Today kicked off day 1 of plus 3 Argentina! We traveled from Pittsburgh to Atlanta, where we ended up waiting from about four thirty in the afternoon until past midnight to board our flight to Buenos Aires, after some flight complications delayed our flight. Once we arrived to Argentina, we were able to see a little bit of city buildings such as Congress and their equivalent to town hall. We also got to see a bit more of the city as we walked around where we are staying to both lunch and dinner. Some things that stood out to me were the local small express grocery stores and restaurants. In addition to the local ones, there were also major chain establishments such as McDonald’s and Starbucks. Another thing I noticed is that there are many furniture stores which was unexpected. Something that stood out to me is that buildings and streets didn’t look as historical as I expected, and although they had a slight European feel, they reminded me of walking down city streets in Houston, TX. I was slightly surprised by all of the palm trees. The Starbucks and McDonald’s showed signs of globalization and how some businesses have an imprint worldwide. There was also an extremely advanced looking McDonald’s that we saw in the Airport near the exit to transportation and pickup. Inside the McDonald’s everyone ordered on electronic kiosks rather than the cashiers taking your order. We are staying in a middle class to wealthy area, so to me everything has seemed very well developed and modernized. In the Culture Smart book, it described the weather in East and Northeast Argentina as hot and humid subtropical rainforest climate which seemed to be pretty accurate for the weather we experienced today. Today the weather was quite humid and a bit warmer than I expected, considering that it is the fall/winter time in Argentina. It was not supposed to rain, but when we left our nice dinner (that left everyone stuffed) it was pouring extremely hard.

The culture smart book along with research made it seem as if Argentine citizens do not like to talk about politics but this seemed to not be the case. We met a couple in the airport waiting for our flight to Argentina, and they were very open about discussing the political state of Argentina and they were not defensive about the flaws in their healthcare system. I am glad that it is not as forbidden as what we read about to talk about these important things because that’s the way to learn more. Overall, it was a very long first day due to all of the flying at the beginning but it was filled with good food and new information.