here and alive

i am here.

here being somewhere areound avenida de charcas in the palermo neighborhood, buenos aires, argentina, SOUTH AMERICA!

made it.

but barely. the last four hours of my life have been a slight nightmare. and now i am sitting next to some south american kid on his laptop listening to cheesy country music and mumbling the words along. ha.

sitting on the plane as it landed amongst the hot, red, vibrant south american sunset, i felt good. i was back. but then a million worries took over. what if my cell phone, which the company said would work as soon as i got to BsAs, didn't work? what if i couldn't find a bank in the airport to withdraw cash to take a cab to nicole's apartment? what if i couldn't get a hold of nicole? what if i ended up lost in some odd part of the city and couldn't remember a word of spanish?

as the plane touched with the gate, i realized that i was freaking out, and needed to calm down. i mean, what are the chances that all these crazy things would happen? like one in a billion or something.

lucky me.

immediately, as i flipped open my phone, it flashed some sort of error message in spanish and shut down. i tried again and again. no good. then i realized that i had no cash, USD or pesos. someone told me about a bank outside of security, so i exited and went there. definitely closed. somehow i was herded by security officials to a counter selling coach bus tickets to the city (the airport is a good 40 minutes from actual BsAs). i managed to communicate that i wanted a ticket, mostly by waving my arms about a lot and pointing in the general direction that i believed the city was in. next thing i knew, i was on this bus, rambling towards (hopefully) buenos aires. after about half an hour, the bus stopped and everyone got off. i followed suit, and looked around. it was some industrial area. the other passengers were being herded into vans to go to specific hotels, but i was left alone. not sure where i was, i semi-retardly repeated "retiro?" to every official looking person i saw. they just nodded. well, i thought retiro would be closer to real buildings and shops and BANKS. finally, i managed to squeeze out "hay unos bancos cerca de aca?" the official looking guy asked me if i was nuts walking around this part of town at this time of the night. i shrugged. finally, he told me where a bank was, only a block away; HALE-freaking-LUJAH! i half ran off, with my huge backpack waggling behind me. managed to withdraw $130 pesos without further insident and immediately hailed a cab. i told the cab driver the intersection of nicole's apartment, and sat back.

thus began the first good moments of being in buenos aires. the cab driver and i chatted about the weather and he told me names of streets we were passing. the back window was open a crack and the hot, humid air flowed out and a few precious breezes floated in. i stared outside at the neon lights of bars and discos, the still-open outdoor cafes and people meandering about on such a lovely night. it was so beautiful. i did it! i am back in this crazy city!

my good moment didn't last too long. i got out of the cab at the appointed intersection but realized that i had lost the paper with nicole's address on it and i didn't have a phone to call her. ahhh.

i was also standing on this deserted street awkwardly close to a prostitute who looked like her night wasn't going to well either. i oddly smiled at her and shuffled off in my huge pack. i decided that this probably wasn't the best neighborhood to wander around at night and hailed another cab. in the cab i flipped through my guidebook and found a random hostel that was close by. the cab driver drove me there and i found the soho-hostel. finally! but, after trudging up the stairs the guy at the counter told me there were no more rooms. i almost cried, right then and there. but then he asked, "do you speak english?" i nodded enthusiastically and from then on out we had more success in communicating. he said that there was another hostel owned by the same person only a block away. he walked me there and in twenty minutes i had a room!

this place is tiny and open to the night air. the main office has a small counter and a little corner with a desk for computer users. the next room after you walk through the office is actually a patio with a roof barely covering it. if you walk through the patio room you find a tiny narrow staircase that leads to a rooftop room with skylights and with a few bunkbeds. in this room you hear the distant blaring of taxis, boom-boom-boom of discos, and carefree chatter of neighbors. it smells like smog and garden. i like it. in a few moments, i am going to crawl into my bunk in that very room and happily go to sleep.

words / phrases of the day!

con permiso - excuse me as in, "may i warn you that i am about to awkwardly crawl over you, my airplane seatmate, because you are old and asleep and snoring and on't speak english, and i have to go to the bathroom."
donde estan telefonos publicos? - where are some public pay phones, for when your phone actually doesn't work.
cafe con leche con tres medialunas y jugo de naranja - what i am going to have tomorrow morning! can't wait!