Or, “Her accent sounds more from Buenos Aires than mine!” Although, I should mention that Pablo is from Cordoba, and he’s still learning to speak like a porteño So, wondering what her secret was to an amazing accent, I sat down with her at the Havanna café next to our school and while sipping on cappuccinos, she dished all her secrets.

Carolina grew up in South Africa with her Argentine parents and younger brother. Although she grew up speaking English, she often heard her parents speaking Spanish, so the music of the language and the Argentine accent was instilled in her from an early age. Carolina told me that although her family is from Argentina, this is the first time she’s actually studied Spanish, the grammar, verb tenses, y’know – the hard stuff.

Carolina is, what us normal people would call, “the adventurous type.” Before coming to South America, she worked as a guide in adventure tourism, until one day she noticed some people sailing and thought “I’d like to try that.” She spent the next few years as a captain, sailing yachts around the world. “I wasn’t in one place for more than two weeks during five years.” She casually told me.

Looking to settle down a bit, she said goodbye to the sea life and moved to Brazil, where she lived and studied Portuguese for 6 months before coming to Buenos Aires. She has been taking the TEFL certification course and Spanish classes at BridgeArgentina. She documents her adventures in her blog: From Brasil2Argentina.

I ask her how she feels about coming to Buenos Aires and she tells me, “Buenos Aires is wonderful, and I feel like I can be myself here more than I could in South Africa. There, I was loud, obnoxious and a tomboy. Those are things are the norm here, much more than in South Africa!”

But being from South Africa and having spent many years sailing the world, she tells me she’s definitely not used to the big city life and would like to take her TEFL certificate to a different area of the country to get a job. “I miss the great outdoors, seeing the horizon and the sky! I would like to try settling down somewhere new, possibly Neuquén or somewhere in Patagonia.”

We both agreed on the most difficult part of learning Spanish: quieting those other languages in our mind. Having studied Portuguese in Brazil, she often finds this language trickling into her Spanish conversations. She calls this special way of speaking, “portuñol.” “Sometimes I am talking to an Argentine and I start using Portuguese words without even realizing it. They look at me like I’m crazy!” Unfortunately this disease never goes away, I still have problems, after nearly 5 years living abroad, mixing English, français and español, sans darme cuenta. Oops.

Another challenge of learning Spanish was acquiring the “lunfardo” or special slang used in Argentina.“The people here use it a lot in daily conversation. Sometimes it’s impossible to understand the meaning of a conversation, if you don’t know the lunfardo.”, she confesses. For more on this slang, check out one of our TEFL alumni’s blog post on favorite lunfardo words.

Carolina had quite a few pieces of advice for people coming to Buenos Aires. Here are her top two:
1) Come with more time before you start your course, in order to get a feel for the city and the language.
2) Definitely get a phrase book to help get around…if you are serious at looking to stay, buy a pocket dictionary, to keep on you all the time and improve the extent of your vocab quicker.

Thanks Carolina and good luck in your future adventures!

Our student of the month for June is actually 4 students. In May, BridgeArgentina was invaded by the students of New Mexico State University and I had the pleasure of meeting some of them. I chatted with Talon Waggoner, Montaeya Moore, Claire Thompson and Margot Pace about their time in Buenos Aires and asked them to share their experiences, likes and dislikes.This month, however, we are offering the interview in audio format! Please click on the links below to listen. Enjoy!

June Student of the Month Interview – Part 1

June Student of the Month Interview – Part 2

I meet up with Duaa on a frigid morning in May to chat about her experiences in Buenos Aires and learning Spanish. She is currently enrolled in Group courses at BridgeArgentina

Duaa is practically a porteña. Originally from Kuwait, she has been living in Buenos Aires for 2 years, and still has another 2 years to go. She moved here with her husband and two small children when he was transferred to Buenos Aires for his job. Although she admits that Argentina is quite different from Kuwait, she tells me that she likes Buenos Aires and feels comfortable here. In fact, Duaa is quite used to moving around from country to country, as her father’s job took the family around the world, to countries like Canada, the USA and France, when she was younger.

Duaa admits to me that although she’s been here for 2 years, she had only ever taken 2 months of Spanish classes. She enrolled in BridgeArgentina in hopes to improve her Spanish, which according to her “still needs a lot of work”, although according to her teachers, she’s got a good intermediate level and is improving quickly. She’s been taking group classes and finds them more fun than private classes. “There is more interaction with the other students, I find it more interesting.”

The most difficult part of learning Spanish for Duaa? “That would have to be reading. Although, even in English I have trouble reading.” Living in Buenos Aires for two years has helped her develop her listening and speaking skills, so daily interactions are a breeze. “I never have problems speaking, and if I don’t understand people are always very nice and willing to help.”

Duaa has been lucky enough to have travelled extensively in Argentina (check out the pictures of her and her family at Iguazu Falls and in Patagonia!), but they are still some places she dreams of going: “I’ve heard that Mendoza and San Martin are really beautiful, and hope to go there one day.”

Duaa tells me that she didn’t have much difficulty adjusting to life here. Her secret? She found a good group of friends and stuck with them. Among her favorite things to do in Buenos Aires is hang out with her friends. Her tips to other students coming to Buenos Aires is simple and true: “Find more friends that speak Spanish. This is really the best way to learn a language.”

On a rainy Wednesday afternoon, a few hours before the start of a long holiday weekend, I met up with TEFL and Spanish student, Zachary Infante, for roughly 30 minutes of a roller-coaster conversation during which we talked about everything from New York City to disco music, from arroz con pollo to his group Spanish classes at BridgeArgentina.

Zachary grew up in “upstate New York” and after finishing university in Vermont with a major in English and working in the office of a factory that made catheters, he decided to move to Buenos Aires. “I like putting myself in challenging situations” he told me, with a casual shrug of the shoulder, “I wanted to try out teaching, to see if I liked it and if it would be something I’d want to continue with.” Zachary impressed me how he talked about this major life change as though he were trying out a pair of skinny jeans, just to see if they’d actually look good on him.

He blames this relaxed attitude on living in Buenos Aires. “I’m much more relaxed here. When I was working in the US, I worked for a year straight without any vacations, except for a long weekend here and there. In Buenos Aires, I’ve been on vacation for 3 weeks. But, I’m ready to get back in the workforce.” He added, “I feel like a bum.”

After 4 weeks of intensive TEFL training, he’s decided he likes teaching so far, and is excited to get a job.  “I’ve been sending my CV to a few places, and Karina (the head IDELT trainer) has been helping me out, but so far no one has bit the bait.” He added “Maybe I’ll put that I’m “Student of the Month” on my CV. That might help.”

I ask him what he thought about the TEFL course. “The course was intensive”, he admits, “but I learned a lot of things about classroom management and lesson planning that I hadn’t even realized were a part of teaching. I like that I can be myself, joke around with the students and have a rewarding job at the same time.”

When Zachary first arrived to Buenos Aires he lived with a host family in the neighborhood “Once”. “Buenos Aires was exactly as I had imagined, I had really wanted to live in a big cosmopolitan city. My neighborhood was nice but I was always careful coming home late at night…You never know who’s watching you” he added, looking around suspiciously.

But now, he’s sharing a flat with a friend in Recoleta, where Zachary says doesn’t feel like he’s being watched. He described his apartment to me as an “entrepiso” meaning “between floors”, only accessible by a complicated system of stairs and ladders, to which I immediately thought of the film “Being John Malcovich” and made him promise he’d send me pictures of this architecture marvel.

I ask Zachary if there is anything he would have prepared himself for, now knowing what he knows about Buenos Aires and living in South America. “I would have prepared myself for the lack of vegetables. Most meals consist of meat and potatoes or empanadas and pizza. But then again, I didn’t really eat many vegetables before either.”

Even so, Zachary has been making due by cooking home-made meals with his roommate, like large quantities of arroz con pollo to last an entire week, and even finding the comforts of home in Buenos Aires like hot sauce, which is sold at the San Telmo market by two American expats. His plans for the next few months include not being “such a bum” and to be more active, possibly joining a soccer team.

Any tips for the audience, Zachary? “Be ready to be more patient and have a slower pace in life.” In general: Don’t worry, be happy.

Carley Granger is a TEFL student at BridgeArgentina, where she also studied Spanish in our Group Course. She took some time over her lunch break to talk with me about her new life in Buenos Aires.

What first impressed me about Carley was how mature she seems for her age. After telling me that she had already graduated and worked full-time for 2 years in her home-town of Toronto, I was pretty sure she was around my age (which I’m obliviously not going to tell you). But I find out that she’s only 23 years old (just a babe in my book), and she had already accomplished a lot before deciding to move to South America. “I had a pretty nice set-up in Canada.” She tells me, “I had been working full-time as a registered nurse at a job I loved, but at the same time I felt like I needed an experience living abroad before I could settle down. I found this teaching English program and I thought it would be the perfect way to make money at the same time.”

Carley came to Argentina with her mind wide-open. She wanted to experience the culture exactly the way it is, without judging or comparing it to life in Canada. She was really grateful for the free Spanish classes that she took at Bridge before starting her TEFL course, “I came here knowing absolutely nothing of Spanish, and those courses really helped me in my first days here, and made me realize that I love the language and that learning it is really part of the whole experience.”

The one thing she wasn’t expecting was all the meat. “I’m a vegetarian, but for culture´s sake I did eat some meat. It wasn’t as bad as thought it would be, but I find that you can enjoy the culture and still be vegetarian. I’ve gone to many asados and it’s more about being together with friends and family and sharing a meal than it is about eating meat. Personally, I like to indulge more in the sweets, medialunas and dulce de leche. That’s the good stuff.”

When I ask her what she likes doing in Buenos Aires, she laughs. She explains that her TEFL courses start at 9 a.m. and end at 5 p.m. “It’s been a really intensive month” she told me “At first, I thought: What are we going to do the whole day, just sitting in class? But, it’s been really fun.”

She tells me that she had never taught before in her life until the day that she had to do her first practice teaching lesson. All TEFL students have practice teaching before they are certified. They teach a class in front of their peers and teachers, which can be nerve-wracking for some. “All of the studying and classes really paid off when we had to do our first lesson. I was so nervous I thought I was going to faint, because I had never taught before and here was  a group of students in front of me, as well as my teachers and my fellow classmates watching and critiquing me. But, I got through it and now I look back on the first lesson and can see how much I’ve progressed since then. ”

“The TEFL program opened up a new world for me. I’ve learned a lot about myself because this is the first time I’ve been alone. There are 7 girls in the TEFL program and we’ve become really close, all of my relationships seem to have bonded quicker because we are all alone and going through the same things.”

When Carley is not in class, she finds time to go out with the other students and explore the town. “The night life is completely different here than in Canada, where bars stay open only until 2. In Argentina, we usually have dinner at 10 p.m., go out for drinks at 12 a.m., to the clubs at 2 a.m. and then home at 6 a.m.”

I ask Carley what she thinks of Argentine men. She admits that she hasn’t met a lot of people from Argentina, “I went to Spanglish, which is an English-Spanish conversation exchange, and I did meet some people there.  I think I will meet more people when I start teaching. “She did admit to me however, that she met two Argentine boys who, although friendly and gentleman-like, were also very persistent.  This persistency is common in Argentine dating rituals; the guy wants the girl’s number, the girl refuses- again and again – until, either because of exhaustion or the charming nature of Argentine men, she finally gives in. So far, Carley hasn’t given in.

Carley advises those who are thinking about getting TEFL certified: “Just go for it. If you are even thinking about it, just do it.  In such a short time, I’ve done and seen so much and met so many interesting people. Come with an open mind and ready to soak everything in.”

I meet up with Sebastian Knoop, a student from Lübeck, Germany, just as he is getting ready to leave Buenos Aires. After spending nearly 3 months studying Spanish at BridgeArgentina in our Group Course, he’s off to explore the rest of South America during a 3 month trip that will include Brazil, Mexico and Costa Rica. Between classes, we chat about his experience as a porteño.

On a blistering hot Monday morning, we meet in one of the classrooms at Bridge’s center in downtown Buenos Aires. We both sit down, clutching our Styrofoam cups of ice-cold water, as I turn the air conditioner on full blast.

This isn’t this first time I’ve met Sebastian. A few weeks ago, I sat in on a group Spanish class taught by Alejandra Rosita. The students were Sebastian and Marianne, a charming woman from England. It was a fun class with an intimate ambiance where Marianne was constantly teasing Sebastian about finding an Argentine girlfriend, something that he admitted to me later proved harder than he had thought. However, this time I notice something different about Sebastian. His blonde hair is a shade lighter, his cheeks have a bit of a red tinge…“How do you spend your days?” I ask, narrowing my eyes suspiciously.

As a person who works in an office all day, I’m curious as to how the rest of the world is spending these beautiful summer days. Fortunately, Sebastian has had the chance to experience both sides of porteño life. His first weeks in Buenos Aires were as a tourist. His mornings were spent learning the basics of the Spanish language and in the afternoon, he met up with a friend and they went out into the streets to explore the city. Every day they went to a new place, “I really like the tourist life, taking pictures, and everything is new and exciting. But, I also like my life how it is now.” Sebastian seems to have found his rhythm is this busy city, and now spends his afternoons doing “normal” activities: shopping for groceries, cleaning his flat or reading a book in the park. Although, Sebastian did confide to me that recently he has been visiting a friend whose apartment building has a roof-top swimming pool with a view overlooking the city. (My guess is this is the culprit of his new summer look).

But, it hasn’t all been fun in the sun for Sebastian in Buenos Aires. I ask him about his experience being far from home in an unknown city and country. “When I arrived here, it was right before Christmas and I was really missing my family and friends. But, that feeling started to fade as soon as I got settled in and met some great people. Now, I think about staying here a year or two.”

Sebastian decided to come to Buenos Aires after graduating college with a B.A. in Business Administration. “I didn’t want to start working right away and I’ve always wanted to learn Spanish. Plus, I wanted to enjoy summer, while everyone is freezing in Europe.”
He took a daring leap when he booked his trip to Buenos Aires, reserving nearly 3 months for studying Spanish and another 3 for travelling around South America, “I was really excited before coming here, and a bit nervous. But, when I arrived to Bridge, the staff was really nice and helpful and the teachers were great. I’m really glad that I chose Buenos Aires.”

I ask Sebastian what he thinks of the constant comparison of Buenos Aires and Europe, and the capital’s nickname “the Paris of South America”. “Honestly,” he tells me “I was really surprised how Buenos Aires is so European. Most people’s parents or grandparents come from Europe, countries like Italy and Spain and you hear a lot of European languages being spoken on the street. It is a good city for people to come to if they want to visit South America and learn Spanish. It’s different but not shocking.”

One thing that did shock Sebastian was the Argentine accent, “I wasn’t aware that people here pronounce ‘calle’ as ‘ca-shay’, but after a while I picked up the accent too and now I use ‘vos’ instead of ‘tu’ and say ‘ca-shay’.”

Besides dealing with the accent, during his first days in Buenos Aires, Sebastian had problems with the small things in Spanish. “I had a problem once when ordering food and I wanted to take it home with me. I didn’t know the word in Spanish for “take-away”, so I tried explaining it with the words I did know and making a lot of gestures. Finally, the woman understood and said: ¿para llevar?, I learned a lot of words and phrases like that.”

Any suggestions from Sebastian? He highly recommends to anyone coming to Buenos Aires to check out a Boca Juniors game at their stadium La Bombonera. He played a lot of soccer when he was younger and had always dreamed of seeing this famous team. “It’s a much different vibe from the games in Germany. People started singing at the beginning of the game and didn’t stop until the end. There were canons shooting paper all over the place and everyone was so passionate about the match. It was an exhilarating experience.” In fact, many Boca Junior fans are known for being incredibly dedicated to their team and even swearing that: “Boca es la razón de mi existir”, “The Bocas are my reason for existing.” So if you plan on checking out a match, you’d better be covered from head-to-toe in blue and yellow and ready to sing!

Elizabeth M. is an alumni of BridgeArgentina, where she received her TEFL certification and studied Spanish in our Group course. I meet up with her in late December to talk about her experience in Buenos Aires.

One sunny Friday morning, Elizabeth and I weave our way through crowds of after-Christmas-sale shoppers and businessmen and women late for work, and find ourselves in one of her favorite places– a quiet, shady courtyard of an old monastery.

Indeed, as I talk to Elizabeth I quickly realize why she likes the parks in Buenos Aires so much– they are one of the few places you can escape to and have some moments of peace in this bustling city of 13 million taxi drivers, street vendors, tango dancers, soccer fanatics and passionate porteños. “(In Argentina) you work to live not live to work….in the evening, you see people in the parks laying on the grass, drinking mate with their friends…It’s completely different from the US.”

Besides the parks, Elizabeth tells me some of her favorite places are the Recoleta cemetery, the markets in San Telmo and Recoleta, and the neighborhood Belgrano, which she likes for its calm residential lifestyle. “I think (it’s important) to live that relaxed life, here I haven’t felt pressured to see all the tourist spots, I like taking time to see everything”.

Elizabeth first caught the travel bug while studying abroad in Florence, Italy where she spent much of her free time exploring Europe. In the midst of applying to law school, she had one of those “a-ha!” moments and decided to find a way to keep traveling. Teaching English would be the golden ticket, allowing her to travel and earn money at the same time. So she took the plunge: a one way ticket to Buenos Aires!

Elizabeth was drawn to South America because of friends´ stories of the beautiful European architecture in Buenos Aires and the warm, friendly Argentine people, but she was still quite surprised when arriving here. “It’s a big city, much bigger than any place I’ve ever lived in North Carolina, but it’s a big city with character…and the people are just plain helpful here, I have found that many times I’ve been standing on the street with a map and some stranger has helped me, one guy accompanied me to the street I was looking for. I just wasn’t expecting that.” Another thing she wasn’t expecting was “all the affection”.  “That took some getting used to, the whole kissing everyone you meet on the cheek, I thought ‘Whoa! What’s going on?! , but I really love it!”

Despite her amazing experience travelling around Europe and studying in Italy, Elizabeth wanted something different from her time in Buenos Aires. “This (experience) I want to be different, I want to feel that I live here …. and not just travelling and with that making connections with people and building relationships”. Teaching English has helped her feel like she’s really living in Buenos Aires, and the fact the she is also learning Spanish helps her relate to her students, “ It helps when teaching English to understand the struggle with learning a language because you can be truly and honestly, empathetic.”

One of the first and most important relationships she built was with her host family. “They are like my grandparents, I still go there once a week to have dinner”.  One of Elizabeth´s fondest memories was the night she arrived to Buenos Aires and to the home of her host family, “I was a vegetarian before I came here, and the first meat I had eaten in a long time was the night I arrived at my host family’s house and I was served a steak that was as big as my plate, I had no idea how to even eat it!”

Elizabeth also found great friends in her fellow TEFL teachers, “I feel lucky in this experience because I don’t feel alone even when I’m alone.  I met good friends in the TEFL class, we had a really dynamic class, we were all really different but we had a good energy and we’re all here alone so we really bonded together.”

Elizabeth’s advice to anyone wanting to come to Buenos Aires? Bring good walking shoes and get ready to pound the pavement like a porteño!

Profile written by Kelly Poindexter