Making Friends in Argentina

Friends in the Startup Community in Buenos Aires My first three days in Buenos Aires have reminded me a lot of my first time in Brazil. Not because things are similar here, but because I had forgotten what it was like to land in a new place, not speaking the language, and just try to jump-start life. I had forgotten that I didn’t fall in love with Brazil over night. It took weeks of wandering around alone before I could fill my schedule with friends. Before that happened it was lonely as it was my first days here. I’ve had some success meeting people, but its challenging and the downtime is quite a contrast to the social-blitz during my 4 days in NYC. This is how its gone so far: **Monday:** Arrival, stop at OLX office, then out to dinner with Evan (went to Rice with me) and his friend Andres. Ate all kinds of strange meats including intestines and blood sausage. **Tuesday**: Spent the day at the OLX office, then after work went to meet Diego from Flaptor.com for coffee. Later I walked to Bar Unico, hoping to meet up with a friend of a friend, but there was a problem with my cell phone and we didn’t see each other. I ate dinner by myself and was finishing my beer before I had the courage to strike up a brief conversation with some Europeans whom I overheard speaking English. Sidenote: In Brazil, I always avoid Americans and speaking English in general which is why I learned Portuguese as quickly as I did. For that reason, I have an aversion to speaking English here, but since my stay is too short to really make much progress in Spanish, I’m going to have to get over it, and make friends with ex-pats. **Wednesday**: Meetings at OLX during the day. Then a failed attempt to find a book on learning Spanish at the bookstore. On the way back to my hotel I heard a couple speaking in English and followed them to a cafe, and sat at the table next to them. It turned out, the girl was Dutch, and the guy was American, and currently studying abroad in Chile for the year. Both were friendly, and staying at a nearby hostel, which I plan on staking out for friends if I get lonely again. Another difficulty? Travelers typically don’t have cell phones, or set plans, so meeting again is tough. They invited me out that night, but I had dinner plans which ended at 1am. I went to a bi-monthly dinner with a bunch of other tech guys in the startup community here. Apparently tech communities are the same the world over, and I’ve been corresponding with a few of them over the past few weeks and they invited me to join them last night. Lucas, who runs United Virtualities, picked me up at the hotel, and introduced me to everyone at dinner. Some of the sites they are running are: I felt like it was my first breakthrough as far as meeting Argentines and having a good time going out here. I still haven’t experienced the real “Buenos Aires nightlife” but I’m hoping that will happen this weekend. Tonight, I’m meeting with a bunch of foreigners that I arranged using ASmallWorld.com (thanks !) which is a ‘high-end’ private social network. While it may seem like I’ve got a full schedule, I still feel a bit alone here, mostly because of the Spanish (or lack thereof). I introduced myself to the Brazilians in the office, which was a breath of fresh air as I could finally speak Portuguese and be understood. I really prefer to be the one stuck for words, rather than forcing people to speak English when its not their native tongue. I’m expecting tonight and this weekend to be much more exciting on the social front… Will report back soon!