I'm still not sure if it's all Houston's fault, but our first day in Buenos Aires was really rough.
We caught the 9pm red eye from Houston last night, and over the course of the 10 hour flight, I barely slept at all--in spite of the 4 free drinks the flight attendant brought me after hearing our travel woes.
Around 10am (Buenos Aires time) I gave up on sleeping, and just stared at the United Flight map, counting down the minutes. After 48 hours, 15 hours on a plane, and 24 hours in Houston, we finally arrived!
Going through Argentina Customs
This was actually a lot easier than my "First Time Latin America" guide would have you believe. The lines were short, the people were friendly, and as long as you had proof you paid the reciprocity fee (which you couldn't leave America without doing) and weren't bringing a bunch of food/wine/stuff to sell, it was easy.
Catching a Cab
This was also easy, although we ignored the Lonely Planet guide's advice to hold out for the Taxi Ezezia Booth. Our ride was $45 US dollars from the airport to our hotel, which I was concerned we got overcharged for, until we spent over an hour in traffic going from the airport to the hotel.
Arrival in Buenos Aires
The place we're staying, Yira Yira (pronounced Chira Chira in Argentinian Spanish) is owned by a really nice woman named Paz who speaks pretty good English. She gave Dan and I both a hug and a kiss when I arrived, then proceeded to sit with us for the next hour and a half, chatting about Argentinian culture, politics, and economics. Super interesting, except for I was still in my completely disgusting outfit from Christmas day, and felt like absolute garbage.
Around 4pm, after talking about everything from the "blue" market to President Christina, we excused ourselves for showers, and got ready to go out.
Hitting a Wall
Getting out of the airport was easy, making the most of the day was hard. After showering, we ventured out to get some food. This was the first point in the trip where I really started regretting how little time we had to prep for this trip.
I've never been to a new city and felt so disoriented/unsure of what to do here. Not to mention, it was so hot, and we were so jetlagged, about 30 minutes outside my shower I was already hot and disgusting again.
We walked around aimlessly in the heat, exchanged some money on Florida Street (which I will say more about later) and then managed to find some food--nothing special--then came back to the house where we decided to take a "quick power nap."
Good plan, but because of the jet lag, this turned into a 4 hour fever nap (the kind of nap that induces weird, gross fever dreams because it's WAY TOO HOT.)
We finally woke up around 8:30pm, feeling disgustingly groggy, made it out to dinner at 10pm--another subject I'll say more about later--and hit the sheets by 3am, so it wasn't a total loss, but as an introduction to the city, I'll just say I've had better days.
Below:
(1) Elevator going up to the hotel (we're on the 2nd floor, but the building is 4 stories.
(2) View from the window at Yira Yira hotel. The windows were shut with the curtains drawn most of the day because it was so hot
(3) This fan in our bedroom was the only thing keeping me from a total heat-induced meltdown.
