He llegado otro vez: I've arrived again... finally

Hey folks,

After a month and a half long furlough I have arrived once again to Buenos Aires, my second home. The trip, however, was far from smooth, though I took the bumps in the road with the rather casual, come what may, attitude for which I am known.

Perhaps I jinxed it. Everything went so efficiently in Boston, perhaps too efficiently. And I celebrated my good fortune by declaring to the world, via facebook status update, that so far everything was going to plan.

Well, I arrived in Houston only to discover that my flight to Buenos Aires had been canceled. I patiently waited for an hour in the customer service line, and when my turn came, the services people were much more helpful than I had thought. All the while I had been expecting I'd be sleeping in the airport, but when they gave me three free food vouchers and a hotel room I couldn't disagree.

I gobbled down a large froyo with blackberries and oreo bits (meal numero uno), and took the shuttle bus to my hotel. Aside from a freezing room, which eventually warmed up after I cranked up the heat, my experience at the hotel was A-standard.

FROYO!!!

I returned to the airport and by noon I was milling about Terminal E, exploring the duty free shops and watching planes take off.

Watching planes fly

I killed time for 9 or 10 hours until my flight was finally called and everyone began lining up to board.

This is where it gets interesting. We waited in line for about an hour to get our passports checked, and when it was my turn the United official gave me a peculiar look and asked if I had paid the reciprocity fee (a $300 dollar fee residents of both countries, USA and Argentina, must pay to enter the other). I said yes and showed her the ticket.

While I waited for her to double check its validity the flight crew arrived and I overheard them discussing a slight problem. There were two flights bound for Buenos Aires, and one was scheduled to take off an hour before the other. Furthermore one flight had almost no people on it. This is when they had the brilliant idea of combining the two flights into one (I say this with a hint of sarcasm).

We were thus transferred to gate E20, waited an hour, at which point they started giving us new tickets, which took another hour, then they transferred us back to E18.

My look of serious consternation after a 3 hour delay. Will I ever leave? I kept thinking.

We boarded the entire plane three and a half hours late and shut the doors in less than 20 minutes (I believe that's a world record. If we had been two minutes later the plane would not have had permission to take off as 1AM was the cutoff for flights).

The flight went without incident, except of course for the poor father in the row next to me trying to care for his infant son and toddler. Poor guy. I recall waking up to finding cereal spread across the floor, my shoes, my bag, and pretty much everything else I could see. Moral of the story, never fly with infants... ever!

I spent the first two days seeing the city and catching up with old friends.

The greenery of this building really stands out.

I love the contrast between the modern buildings and this gothic church, nestled in the heart of the city center.

On the to-do list: Find a supermarket near my new place. Begin lesson preparation. Find a good local gym. And of course have fun, it's summertime here!

Cheers