Day #2. Buenos Aires.

I am alive!!! My inbox is already being flooded with e-mails and messages from concerned people. My google account thought I was a hacker trying to break in, and it took forever to get that straightened out. So it's taken a few days to get this published.

The flight to Buenos Aires was amazing. I planned some more of my Brazil trip, ate delicious raviolis, watched a movie about Frankie Valli (I freaking love his music btw, Sheeeeeeeeery bay-yay-bee), and finally… took my ambien/wine and slept for SEVEN HOURS. When I woke up, we were beginning the descent.

The taxi to my hostel cost about the same as a ride to SFO - $45. It was about a 20 min ride. I asked the driver for “musica por favor!” and he turned on some latin pop. We tried to have a conversation but my Spanish is so terrible. I think he said something about having 2 wives..

The hostel is great. Clean, quiet, in a good area - San Telmo. My roommates are really cool! Kathleen is from Ireland, probably in her late 30’s early 40’s. Says her company shut down in Ireland so she decided to travel for the past 2 years. She loves Buenos Aires and has been here for 2 months, basically just living here like a local would. Weekly tango lessons are her favorite. I really admire her!! A woman of her age, traveling alone, not really freaking out about the job thing… that’s just rare to see. She inspires me.

My other roommate is Tom from Beijing. Again, he’s kind of a rare breed. A middle aged Chinese man who works in finance back home. I’ve not really encountered many Chinese people so far in my travels, especially not at hostels. They’re usually on the big tour buses and stick together. He’s 4 weeks into a 6 week stint here... a short trip for him. His favorite was when he lived in Buenos Aires for a year. It was supposed to be 5 years, but learning the language was too hard and he went back home early. “What does your family think about you traveling?” I asked. “They think I’m crazy” he said.

I rode a bus over to an area known for it’s great money exchange rates. But I was confused about what I should do. All the locals kept coming up to me yelling “Cambio?!” and they would whip out these calculators trying to show me what they would give me in pesos for my US dollars. Well being the paranoid American that I am, I chose to exchange at a hostel. And those bisnatches only gave me 9 pesos for 1 dollar. The locals would have given me 13!!!!! Dangit. At any rate, I still felt really rich with 2700 pesos in my pocket.

Just kind of explored the hood a little bit, saw a beautiful cathedral and what looked like the town center with water fountains and statutes. Was soooo exhausted so took the metro back to my hostel to relax and get my bearings. That’s always the hardest thing about the 1^st day of travel. Just learning the public transportation is a challenge. But they have a really great metro system here and tons of taxis, so I should be golden!

It was 5 pm and I was feeling hungry, where should I go to eat around here?! I asked my roommates. Oh no, it’s way too early they said. Restaurants close around 4 pm and don't re-open until 7-9 ‘ish. This is why you always pack stuff like tuna, peanut butter, and granola bars. So then they asked me what I was doing tonight, and I said I have no idea. Maybe go to a show until 10 pm or something? And they were like, nooooo the clubs don’t even open until 10 and go all night!!! So, I guess I better take a nap then J

The evening started with Indian food around 9:30 pm. Some of the best Indian cuisine I’ve ever had. “Mash Curry House.” A group of us from the hostel went over. Damien and Denise from Ireland were there. They’ve been working in Australia for 8 years now. Over there, ER’s are known as Casualties. Pretty dramatic, don’t you think?? They even have a show called “Casualty.” But it isn’t as good as “ER”, they said. And it doesn’t have George Clooney. Something I am learning about Argentina is, service is very slow here. So if you are in a hurry, don’t eat out anywhere. During the hour-long wait for dinner, I enjoyed my first taste of Mendoza region Malbec. Amazing! I overheard Kathleen talking about her cousins. “You have 86??!” I asked incredulously. “Oh no!! only 81.” Wow, I only have 4. The food was definitely worth the wait. Mounds of steaming, fluffy basmati rice. Raisin specked naan with sweet chutneys. And finally, the curries. Spicy, tangy, loaded with fresh veggies. Everyone I was with raved about it. Too much meat lately, they said.

It is now past midnight and we are getting ready to go out. I am definitely not used to this Argentinian timing. But I did take a 2 hour nap so…… we’ll see how it goes!