awake in argentina - day one

I thought about writing this down old school styles in a journal, but with the computers at this Buenos Aires San Telmo hostel (Tango City Hostel!!! Party!!!!) finally free at 4am and coinciding with my profound lack of sleepiness, the temptation to blog was too great.

It´s weird how I always seem to manage to get busy just before I go away, so that the reality only hits when I´m sitting on the plane thinking ' man I´m bored. Why aren´t I doing something?´. It doesn´t help when the bloody queue at Auckland airport took over 90 minutes - I mean no wonder they tell you 3 hours, with shitty check'in systems like that. I forget how much waiting is involved with travel, and after having comfort and efficiency down to a tee at home in my oh-so-busy life, this sudden waste of time is as much a shock as landing in a place where your sister told you that most people will be able to speak English, but in reality, when you get there and trot out feeble ´habla englees´´s hither and thither, most people shake their heads and put their thumb and forefinger together and go ¨un poco¨, which means ¨well I´ll try, but not too hard, noob¨.

Highlight so far on day one include:
- the very laidback service on the flight to BA - we gamely put on the wee service signal in the ¨airconditioned¨, sweltering plane ride, having sucked the water out of us and our single water bottle.. after a couple hours we realised that they weren´t coming, so I ventured to the back of the plane where I found our two wayward flight attendants gossiping atop food boxes. When I asked if I could have some water, one of them, vaguely distracted, waved in the general direction of a counter laden with drinks and snacks, then turned back to the interesting story she was listening to. I helped myself, and on return to my seat was asked by another passenger - no doubt flummoxed by the lack of attendants - where I got all my snacky booty from. I told her, and slowly word began to spread around the cabin. One hour later, when Stephen ventured to the back for more ¨cereal bar¨, a small crowd had apparently developed there.

- dinner. The hostel lady recommended a meat eatery nearby, so we gamely went there.. after the usual sign language and bemused looks from waiter staff, we sat down, and ordered this famous steak that everyone had been telling us about, as well as a Spanish tortilla. Wrong thing number 1 - we ordered the steak rare. It was rare alright. Thick (like, 7 cm thick), tasty, yes... raw, basically still mooing (yes, Renee, we learned our lesson, we took the Lonely Planet´s word over yours, it shall never happen again). Wrong thing number 2 - do not order Sapnish tortilla in Argentina. It was basically a big dinner plate sized slab of fries held together by lots of barely cooked egg, and not slated or seasoned at all. Worst Spanish tortilla ever.

Otherwise all is well - the people are brusque, but good natured. The surrounds are completely different which is kind of what I wanted.. it´s so easy to settle into griping about this and that, but really there is a sort of joy about getting out of your element...

Breakfast:
on the plane, two cold croissants and tea and chemically tasting ornage juice. Ah, plane food...