We have made it!

After like 24 hours of total travel, we have arrived in Buenos Aires. The flights (3) were all pretty good except that the last one left us stranded on the tarmac for 30 minutes with no gate assignment as the sun was rising. As I had only slept about 3 hours at that point, I was, predictably, slightly cranky about this delay. I can say though that LAN airlines does a good job, they have a nice video system for long-haul flights with a good selection of stuff to do. I didn't even freak out at all on the trip and got a little bit of sleep, which is a win for me.

To answer Nobuo's question, I watched "Eat. Pray. Love." on the way over, which made me cry. It kind of seemed like a good movie to watch to start out this trip. It was a really good movie. I tried to watch "the American" but got bored with it in like 15 minutes and turned it off in favor of my Kindle (<3). We arrives at the Sheraton Liberatador, which is a Starwood property, and is, as expected, deliciously appointed and the staff seems outstanding. We crashed out for what was supposed to be 2 hours, but ended up being 5, before dragging ourselves out of bed to go for a walk. We found a pedestrian walkway called Calle Florida which has street vendors and shops on it. All very touristy and probably a rip off, but we were not looking to buy, only to walk and look and have some gellato, which we did. It was packed, and the street is super long, flanked by a park on one side and the providential palace on the other.
Calle Florida




Presidential Palace

I must admit that when we were driving in from the airport, I was a bit concerned because we passed through a whole bunch of shanty towns, which had buildings that looked like kids built them out of mud and Popsicle sticks, but once near our hotel, I can see why people love it here. The buildings are old and beautiful mixed in with new and unique. Everyone seems to speak some English and we are working on our Spanish so we seem to get by ok.

We had a pretty good dinner down the street at a small cafe and then walked over for a stroll in the park before returning back to our hotel. Tomorrow we head out for a city bus tour and then a Tango show.

As you can tell, some pictures are up on my Flickr account, mostly of just interesting buildings from today, if you are interested. And now, I am off for a much needed shower and some reading before bed.