Landing in Buenos Aires! - Saturday

The view of the sunrise from the plane was exquisite. I snapped a few photos and set my watch ahead.

Or so I thought. When we landed my watch was two hours behind Buenos Aires time. I said "Huh, wait, is Buenos Aires two hours ahead? I have no idea what's going on." No idea. I'm so sure I set it ahead one hour.

We went through customs without difficulty and were met by N and P. We'd been debating whether or not they'd be there, since no concrete plans to meet up had been established. We just assumed everything was taken care of. M said "If they don't meet us, we have no way of getting in touch with them. We don't even know where the wedding is. But they know where we are, so they can find us."

We stopped briefly and everyone but me had coffee of some sort while we waited for E and B to arrive. E and B are N's friends from graduate school. They arrived, delirious, and soon we were ready to head to the hotel. Except that M and A realized that their backpack was... MISSING!

Crisis. Major crisis. Thankfully P, who is from Buenos Aires and who therefore speaks Spanish, was the hero and led M and A around the airport until they found their backpack where they'd left it by the baggage claim. Literally. Right on the ground where we'd been standing, untouched. They weren't sure that's where it would be, but thankfully, it was there, along with the entirety of its pricey contents.

P drove us to the hotel where we quickly unpacked and showered.

N and P picked us up again and we went to Puerto Madero for lunch. Puerto Madero is on the water and is below Buenos Aires on the map we had, but is not actually south of Buenos Aires. We don't know. We think this could be a southern hemisphere thing.

We couldn't stop marvelling at its being winter in July. It was really, really cold.

We settled on a lovely Italian restaurant that served awesome bread and these hard pita type breads with cheese on top. Best thing ever. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

N and P dropped us off at the Buenos Aires Design Center after lunch. The Design Center is a mall full of stores selling modern furniture and home goods. Everything in this place suits my taste, which actually made me feel sort of trite. It's one thing when you find an isolated cool item for your home and people say "Where did you get that?" and you have a cool story. It's another thing when you're around hundreds of people with the same exact taste as you and when items aren't unique.

I took this photo in one of the stores before we got in trouble for taking photographs:



M, A, B, E, D and myself wandered around the Design Center for a bit and then walked over to a street/craft fair in the Recoleta neighborhood where our hotel was. We found all sorts of lovely things - jewelry, shoes, possible gifts to bring back for family and friends - but bought nothing because it was freezing and because we thought "We'll come back tomorrow!"

We went back to the hotel and napped? Or something? I don't know. The day is a blur.

I think D and I called E and B and went on a crusade to find dinner, but, as is customary with yours truly, our hotel was, of course, in a neighborhood with no restaurants.

None.

For example, when Sister and I were in San Francisco we often found ourselves wandering around, starving, desperate for food and unable to find a single place to eat.

Last summer, when RR came to NYC to help me find an apartment, the same thing happened. We literally wandered for an hour without finding a single restaurant (with hindsight I think we may have been on Lexington but I had no idea at the time) and ended up hailing a cab to take us to Little Italy, where I had a mental breakdown due to hunger and due to not wanting to live in a donut shaped abode.

D found a place in the guidebook which became our destination, but it was not there.

We wandered around aimlessly, starving, having no idea if we'd ever find anywhere to eat.

We finally found a Mexican place. We called A and M, who joined us for our first dinner in Buenos Aires. I had a marvelous peach margerita and slept for like 11 hours that night.