Buenos Aires, First Couple of Days
November 20th, 2006
I went to sleep around 1am Wednesday night. Woke up around eight thirty, quarter to nine on Thursday morning. Spent the day at work. Left early around 3:30 and went home to finish packing and clean up the apartment. I decided not to go to sleep Thursday night, because I was flying out at 6am Friday morning, and the cab was picking me up at 4am, to take me to the airport. So I hungout at my local pub for a few hours, walked around for a little bit, and then just vegged on my couch for a couple of hours watching MASH. I have this strange ability to be able to wake up at the end of any episode just as the credits roll, so I wasn’t too concerned about falling asleep. I stayed up most of the night, but fell asleep around 3 and woke up at 3:30 just as the episode was ending. Got up, changed into the clothes that I was going to travel in and waited for the cab to arrive.
There really wasn’t any adventures along the way, just the normal uncomfortable airline seats and trying to fall asleep. When I got to LA, I had to walk a little bit to find the international building, checked in, and found something to eat. Every place that I found was serving breakfast. “What the fuck?”, I though to my self. I want something else besides breakfast, thats when I realized that it was only 9:30am. I found a Mexican place that was serving lunch and had some lunch. I then went to find my gate. I was a little confused at first because the gate was not your typical airplane gate, it was a bus terminal. “Interesting, I guess I will be taking a bus to Lima, weird.” Turns out the gate was actually out in the middle of the runway. They took us out on buses, to where we boarded the plane.
I flew LAN from LAX, to Lima, to Buenos Aires. This airline rocks. They are what I imagine the American airlines of yesteryear to have been like. Once we were all seated, one of the attendants walked around giving out the daily paper from Lima. Then they walked around giving free headphones, and then with sleeping masks. About an hour later, lunch/dinner was served, with free alcohol and free re-fills. I was served a very nice red wine in a glass glass. Dinner was pretty good, and served with metal silverware. If we all wanted to, we could have bum rushed the cabin and take over the plane, but that didn’t happen. Imagine that. Anyways, after four glasses of wine, I plugged in my ipod and took a nap. The trip was pretty long and I was exhausted when I landed in Buenos Aires.
Marilee surprised me by showing up at the airport to pick me up. It was great to ride with her out to the guest house that we are staying at. It is a great place. It caters to tango and has its own dance studio, where they have nightly class, and you can sign up for private classes. But you don’t have to dance if you don’t want to. There are a couple of people here that don’t dance and don’t have any intention of dancing. I recommend this place to any one that is visiting Buenos Aires.
When we got the guest house we had breakfast, which is included with the price and is very good. We then walked around the neighborhood until I got tired and needed to crash. Took a four hour nap, and then got lost somewhere in the Palermo neighborhood. Came back to the guest house and went out to dinner around 9 to this little place around the corner. The food was excellent and it was really cheap. Everything around here is really cheap. We had two appetizers, two entrees, two deserts and a bottle of wine for about 40 dollars American. A meal like that back home would easily cost at least twice that.
Yesterday we wondering around one of the big markets and had a blast walking around and checking out the vendors and street performers. We then had lunch on this narrow balcony on the third floor of an old building, overlooking the market. It was great. Got back to the guest house, took a nice long nap, and when out to dinner with Karoll, our neighbor from Australia. Of course we didn’t head out to dinner until around 8:30 and didn’t get back until 1am. Eating is such a nice slow paced enjoyable event here. One is never felt rushed. In fact when you first sit down, you have to catch the waiters eye before they even come over with the menu. It was a little weird at first, but I am getting used to it now, and I think its great.
Today we went out the cemetery in Ricoletta where Evita is buried. The cemetery itself is a little enclosed city with little “houses” every where. The houses serve as family crypts. A lot of them have glass doors so that you can see inside. They vary in age and levels of disarray. From pretty modern, clean looking, to really old (early 1800′s), and falling apart. To the point where some of the walls have caved in unto the caskets inside, and if you are brave enough you could touch them. I had a great time taking pictures there, I can’t wait to see how they turn out. I’ll post some pictures later in the week.
We had to be back to the guest house for a tango lesson at four. I was so nervous to take a lesson here in Buenos Aires, the birthplace of tango. I was really expecting them to laugh at me. They take there tango very serious here. But the class went very well, and I am now excited to check out milongas. Before the lesson and I didn’t think I wanted to go, but now I do. I am pretty excited to see and hopefully dance some tango at a milonga in Buenos Aires.
Well I have almost an hour before the group lesson starts, so I am going to join Marilee and take a little nap.
