Hola!

After a 24 hour flight delay and a 12 hour flight, we made it safely to Buenos Aires. The first stop in the 7 week Latin America portion of our trip. Muy emocionante!

I think since leaving New Zealand Tony and I have gotten somewhere between 10 and 12 hours of sleep total. I had booked a hostel for us in the Boca area of Buenos Aires. Boca is fine, it is by an old, culturally rich neighborhood called San Telmo, but the hostel was no bueno. I won´t get into details, it really could have been worse, but it was bad enough that we didn´t hesitate to cut our week long reservation there very short. There is a giant convention in Buenos Aires this weekend and we were told that literally every single hotel and most hostels were booked solid. Sooooooomehow we managed to find a nice place to stay last night in a guesthouse and upon looking for a phone up the street, found a really nice hostel with a lot of character and open rooms for the remainder of our time here. It´s a little more expensive than the first place (which was about $8 each) at about $14usd each but is worth the extra few bucks. We´re staying in San Telmo and I really like this area. Lively enough, great food, lots of live music and art.

I can´t wait to see some Tango! Tango tango tango! Tony won´t learn Tango with me...if someone could kindly remind him that Tango is the dance of love (right?) and that he should probably learn it...I´d appreciate it. K thanks.


Anyway, I have to admit, Buenos Aires is dirty. Really dirty. A thick layer of smog hangs low over the city. You can see it in the street lights, feel it in your lungs and I swear I saw Tony´s breath in it yesterday. It´s gross.
Coming from 300 days of sunhsine a year in colorful Colorado, the air quality and trash everywhere depressed us for a day or so.

But Buenos Aires is really growing on me. It has a lot to offer and I can´t wait to explore more. Dinner here is at about 11pm and we have yet to have a bad meal. The food is unreal. Ordering it, however has been another challenge. I have faith that my spanish will come back to me, but as of right now I feel like I´m two and can´t communicate what I need. It´s as easy as asking for a cajero automatico (ATM) and a cajeta automatico (which would be a fudge dispenser....which someone should invent). My ability to communicate at the present moment would make every spanish teacher I´ve had since 7th grade cry. A lot.

The people here, so far, are really beautiful and nice (read: understanding) so it hasn´t been too bad (plus we tip like Americans so they like us...) and Tony and I have a realllllllly good sense of humor. If not, I´d probably cry.


It´s raining (of course) so I´m going to try my best to get pictures up somewhere today...

Hope all is well!
Much love,
Brandee