And how are things in Buenos Aires?
Read more- Student
- 01/10/2024
And how are things in Buenos Aires?
Master's student Mark Kurvers is doing an internship in Argentina's capital city for his Electrical Engineering studies. He already knows that it will be difficult to return to the Netherlands because he finds the people so tremendously friendly, open and helpful. He describes his first impressions below.
After 30 hours of barely sleeping, I finally arrived at my flat in Buenos Aires, on the 23rd floor, still hoping I had not been scammed. An elderly couple answered the door. They did not speak the best English, but fortunately I had spent quite a few hours on the language in the months before. I immediately noticed how friendly and helpful they were. For example, when I did not recognise the Spanish word for ‘lighter’, the man said, ‘wait a minute’, then went down 23 floors to a kiosk to get one so he could explain the word.
The first two weeks were quite overwhelming. Coming from Herten, a village of less than 9,000 inhabitants, I stood on the balcony and looked at the beautiful view of the city. I literally only saw buildings up to the horizon in this city of 15.5 million (!) inhabitants. Luckily, I already had an appointment with my supervisor on the second and third day, which kept me busy and not thinking too much about what on earth I was supposed to do in this gigantic city.
I conduct my internship in a laboratory, where I work alone most of the week. Even though I am there alone, my internship is part of a bigger project, along with four other guys who immediately invited me to all kinds of activities, such as drinking mate (a popular South American drink), eating burgers or having a beer.
I am also taking an electrical engineering course from my supervisor to improve my Spanish. It is a course of similar level to the bachelor's at TU/e, so quite easy for me as a master's student to follow. The ITBA, where I do this, is a small private university. From what I have heard, classes start with about 30 students in the first year, but the level of classes is quite high. Because of the small scale, the distance to the professors is closer than at TU/e; for instance, like a number of other students, I have the phone number of my professors.
"Que hacés acá?" (What are you doing here?) is a question I get regularly, usually with the underlying question of why I chose Argentina. I sometimes notice, when I talk to different people - from people at the gym, to the woman selling empanadas around the corner - that they often start talking negatively about Argentina, due to economic and political reasons. But as soon as I explain that I am interested in the culture, language, and Argentinian cuisine, within a minute they change from "this is the worst country in the world" to "this is the best country in the world", and their pride quickly comes forward. Football, and now the rise of Formula 1 due to Franco Colapinto, among others, show how passionate people are about their country.
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