Have a great trip esperanza.I'll be thinking of you.

Hello from Jujuy, Argentina! I have been in Argentina since the last week of July, spending the first week in Buenos Aires and now we are settling into our new life in Jujuy.

Buenos Aires is FANTASTIC! It did remind me of Madrid because of the arquitecture and the cafes and the looks and sounds and smells...but, it is NOT Madrid! It has it´s own appeal. We really enjoyed getting to know some of the different neighborhoods and exploring the city! Arthur, you will enjoy it for sure.

Jujuy is an interesting place! It is about 4 hours from the Bolivian border and, although it is Argentina, it doesn´t remind me of Buenos AIres at all. We are settling into our routines, with school for my daughter and my classes at night.

What is great is that they celebrate¨the SIESTA here and that the cafe con leche is delicious! They also have churros and chocolate and tortilla de patatas...and many more wonderful dishes to try!

Well, gotta run, but I wanted to let you know I arrived safe and sound and that Argentina is a wonderful place to visit. I hope to do some traveling to other parts of this enormous country during my stay here...and if anyone wants to know anything...just ask!

Hi Esperanza!

Wow! Enjoy your time in Argentina. I am sure the experience will be wonderful for both you and your daughter.

Hopefully we can catch up personally the next time you are in Madrid or the next time I am in the States. After all, Philadelphia isn't that far from NY!

Besos!

I mentioned before that one of my sisters just visited Argentina, well, another sister (yes, I have a lot of sisters!!), is going to Argentina next month. It seems that present currency exchange rates allow more people to visit this wonderful place.

Esperanza, excuse my ignorance, but when you wrote: "Hello from Jujuy, Argentina!" I thought "Jujuy" was a cheerful way to express your happiness for arriving in Argentina, then I realized it was the name of the place you will be living at!!...is that a "native” name or something like that? Let us know more about Jujuy.

Thanks all for this. Reading travel opinions and stories like this has put the idea to visit Argentina next year.

Bill

Esperanza--Are you finding the Spanish spoken in Argentina, especially in Buenos Aires, really that much different from Spain? I have studied Spanish in Madrid and just wondered if I'll have much difficulty in BA. More than one Spaniard I know have told me that Argentinian Spanish is quite different in many ways.

I've lived in Mexico, Argentina and now Spain. You should have no trouble using Spanish learned in Spain to communicate in Argentina. There are vocabulary differences and pronuciation differences, but figuring these out is no worse than a New Yorker in the deep South of the US!

I agree with ChrisR. Well, I don't know how it works for someone that is not a native speaker, but I (from Mexico) have personally talked to people from Spain, Guatemala, Peru, El Salvador, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Argentina without a problem. Obviously you hear some words that you either apply different or have never heard before. Some times, not very often, I have a harder time understanding people from certain countries, like cuba or Puerto Rico. But probably they think the same about my accent .

I think in Argentina they have a lot of words that came from Italian. Also, some words commonly used in other Spanish-speaking countries have a really bad connotation in Argentina, like "coger", "cajeta", "concha", "cuchara", etc., etc. But besides that and getting used to the accent you should not have any problem.

hi there everyone...here´s some info on Jujuy for those who are interested:

SAN SALVADOR DE JUJUY:
The city is commonly known as Jujuy. The city was established by the Spaniards in 1592 as their northernmost settlement in Argentina. It is the highest provincial capital in the country (1260m above sea level). The word Jujuy has a native origin “XUXUY.” In one of the travel brochures it says that “Jujuy is a land of passers-by, foreigners in love and natives who plan to run away, but never…no one goes away; each of them stays due to security, and feeling of being a bit on the edge of the world, enjoying the advantages of living in the frontier, in the border, where everything is transient.” I think I would agree that you feel like you are almost at the edge of the world. It is so strange coming from the capital of the world, NYC, to this far-away land. The people who we have met here love living in Jujuy. They love the safety that the city provides and the beauty of the surrounding area.

Although we have only been in San Salvador de Jujuy for a few weeks now, we are really settled in. It seems like we have walked down every street at least a few times and we have done everything there is to do. It is a very small city, with a population of 230,999. Even though it is only 2 ½ hours away from Buenos Aires by plane, the lifestyle is light years away.

As for my impressions of Buenos Aires, here goes:

Buenos Aires reminds me so much of Madrid…the wide boulevards, the 19th century architecture, the cafes, the atmosphere! Yet, strangely there is something Italian in the air! The Italian food is amazing in Buenos Aires. The restaurants remind me of Italy! To me Buenos Aires is a mixture of Spanish and Italian cultures. I absolutely loved it!

Our first day in Buenos Aires we met my cousins! As soon as we arrived at the hotel, they called us to see if they come by to meet us. What a welcome! It was so exciting to meet cousins we had never met, but had known about all our lives. We went out with them to an amazing Italian restaurant: Campo dei Fiore. The homemade pasta and the provoleta (a grilled provolone cheese) were amazing. We also tried the infamous “dulce de leche” dessert, the most Argentine of all desserts. Dulce de leche is a milk jam that tastes like caramel. It seems to be on every menu and is the specialty of Argentina. It is delicious with ice cream or flan, but you can also eat a small bowl of it alone! My daughters absolutely love it!

Our next day we spent walking around the city center, crossing the Avenida 9 de Julio, supposedly the widest avenue in the world! It is nine lanes wide and impossible to cross in one shot. We walked by the Casa Rosada (the Pink House), the presidential palace, and the Plaza de Mayo, where the grandmothers of the disappeared still protest each Thursday afternoon.

The highlight for me was going to the Café Tortoni on the Avenida de Mayo. This Café has been in existence since 1858. When you walk into the Café Tortoni you can just feel the history. I can just imagine the famous Argentine author, Jorge Luis Borges sitting at one of the wooden tables reading El Clarin, the famous Buenos Aires newspaper. Knowing that my favorite Spanish playwright and poet, Federico García Lorca, had also sat at these tables in the Café Tortoni just took my breath away.

The next few days we explored many of the different neighborhoods in Buenos Aires. It was so much fun seeing the differences in the neighborhoods. Each neighborhood has its own appeal. We kept relating them to NYC neighborhoods: Recoleta is like the Upper East Side; Palermo reminded us of the Upper West Side; and Palermo Viejo seems like SoHo. We felt very much at home in Buenos Aires.

esperanza,

You sound estatic and madly in love with your new 6 month home. Am so glad!

You mentioned that both your daughters were with you and I'm wondering how they are adapting to school, etc. I know you mentioned in a post long ago their ages/grade level but I haven't bothered to find that post.

thanks -