Buenos Aires

I arrived. I almost didn´t. Qantarse delayed my Chch - Akld flight by an hour, leaving my new found friend and I exactly 10 minutes to run from Domestic to International, through Immigration and down to the furtherest gate to make the flight. We had 2 minutes to spare. I´ve never run so fast in my life. The crew laughed at me when I couldn´t speak to give them my ticket because I was so breathless.

Santiago lived up to it´s smoggy reputation. Apparentely you can see the Andes from the airport. (photos to come)

Buenos Aires is beautiful and dingy. It too has smog problems, but its been sunny and oh so wintery. Well if you can call wintery 22 degree heat at 9pm and todays high of 16 degrees. So much for cold and rainy.

The driving is interesting in BA. My taxi driver (who kindly suffered my attempts at a spanish conversation) drove at 120kmph on the motorway, and if someone got in his lane, would pull up right behind them and flash his lights. They ever so kindly moved out the way immediately. And there aren´t always lanes painted on the smaller streets. The lanes vary from 2 -3 depending on the driver´s degree of confidence. My driver was pretty confident. Oh and swerving between ´lanes´ is perfectly acceptable too.

Upon arrival my apartment lady hadn´t arrived so the security guard let me sit with him. He could say Hello and Good night in English. That was it. Through a variety of sign and broken spanish, we had a lovely 20 minute conversation. Most of it was spent laughing.

Our apartment is great, if not a little noisy with traffic. Spanish Cable tv is hilarious as they are mostly English shows with Spanish subtitles. I´ve already watched four episodes of Doctor House (said in a strong spanish accent).

I have photos but I´m yet to figure out where the usb drive is on these shop computers. So I´ll have to put them up at a later date.

Adios!

Saying Goodbye

It isn't until you're leaving that you realise the impact people have on your life - work colleagues especially. It's a good way of learning how important people are to you and how special you are to them.

The presents are embarrassing but always appreciated. The home made cards are special and to be treasured. Saying farewell to children that you aren't sure if they've completely understood the concept is always heartbreaking when they initiate kissing you goodbye.

It's certainly a very special group of women that I work with. I could think of no one else who would sing a rousing rendition of 'My Body Makes Music' (actions included I believe) at the tops of their voices in a downtown restaurant just to cheer me up as I was overcome by tears of leaving.

Sure beat the lame 'Happy Birthday' song the table next to us had.