So here goes my first post in Buenos Aires. Shannon and I have been here in Argentina for about a month now, and have been loving every minute of it. While we enjoyed ourselves in Venezuela, our time there was "challenging." After our experience there, its nice to be in a relatively developed country.
We arrived in Argentina back on May 28 after a long ten hour overnight flight. We were met at the airport by our embassy sponsors, i.e. other embassy officers who help with the arrival and adjustment process, along with the a customs expeditor who we hired to get our cat from the international cargo section. A hour drive later, we arrived at our new apartment in the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires, a hip urban area near the embassy. We live on the 16th floor of a recently constructed 19 story building. While considerably smaller that our last apartments in Caracas, the apartment is fairly modern and has a nice view out over the city and the Rio Plata, which looks like a brown ocean. Our neighborhood is very urban, and has the feel of Upper West-side Manhattan. There are lots of 20-30 story buildings around us, along with many smaller historical apartments, and park after park after park. I wouldn't be surprised if there were 30 parks within walking distance of our building.
Which leads me to my next observation. We walk probably 2-3 miles a day. The embassy is about a mile walk, which takes about 20 minutes each way. In the last few weeks we've walked more than we did in our entire two years in Caracas, where it was just too dangerous to go outside. That's not to say that walking here isn't without challenges. First, Argentines love dogs. Infact, dogs seem to overrun the city. During the day, people let their dogs loose in the parks, and frequently professional dog-walkers are seen walking up to ten dogs at a time, which is quite a sight. That being said, the sidewalks are littered with dog poop. Ocassionally I've seen a local pick up after their dog, but apparently scooping poop is a trend that has not yet caught on here. Ultimately, when we walk around, we spend most of our time staring at the ground avoiding "land mines" left and right. Which leads to obstacle number two. Because of all the dog poop, every building has a person who sprays off the sidewalks every morning, right at the same time we walk to work. We have to dodge no fewer than 15 hoses each morning spraying off dog poop. This challenge is compunded by the fact that the sidewalks in our neighborhood are not concrete, but ceramic tile, which when wet is as slippery as ice. Sometime soon, I expect to be sprayed with a hose, slip, and fall face first into dog poop. But if that is our greatest difficulty in living here, I'll take it.
Because Argentina is in the Southern Hemishpere, our seasons are the opposite as in the US. Where as summer is just rearing its head back home, winter is just beginning here. I'm told winters here are similar to Atlanta. Not too cold, but wet and dreary. In the past few weeks, its gotten down past freezing, snowed, and then today was humid and 70 degrees. I haven't been able to wrap my head around freezing in July. I'm told Christmas will be scorching, but then again coming from Arizona, it shouldn't be much of a paradigm shift.
Something that has been a greater challenge adapting to is dinner time. Our first night here, we went out around 7:00PM to find some dinner. To our surprise, every restaurant was barred up and lights off. We soon discovered that literally no restaurants open until 8:00, and some not even until 9:00. Even then, most restaurants are empty until 11:00, with dinner not even being served until midnight. We found a McDonalds open, but we held out hope that we would find at least one place open, but alas we failed. After walking around for an hour, we ate at the first restaurant we found that opened at 8:00. We were famished! We have learned that when we go out to eat, we make dinner right when we get home from work, then go out for another dinner several hours later. It can't be healthy eating a fourth meal during the day, but we walk so much we hope it evens out. One of our first real nights going out, we went to a steak restaurant which even the locals says has the best steak in the country. I probably ate three pounds of premium beef, which was literally cut and served to us with a spoon. The food was amazing, but after eating that much meat, Shannon and I felt too ill to go outside the next day.
I won't talk too much about work, but Shannon and I are back in the Consular Section, and while Argentina, like Caracas, is one of the busiest visa mills in the world, the work here is easy because we get to say yes to nearly everyone, unlike Caracas, where we had to refuse everyone.
I'm still waiting for my computer to arrive, so I haven't been able to sync any pictures from my camera. Hopefully it gets here soon so I can upload a few shots from around town.
Check out Shannon's blog at shannonmollie.blogspot.com for her first impressions and some photos (that I took).
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