Joining plus three I expected to grow personally while bonding with my fellow students, all while undergoing new and unique experiences. I did not however expect all this to be accomplished before landing in Buenos Aires. As it turns out spending 15 hours in the Atlanta Georgia airport can really bring a group of people together. All that to say, patience may truly make the heart grow fonder as Argentina has my heart even from day one.

Landing to a dark city showed Buenos Aires as a quiet closed off city. We were greeted by our wonderful friends at IES before our first night. When the sun rose today, the city awoke, proving a a much different, more lively and bustling city. After exchanging money, we took a brief trip to IES before heading to our partnering university, University de Austral. There we were met with fabulous lectures by Dr. Gabriel Novick and Argentina’s Former Minister of Health, Dr. Luis Gimenez, who spoke on the lay out of the Argentine health system and dove into the governmental controls in place. With rapid changes in medical policy from new policies brought by the new president, it was interesting to hear from someone directly involved in policy making how they system works, why it works, and what her believed needed to be changed.

Following our lectures our group took a tango class were i once again confirmed that I do in fact have two left feet. Tango is such a large part of Latin American culture it was so fun and interesting to try and learn myself, while also seeing how the professionals truly do it. After taking off our dancing shoes, A few girls and I decided to explore the city and even found ourselves in a beautiful mall. Several pictures later, we eventually made our way to dinner at Santos Manjeres. All the talk about Argentina having great steak was not lost on our meal. I can say hands down that the 30 plus hours of travel was certainly worth it in the end. I cannot wait to further explore this beautiful country and take in all Argentina has to offer.