¡Bienvenidos a Buenos Aires!

This morning I watched the sun rise over Argentina from my plane window. Even after seventeen hours of travel and sleep deprivation thanks to an overly-talkative neighbor on the red eye from Atlanta to Buenos Aires, it was beautiful. We landed smoothly ay 8:30am local time and excitement for the upcoming adventures wiped away my grogginess. It was my first time in Argentina, my first time in South America, and my first time in the Southern Hemisphere. Unfortunately there were no individual screens on my plane so I couldn't pinpoint the exact moment I crossed the equator, so I figure I'll have to wait until I do so on the ocean for a proper equator-crossing ceremony (I'm sure they'd let a law student back on Semester at Sea, right Mom and Dad?)

I met Lindsay (whose plane arrived just half an hour before mine-not a coincidence) in the customs line, and we collected our bags and found a taxi to drive us to our apartment. When we ran into some serious traffic on the freeway, the police diverted our lane to a surface street via a grassy field occupied by a few dogs and their homeless man. Less then two hours in Buenos Aires and I was already off-roading! 

How did this adventure begin? My friend Lindsay and I decided that we were due for another adventure after a wonderful, action-packed four years at Stanford and before buckling down for our respective graduate school. We studied abroad living with host families in Madrid last winter, but that wasn't enough to shake the travel bug. We (read: Lindsay) found a lovely little apartment in a safe, central area of Buenos Aires to rent for the month of July. What will we do for a month in Buenos Aires? Explore the city, learn to speak Argentine Spanish, eat lots of empanadas, and have fun :)

An hour of driving later, we arrived at our apartment building on San Pellegrini street. Due to the delay of traffic and waiting for our bags, we were late and Miguel, the man from whom we are renting the apartment, was not at the apartment to greet us. Luckily, there was construction going on in the lobby and the workers helped us figure out which apartment was ours as we had the letter but not the floor. Miguel was not there either, so we went to the cafe next door to use their WiFi and send him an email. We had only just ordered coffee (tea for me) and empanadas when Miguel found us in the cafe. Since he was anxious to get us settled into the apartment, he asked the waiter to deliver our order to the apartment, which he did about five minutes later. Luckily our apartment has an elevator (big enough for three people with no regard to personal space or one person with luggage, because our apartment is on the fourth floor and my bags were heavy. Honestly, I was a little anxious as Miguel unlocked the door to our apartment. The building was safe but it wasn't exactly pretty. We had seen pictures of the apartment, but you never know how something will look in real life. Miguel clicked open the lock, wished us bienvenitos a nuestra casa nueva, and opened the door. The moment of truth.

The apartment was beautiful. It was larger than I expected, very clean and equipped with a fresh-out-of-Ikea looking storage space that would provide ample room for our belongings-even my shoes. The walls were very pale cream with white crown moulding, the carpet was white; the bed linens were white; the two couches and the low wooden coffee table between them was white. Photographs (fun fact: I just tried to spell that word in Spanish, my mind is switching over already!) in black frames and mirrors in black frames accent the wall and, combined with three over large, naked light bulbs that hang evenly spaced from the ceiling, the room looks like home to someone with a modern, minimalist aesthetic. There is a small circular white marble table with two black chairs where Lindsay and I can eat, and a small balcony overlooking a little courtyard with trees.

The bathroom is spacious for a small apartment and is complete with the fixture any self-respecting Argentine restroom must have: a bidet. I am sad to report, however, that the water in the toilet does not swirl in circles due to a strange and rather aggressive flushing mechanism, so if I manage to answer the burning question of wether the water spins in the other direction in the Southern Hemisphere, it will not be in my apartment. 

The kitchen, however, seemed to be absent. Miguel began giving us a tour (thankfully speaking clearly and a little slowly in Spanish as Lindsay and I adjusted to the Argentine accent) and opened what I though was a closet. Mystery of the missing kitchen solved: behind the closet doors was a sink, an electric plug-in stove, a hip-heigh refrigerator and cabinets. I was lamenting the lack of a
microwave when Miguel opened what I thought was another closet to reveal a microwave, a coffee maker, a water boiler, a toaster, a blender, some drawers and a little vacuum.
 kitchens, brilliant! 

After the tour and instructions with that to do with garbage and so on, Miguel drew us a map explaining the nearby neighborhoods. He made recommendations for caves, restaurants, bars, shopping, a park and even tango shows while Lindsay and I ate our empanadas (which were delicious). He also left us a little prepaid cell phone programmed with his number in case we needed anything. We also exchanged US dollars to Argentine pesos with him (the official money exchange places give you a lower exchange rate than the actual value), and he gave us a good rate of 7 pesos to 1 dollar. He wished us good luck and we said goodbye the Argentine way: by touching right cheeks and making a kiss sound.

Lindsay and I unpacked, I took a much-needed lie down, and we decided to go to Disco, the nearby grocery store. On the fifteen minute walk there we passed lots of cafes, shops and businesses, and the weather was a pleasant 57 degrees and overcast. Disco was a lot like grocery stores in the US, although with a much more impressive Malbec, cheese and baked goods selection. We bought ingredients for dinner, breakfast things and snacks. We also had fun browsing through the cookie aisle and bought a few Argentine cookies to try. At checkout we discovered that you pay for plastic bags in Buenos Aires.  

By the time we got back to the apartment, I was tired, hungry and not in the mood to climb the 64 stairs to our floor, which is probably why I counted them while doing so. Our little dinner of roast chicken, spinach salad, and fresh-baked onion bread with Gouda cheese was delicious. I took a much-needed two hour nap after dinner, showered and Lindsay and I got ready to enjoy our first night in Buenos Aires. Although it was Tuesday, bars were still half (in the case of The Shamrock, the first bar we went to as Lindsay's Australian friend from her trip to Peru last summer, Dave, works there) or almost totally full in the case of Cronico, the second bar we went to that had a great cocktail list, fun decorations and a great vibe. It was in Plaza Serrano in Palermo, one of the most fun districts in Buenos Aires. We went out dancing at Kika, a club in Palermo Soho, and when we finally came home I fell asleep immediately.

I was woken up the next morning by construction in the building. I was annoyed that they had started work in the morning when I looked at my phone and saw that it was 2pm. Day one in Buenos Aires was a success.