Hola! Welcome to Buenos Aires

38.5 pounds. The lady at the AA counter seemed pretty impressed that I packed for 6 months for under 40 pounds. Not so impressed that she upgraded me, but that might mostly be due to the fact that first class was full up. Anyway.......So here I am in Buenos Aires where it has been raining pretty much the entire time since the plane touched down on Tuesday morning. And I have to say that coming from cold NYC, it is warm and about 100% humidity. I don´t think my hair has been dry in two days and walking about 20 blocks with my backpack this morning made me want to take a shower all over again!

I arrived Tuesday morning, my bags made it safely, and I found an ATM all in good time. In line waiting for a taxi, I met a guy from Mexico who had just arrived to start his PhD work in Sociology. We chatted about US and Mexican politics for a while. He was saying he has been involved in politics for a while, and might consider running for senate when he is done with his studies...I´ll have to be on the lookout for him on the Mexican politcal scene! The taxi ride into the city was about 40 minutes to the B&B I had booked in the Palermo section of BA. The city is lovely, although I was a bit surprised that in many areas pretty much anything that is not nailed down has graffiti on it. I´ll write more on the city later.

The area I am in, Palermo Soho, is pretty much like the soho in NY with the funky shops and interesting looking restaurants, but without the pretentiousness of NY. And many trees which is quite nice. I got a cold just before leaving NYC and so just walked around the neighborhood the first day I was there, intending to go to bed early. I wanted to get something to eat for dinner around 7;30, and the b&b guy looked horrified that I wanted to eat so early. He was sure nothing would be open yet, and so directed me to what he considered a fast food place across the street. I am not sure what made it fast food as anywhere else it would look like a regular restaurant, but did notice ( each day) that many locals are having coffee right around that time in the afternoon. Apparently it is pretty crass to have dinner any time prior to 9 PM. Anyway, I had a nice half bottle of wine (for $3) and a very tasty ham and cheese panini.

Yesterday was a work day. I made contact with a spanish school I am interested in and then went down there (in downtown) via the subway and signed up for class. It appears that pretty much the entire week next week is a holiday here in Argentina, so we will be having classes 5 hours a day for 4 days next week, rather than 4 hours a day 5 days a week which is what we will normally do.

After that, I went over to San Telmo to the South American Explorers clubhouse. About a week and a half ago at mom´s I had seen an ad on Craigslist for a room for rent at a clubhouse and when they described the other clubs you could use (in Quito, Cusco and Lima) I knew it had to be SAE, as I am a member of that group. Anyway, it turned out the room was let to someone else, but on Tuesday, they wrote me to say that another room had become available for exactly the time I need! So it works out perfectly! I was thinking to do a homestay for Spanish school, but in looking at the options on the website, it became pretty clear that a homestay here in BA in equivalent to just living in someone´s apartment who is usually at work and they all speak English, which would defeat the purpose! The manager at the clubhouse confirmed that in a city like this, homestays are really nothing more than renting a room and an Argentine person shows up to collect the rent every week. It was also more expensive to do a homestay, so again, this works out great as I will get to meet people from all over the world and speak Spanish any time I want to! There are pictures of the clubhouse here:

http://www.saexplorers.org/clubhouses/buenosaires/pictures

The picture with the stairs are the steps that lead up to the bedrooms, of which there are 3. San Telmo is cute--kind of looks like the East Village prior to gentrification. I didn´t spend much time there yet as I will be there for a whole month to check out. What I did check out though?
8 pesos for the wash and fold baby!!!! I´ll fill you in on the quality of laundry service after I check it out. :)

This morning I moved from the b&b to a hostel. I will be paying $8 a day vs. the $30 a day I paid at the other place. There are 16 beds in the room, but totally doable for 2 days. Oh, and this hour I have spent on the internet? About 75 cents compared to the $8 I spent in NYC...

Off on my Journey....

So I am off in a few hours to the airport for my flight to Buenos Aires! Seems like it has been so long that I have been planning this trip that it is a bit hard to realize it is here already. And the biggest issue on my mind today? You guessed it--my laundry. Those of you that know me well will hardly be surprised since my life seems to revolve around the never ending issue of when to drop off the laundry, be availalbe to pick it up, etc--such a continuing saga I won't even say anymore about it.

I swear that someday I am going to write a book about my time in New York and it is going to be called My Life in New York As Seen Through the Eyes of My Laundry". Or something of that nature. Yes, I am very concerned about the fact that I have undone lanudry from my weekend here and someone is going to be burdened with the never ending issue of my laundry here in a few hours. :)

But anyway, thought I would take the remaining few minutes of the internet service I paid and arm and a leg for today ($8 for one hour!) to update this blog since clearly I haven't done it forever. I must say that if it costs this much down there, you folks might not hear from me all that often!

I have spent most of the weekend cleaning my apartment for the lovely couple who will be living in it for the next year. I must say that having to move or make a change in your life once in a while clearly helps you to clean out all the crap you have accumulated. I threw out 6 large trash bags of stuff I don't need and the dust bunnies under the bed were so big they needed to be caged!

As for the trip--really the only thing I have done so far is book accomodation for the first two nights at a lovely bed and breakfast in the Palermo section of BA. A little on the expensive side ($30 a night) but a nice place to unwind after an 11 hour flight and figure out where I am going to go to stay and start getting in touch with Spanish schools, as I have totally slacked off on that.

OK, better head out for now, back to the apartment for the final packing of my bag. And of course have to prepare the laundry for the lucky recipient. Stay tuned here for further adventures of my laundry..........

In the Beginning...

Hey Everyone--welcome to my running commentary on world tour 07! Well, maybe not world tour, but at least a part of the world I haven't been to yet! Some you have gotten a copy of the below in an email to sum up what I am up to, for the rest of you..here are the details!

As some of you may know, big changes are yet again in store for me. Those that have known me for a while know that this is my standard modus operandi—to get comfortable somewhere and then trade it all in for something completely new, so this is just another chapter in the continuing saga. For those of you who don’t want to be bored with the deets yet again, you can skip to the bottom and straight to the pitch for fundraising. Just kidding!

I have been in New York for 6 years now and there have been great times and some not so good times, but all in all, I have learned and experienced so much, that the move out here has been one of the best decisions of my life. I truly love New York and part of me hates to leave it, but there are many things to do and see, and life is short, so it is time to leave NY behind for a while and move onto other things.

I’ll be leaving my job at AMDA, where I have been for the past 4 years, in a couple of months and embarking on an adventure in South America. While I don’t know any Spanish (yet), the experience of learning it and living in the culture at the same time is one of the most exciting things about this opportunity, I think.

I’ll be leaving NYC on March 26th and heading to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Once there, I’ll spend about a month learning Spanish and checking out the city. In late April or early May, I’ll leave BA, hopefully in the company of my good friend Shannon, and begin an overland journey to Ecuador. I am pretty sure that with the distances to be covered and the fact that I actually want to see something enroute, that I will go through Northwestern Argentina, and up through Bolivia to La Paz.

In late May/early June, I am planning on flying from La Paz to Quito, Ecuador to do a 2 month service at a biological preserve working on conservation, reforestation, and maybe assisting scientists with research. I am pretty psyched about that part as some of you know how sexy I find science to be! The organization, Jatun Sacha, has several preserves throughout the country and I will work at 2 others of the course of a year. You can read about the organization and see photos of the preserves here:

http://www.jatunsacha.org/

After spending the months of June and July at the Jatun Sacha preserve in the Amazon, my sister Mary will join me in Quito for some traveling around Ecuador for about 2 weeks. Then I will head back down through Peru, check out Maccu Pichu, and back to Buenos Aires by late September for my birthday. I am flying back to NYC on Oct 2 where I will spend a few days hanging out with you fools who are working for a living!

From there I am going to my mom’s place in the mountains of Western North Carolina for a couple of weeks. I’ll be flying back to Quito in mid October to do a second service, this time on the coast of Ecuador at the Congal station for another 2 months.

After that, the plan is to possibly go to Honduras for Christmas, if Shannon in there--and mom might join me (the pic of us above is in Honduras last Christmastime) or to Guatemala, and then travel my way back down before reporting on Feb 1st for my third stint at a station high in the Andes called Guandera. I should wrap that up in April of 2008 and then head back to the states. Who knows what will happen then, and I am not too concerned about it as I know life has a way of setting your next course!

Whew! So that is it in kind of a nutshell at this point. I am excited and of course somewhat terrified in moments of reality to give up everything I know to go live in a new culture. But lets’ face it, that’s what life is about, no?

Love you all and happy holidays and the very best in the New Year! May you always keep on traveling….