The Porteño Lifestyle

PHOTO ALBUM 1: The Secret World of Mate (link)

I stayed in Buenos Aires with an AIESECer friend and got to see the “porteño” way of life. It’s a very bustling city that is very sprawled out. In Santiago, at least I feel like I can get around, but in Buenos Aires, the city is so spread out that your travel times are very high. It was a good couple days in Buenos Aires. One of the nights there was an @ TM meeting which I went to. Interesting to see how TM is run in many different countries. One day, I was walking around a part of the city, and out of the blue appears some @ers from Concepción, Chile that were in Buenos Aires waiting for the conference. This was quite the surprise to run into people I knew randomly and a huge city like Buenos Aires. We met up with the MC in Buenos Aires and went together down to Tandil, Argentina where the conference was to be held. It was a 6 hour drive and we were greeted at our arrival by the @ers there. They gave us places to stay and everything which was really nice. Tandil is a quaint town that is centered around the university. The next couple days were planning and getting ready for the conference of 3 days with a conference team of people from Argentina, Colombia, Poland, Venezuela, Chile, and United States.

The conference was the first time that I had taken on the role of facilitating which meant leading the sessions, and passing on message for the personal and professional development for the delegates. Met lots of people from 10 different countries that are in and out of Latin America and enjoyed it thoroughly. It made the Argentinean news which you can googletranslate if Spanish is in issue for you (link).

After the conference, we headed back to Buenos Aires where I bought my bus ticket to go back to Chile and head back to world of school. I travelled with my friends from Concepción, Chile who were also in the conference. A 24 hour ride across Argentina from seeing the Atlantic to the Pacific, through the Andes, and back into Viña del Mar, Chile.