First Impressions

Let's just get something out in the open...international flights in Coach are not fun.  Especially at my age.  As a missionary I don't remember having any complaints.  Now...yeah...I may decide to stay here just so I can avoid the flight back.

The first thing that struck me when I looked out of the plane window at Buenos Aires was how many trees there were.  I've been looking at fotos of Buenos Aires for years and never did I see woods.  They are probably outside the city proper, but it was beautiful.  

The city I'm in is about 3 1/2 hours outside of Buenos Aires.  There's a lot of nothingness in between here and there.  And here reminds me  a lot of Spain.  The walk to work was on un-cemented sidewalks...but their like tiles.  I don't know how to describe it.  I'll take a foto tomorrow.  The people here are kind.  The interesting thing is there are no real commerical districts or housing districts that I've seen (of course I've only seen a very small part of it).  Everything is just kind of mingled in together.   And a lot of the buildings are abandoned.  The economy here collapsed a few years ago, and I'm guessing many business did as well.  

The Spanish is holding up pretty good.  I did meet an older gentleman today at the fruit store who I didn't really understand.  Just a few words here and there.  His Argentinian accent is pretty thick.  And he's a prankster.  When he gave me my change, he gave me a rubber cockroach as well.  I screamed "Oh my gosh!" and dropped the change out of my hand.  Boy did he laugh his head off.  I laughingly told him (in Spanish) that "I'm never returning to your store!"  I'm sure I'll go there tomorrow.  

No real sights yet.  Yesterday we finally got to the hotel and I crashed until dinner at 9 pm.  Then up this morning and off to work.   Still kinda pooped today.  Am supposed to go to dinner in about an hour...we'll see if I make it.  If it was an American style dinner, I probably could, but here, as in Spain, dinner is a many hour production.  

Other fun tidbits:  there are stray dogs EVERYWHERE.  We had one follow us to work today.  He even picked up a friend on the way.  There's also lots of stray poop everywhere.  We'll see if we can't include some in tomorrow's foto of the sidewalk.   And there is ham and cheese everywhere as well.  We stopped at a gas station for lunch yesterday...what was there to eat?  Ham and cheese sandwiches or ham and cheese empanadas.  This morning at breakfast there was just a tray of ham and cheese (for you Spanish out there it's jamon de york).  I'm trying to think what it would be similar to in the States...something that is a staple flavor...no clue.