Claire Peterson's Internship Experience in Buenos Aires

Hi, I'm Claire Peterson. I did the Mente internship program, and I lived in the shared apartment with three other girls in Recoleta. I really liked living in Recoleta, because it was really safe. We felt really comfortable walking around, and we got to know all the bus systems and stuff. There's fun places to go out around here. And I'd probably say that one of my favorite things about Mente Argentina was all the excursions that they helped promote. A lot of my friends that came here didn't really know what to do, but Mente was helping so much with all of the things that you do during the week. La Bomba was really fun, and the Tigre excursion. My favorite, I think, was the polo. We went out for the day, and we played polo and watched polo, and then had an asado and learned to play and ride horses, and it was really fun, and we got to get out of the city for a day. I really just love the energy of Buenos Aires. I'm from Colorado. I've never lived in a big city, and there's just so much to do here. So many fun places to go to, so many different barrios with different personalities, and lots of stuff to explore during the day and the night. And we went to Iguazú, which was really fun too. Beautiful, one of the most amazing things you could do. If I could change anything, I wish I had more time so that I could travel around. I really want to go to the salt flats and Patagonia and Mendoza, because the wine here is really good. But I loved Buenos Aires, and we made so many good friends, and I'm going to miss everybody. And I got the opportunity to learn about NGOs. I never worked for an NGO before, and it was very insightful into their process of how they do things, and way different than I ever expected. I had a big photographer here, and I got to do publicity for her. I really liked the company, because we all got to eat lunch together. We would take an hour, an hour and a half out of the day and just sit down in the kitchen and talk, and that's probably when I got my most Spanish practice. I just sit there and listen to everybody and talk when I could. And it was really fun. But my biggest recommendation is to meet more locals, because it's really easy to fall into the habit of hanging out with Mente friends that only speak English and meeting people at bars and stuff that only speak English. But some of my favorite experiences have just been meeting random people and just having random Spanish conversations, and you also get a local perspective. But yeah, I loved my time here. I wish I could stay longer.