After an unexpected overnight adventure in the Atlanta airport, we finally made it to Buenos Aires last night! Once we were through customs, I was struck by how similar being there felt to the US. There was a McDonalds and Starbucks right outside the exit, and if you didn’t know better, it could easily have passed as any airport in the US (minus the Spanish signage of course). As we started to get closer to the city of Buenos Aires, some of the differences began to appear. There were several apartment buildings towering over the freeway, many of which were brutalist and concrete. However, instead of being tightly crammed together with large roads running between them, the buildings were surrounded by trees and green space. Even in the more densely packed downtown area, there are bursts of nature everywhere.

Today, we had several activities to keep us busy. First, we had two lectures at Austral University, our partner university for this trip. The building for the Buenos Aires campus was beautiful and very historic, and getting to see what a university looks like here was really interesting. The first talk was by Gabriel Novack. He works at a private integrated health company (similar to UPMC) and is very knowledgable about the ins and outs of the Argentine health care system. We talked about the different health care sectors (public, private, and unions) and how they all interact with each other. We also discussed how the system was shifting with president Milei’s recent restructuring, and I found this really interesting in terms of the benefits and drawbacks of healthcare privatization. The second lecture was by former national Minister of Health Luis Jimenez. He provided many important insights about the functioning of the ministries of health, especially how power is allocated between national and provincial ministries and how the system is funded. I’m very grateful that we got the meet with such an influential figure in Argentine politics. His insights gave us information we never could have known while doing research back in the states.

After these lectures, we had a tango lesson! Both of the instructors were very nice and extremely talented. Other than learning that I’m definitely not a good dancer, they taught us some traditional steps and also the etiquette of milongas (places where you can go to dance tango, eat, and drink). After this, we went out for a meal for the first time in Argentina! A lot of the cultural differences were more obvious here. For example, dinners are typically much longer than in the US (upwards of two hours). I also got to practice some Spanish while ordering, which was great. Overall, today was a very informative and exciting first day in the city, and I can’t wait to get back to it tomorrow!