I must say, I was expecting more from American Airlines on their international flight. Turkish Airlines was outstanding- the service was impeccable, the food was delectable, and my butt never fell asleep. Compare that to American Airlines- the flight attendants were on edge right off the bat (the previous flight from Brazil came in late so our 10pm departure ended up being 11pm), the food was what you would expect from an airplane, and even after sticking a pillow on the seat my butt still fell asleep. And this was only an 11 hour flight (nothing compared to the direct from Istanbul to LAX).
But the flight really wasn't as bad as it could have been. I watched most of "Life of Pi" before passing out from the exhaustion carried over from the 8am coach out of South Bend. I woke up to our plane landing in the beautiful Argentine countryside, about an hour outside of Buenos Aires.
And then, as with everything international, I waited. 2 hours to get through immigration, and another 30 minutes to get past customs. I must say, however, that these lines had nothing on the line for Splash Mountain at Disneyland. After snatching my bag from baggage claim, I left the terminal looking for a place I could convert a few US dollars to pesos to get me through the day. As I was looking at the conversion places, I heard a quiet "cambiar pesos?" directed at me from this old-ish guy looking around nervously. I knew the official money exchange offices gave crappy conversion rates, so I decided to try my luck with this shady deal. The guy led me over towards the McDonalds, away from the many policia scanning the airport. He didn't speak any english, but I was able to tell him that I wanted to convert US dollars to Argentine pesos and asked for his conversion rate. He told me 6 pesos to the dollar, which was alright considering the black market price is 7.8 and the official conversion price is 5.2. I didn't have enough of a vocabulary to argue the price up (it was better than the official rate, after all), but I decided to be less risky and only convert $20, just in case he decided to slip me fake bills. He was surprised that I wasn't converting more money, but gave me my pesos and said I could come back anytime if I wanted more. I decided to test these pesos before leaving the airport, to make sure they were legitimate, so I bought a small soda at the McDonalds (for ~$2.75!). They ended up working out right, and I was even more surprised when the guy came back up to me with smaller coins ("for the colectivo [bus] fare", he said) to exchange for my larger bill.
I then left the airport and decided to try my luck at the public bus transportation system. I figured if I can ride a dala dala in Tanzania without getting pickpocketed, I can handle the public bus through Buenos Aires. $1 and 2.5 hours (and a sunburn) later, I arrived at Milhouse Hostel, a spunky hostel set back in the middle of the city. I'm pretty excited because 1) they have wifi 2) tonight's event is free tango lessons 3) tonight at 10:30pm there is a DJ at the bar and 4) at 2am the dance party officially begins. To say the least, this hostel fully embraces Argentina's "party even after the sun comes up" culture. I paid for my room, and went up to the dorm to meet my two new roommates, girls from Norway taking a gap year to adventure through Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and New York. I currently have 20 pesos ($4) to my name, so I am now off to try my luck back on the city streets to pick up more pesos and hopefully some lunch along the way!
Part 2.
I took the 30 minute trek to the shop with the good conversion rate and, 20 minutes in, realized I had brought my laptop with me. Silly me! I also noticed 3 things: 1) there are many shady gold trading stores (one street was actually filled with 24 of them) 2) there are no homeless people (even in the parks) 3) the number of feral dogs makes up for the lack of homeless people. I've gotta tell you, it is really weird to be in a city and not see any homeless people. And I wasn't even in that great of a part of town.
On my walk back, I realized I really needed to invest in a plug adaptor if I wanted to charge my laptop and camera (Guess what? I've decided not to get a phone). I walked into a gaming store filled with xboxes and gameboys or whatever the kids play with nowadays and struggled to explain what I needed in Spanish to the store owner. I managed to tell him "I am a foreigner, and I have electronics that don't work. I have a problem and need to convert". I really need to figure out how to say plug adaptor in Spanish... Anyway, he ended up figuring out what I needed and pulled out a used adaptor from underneath the counter. He showed me how it worked and then said something I didn't understand, but I did make out "regalo" (gift). I replied "en serio??" (are you serious??) and he laughed and said yes. I left that store in a fantastic mood, and decided to treat myself with my first food since arriving in Argentina that morning: empanadas! Empanadas are found throughout South American countries including (but definitely not limited to) Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. It's essentially a small calzone filled with meat, vegetables, and sometimes cheese. I ordered one beef and one ham with cheese empanada (about $1.25 each) and dug in. They were both pretty good, but the ham and cheese empanada reminded me of KAF's breakfast croissants.
Ham and cheese (left) and beef (right) empanadas
When I arrived back at the hostel, the two Norwegian girls asked me if I had any plans for the rest of the day. Not really? I was planning on napping or getting relaxing/housekeeping stuff done but I figured I should really just say yes and go on whatever adventure they had planned. And it was an adventure! We went to visit La Boca, the neighborhood featured as the background of this blog. Unfortunately, we left at 7pm so by the time we arrived by bus, the sun had set and the streets were getting shady. We spent about twenty minutes walking around before this woman yelled after us, in Spanish, "if you go down that street you will return with nothing!". We immediately got back on the bus and headed home, not before having dinner at McDonalds (not my choice). And now, I am laying on my bed, waiting in my dorm until 10:30pm rolls around so I can go down and experience my first Argentinian party. Tanzanian parties were surprisingly ragey, so expectations are high!
La Boca
And then the streets darkened...
Beso,
Amelia
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