Back in Argentina… Yes, We Made It

My ears just popped. Finally. So I feel like I’m actually awake, alive and participating in this adventure. Battlinga  cold for this last week had left me with pain in my sinuses and worst of all, blocked ears. It made these last few days of getting oragnaized to go seem absolutely frustrating and stressful. I found myself just going through the motions with all the preparations and not even hanging the mental capacity to be excited about what I was preparing for. But as I sit here now on this little Delta CRJ700 ready to take off for Atlants, with the Tylenol Cold and Sinus working it’s magic, the excitement is setting in.

Let me lay out our journey for you: YYC-YYZ (red eye Wednesday night) – 100$ rate for 4hr nap at the Sheraton YYZ (and yes, that’s our airline rate) – YYZ-ATL on Delta… cleared, yahoo! – 5hrs in Atlanta airport, marveling at the Southern accents, eating and drinking wine – ATL-EZE… cleared and although First Class was full, they put us up in Premium economy and brought us back some little care packages with eye masks and socks and such in exchange for the chocolates we brought them (another red eye… kill me, get me to a bed).

Cafe con leche

We arrived into Buenos Aires, collected our bags, waited in the horrendously long Customs line up, gazing over at empty crew line up that we usually get to pass through and finally made our way to the other side. We weren’t sure if the hostel was going to be picking us up or not, so we thought we’d wait a little while, find some wifi and check our email. It was about 7 or 8am and we couldn’t check in right away anyway.

“Dos cafe con leche for favor. Y tienes wifi?”

As we are here to learn Spanish, and consume as much wine and culture as we can possibly drink in during this month, we started off right away refreshing ourselves with familiar words and phrases. Basic enough, but we managed to get ourselves some coffee, Internet and then a taxi to our hostel. In Argentina it’s not as simple as say Mexico, where everyone speaks English if you don’t feel like challenging yourself to learn anything other than “gracias”. At the airport, sure, you will find most people understand and speak English easily, but once the taxi was booked and our driver greeted us with “Buenos dias” it was communication in espanol only. Confirming the address was easy enough from we already knew and so we were off.

Val closed her eyes as the coffee buzz wore off and the driver sped through the streets singing to himself. I couldn’t help but smile and be so thankful to be back in Argentina.

And so begins our Argentina trip. Our quest to get a grasp on the Spanish language while remaining drunk off Argentinian wine.

***

We’re sitting here at a cheap little table in the back terrace of our hostel, drifting in and out of conversation, patiently waiting for a room to be ready as we’re still hours too early for check in and after two consecutive red eyes, we don’t have the energy to get off our asses and explore the city quite yet. Not before a nap. All we can think of is sleep. Rest. We’re praying the housekeepers will take pity on our weary faces and hurry up and throw on some fresh sheets. And so while we sit through this torture, we decide to numb the pain with a pitcher of cold beer.

Our hair is greasy and pulled off our faces, which feel like they’re covered in a film of oil and dirt. Thank goodness I’m still a little stuffed up so I can’t report on how bad I’m sure I smell. Our eyes are blood shot and only half open. Need sleep. Need shower.

Two pitchers later, with the beer buzz and the travel exhaustion putting us nearly straight into a coma, we got our key, took the beat up old elevator up to the first floor, our giant suitcases in tow, and stepped off into… wet black paint. Tar almost. I nearly banana peeled and fell flat on my ass but caught myself just in time, so rather than be black from head to toe just my yellow sandals were painted a new color. We left a lovely mark in the fresh paint. Something they may have mentioned perhaps? Roped off? I walked with my sticky feet down the room to our 8-bed dorm, crawled under the sheet and drifted off, leaving my yellow and black sandals to dry beside my bed.