bienvenidos a Buenos Aires! / welcome to Buenos Aires!

The past few days have been quite a whirlwind as I arrived in Buenos Aires, moved into my apartment, met up with a JDC Entwine group from Brown University, and started work at the JDC office in Buenos Aires. WOO! 

JDC Entwine Staff: Evan, Jenette, and me in Buenos Aires!

After I got through immigration and customs, I was met by Kevin, one of my colleagues from JDC who brought me to my apartment and introduced me to my landlord Nestor. Nestor used to work for JDC for seven years in Cuba and Austria so was familiar with what I was doing in the country and made me feel right at home.

After, I went to have Shabbat lunch with a group from Brown University who had been doing service work for the past week in Argentina and got to hear about their experiences. It was quite nostalgic for me because it brought me back to my first experience with JDC when I traveled to Israel with UVA's Hillel to work with a Russian immigrant community. That was my first glimpse into global Jewish communities and now almost three years later I will be fully immersing myself into another Jewish community abroad for the year.

I stayed with the group the rest of the weekend and did a whole lot of sightseeing; the city is just as I remember it!

We went by the famous Plaza del Mayo, the Casa Rosada (Pink House where the President lives), a cool synagogue...

walked through Recoleta Cemetery which has tons of huge mausoleums that hold generations of families,

visited La Boca, a super cool neighborhood full of brightly colored houses and tango dancing, and

drove by the famous Boca Juniors stadium (hopefully I'll get to go see a soccer/futbol match)!

The biggest downside so far is that it has been FREEZING the past few days so I am already looking forward to spring!