We have arrived!

After an epic 13 hour flight, Yasmin, Hilary and I arrived a couple of days ago in Buenos Aires. The ride into the city from the airport was slightly frantic - our driver was an older gentleman who liked tailgating very much. He also spoke no English, but we got where we needed to go, and even managed to ask him a few questions. According to him, Buenos Aires has a population of 3 million in the central area, and about 15 million in the greater province.

We are staying at a nice hostel in San Telmo at the moment - this is a view from the balcony:



We went for a bit of a walk around the city yesterday and down to Puerto Madero where the University is located to let them know we had arrived, and to ask some admin type questions. When we returned to the hostel jet-lag caught up with us and we had a brief snooze. We went out for a nice (but cheap) dinner of steak and red wine in a plaza nearby, with a tango show and live jazz music. Yas got her photo taken with the male dancer. We were also approached by a fellow selling "Hecho en Buenos Aires, Argentina " a magazine similar in idea to "The Big Issue" from Sydney.

Managed to buy a SIM card for my phone today. The experience in the office was quite funny and nerve-wracking at the same time - there were many very unhappy people. They had a 'take a ticket and wait' system, which was epically failing, and the result was angry people yelling at each other in Spanish. I was surprised at how long it took for them to sell us a pre-paid SIM. Once we were out of the queue, and with someone at the counter, it was still 25mins until we were issued with the cards...

We also went to the Mitre Museum (he's an old president), and back to the Uni to drop off some documents. Here's what that looks like, with Yas and Hilary in the foreground.

I've only been here a couple of days, but i'm enjoying this city so far. It's very pretty and the people have been friendly. The language is a little daunting and it's difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but i hope i'll be able to speak Spanish eventually. It's interesting when we walk through crowded areas, especially where people are trying to sell something - although we don't really look that different from the average Porteño, somehow they pick us out as tourists, and spruik their wares in English. Maybe it's the wide eyes and confused faces. But then again, it works the other way too - we get asked the time a lot.

Porteno: "Excuse me, what time is it please?"
Ben: "Er.. Uh.. Um.. The time plus hour are 4 and minus minutes.."
Porteno: (looks confused) "Um... thank you?"

Last night we went to a bar called Sugar in Palermo, and stayed until 3am (on a Thursday night). It wasn't looking like closing anytime soon. A new friend from Buenos Aires, Santiago, says that often Buenos Airians won't even leave the house until 4am, arrive at the club after that and stay until 8 in the morning. It says the same sort of thing in the Lonely Planet. I wonder how true it is, but last night helped me on the way to believing it. This should be a fun year.