Mar del Plata, or, Personal Revelations

On Saturday morning we left for Mar Del Plata, my first long trip outside of Buenos Aires. Since we had decided to enjoy a Friday night in Buenos Aires, I slept most of the way there. We were traveling by a miracle invention called “microbuses” which are huge coach buses that go pretty much everywhere and are really comfortable, so when I woke up we had arrived. To my dismay, it was gray and drizzly and would remain so for most of the time we were there. Not exactly beach weather. Mar Del Plata being a big city, however, we were able to find plenty of diversions to keep us busy. Highlights include:

-       Sailee and I getting lost on the colectivo the first day and traveling to the next town over, Santa Clara del Mar.

-       Wandering the plaza and finding a carousel.

-       The Museo del Mar, a marine science museum where we spent hours pretending to be little kids.

-       An Argentine traveling circus that was impressively sophisticated.

-       Two words: go karts.

-       My first casino experience. In my opinion, they are overrated.

-       An intense political discussion with some Argentines we met at the go kart place.

-       And finally, on the last day… THE BEACH.

After we got sunned out (I managed to get sunburned on the one sunny day), we ventured out to a sea lion reserve that my friend Laura had read about. This was arguably my favorite part of the trip.  The “reserve” was the port area of the city and among the docks filled with huge fishing and oil trawlers were hundreds of sleeping sealions. It was late afternoon, turning the water an insane lavender color and huge puffy clouds filled the sky. It was peaceful, beautiful and completely tranquil. I also have a confession to make: I hadn’t really wanted to go see the sea lions. I was tired at the end of what had been a fun if not relaxing vacation, and just wanted to go home and shower. But if I had, I would have missed out on what turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the trip. Standing there, I realized that a lot of the past month I have been focusing more on what is not here (i.e. my friends, family and everything familiar) than taking advantage of what is. Don’t get me wrong, Buenos Aires, and Argentina in general, are as great as I thought they would be but I am sure I have not fully rose to the challenge of being abroad. In other words, many times I have been stuck on the negative rather than the positive. Standing there, looking out at the ocean and the sea lions, I promised myself I am going to try and relax a little, and just have fun here.  Argentina is my home for 5 more months and I need to appreciate it for what it is rather than constantly compare it to home. This might sound obvious, but it took me 5 weeks and constant daily challenges to realize.

Hope everyone survived midterms...

Besos! 

N