We'll be there at two... or four... or tomorrow....

And I thought time was fluid in Chile! Today I was to be part of something that STARTED at 2... I was told that the car would be by to pick me up at 2:15 (which, think about it, is already 15 minutes after it's supposed to have started). They picked me up at 2:45 and we started at 3. But I can't say I wasn't warned... this morning I was talking to one of the Argentinian girls at the hotel and she was telling me that time means nothing here. She said that's one of the hardest parts of her job, in that Americans in particular are so uptight about time and Argentinians are equally diligent about not being uptight about it so she spends a lot of her time trying to calm down frustrated guests at the hotel. Sounds like a fun job, eh?

Since I have so little time here and wanted to make the most of it to be able to see all of the "must-sees", I broke one of my own cardinal travel rules today: I took a tour. Like a tourist. It was pretty hard to make myself get on that bus, but in the end I'm glad I did. For starters, I was still a bit more tired than usual (I'm still blaming the past week!), secondly, it was a grey, rainy day and who wants to go exploring a city on foot when it's raining and, lastly, I was able to get a good overview of the city so I'll know what I'll want to go back and spend more time doing when I come back here next week. So I survived a day playing tourist... even though I would like it stated for the record that I did not, even once, break out a map, wear black kneesocks with sandals or walk around with my camera hung around my neck!

The picture at left is of the "Pink Palace", the building where the (female!) President works; the ones below were taken in "La Boca", the oldest section of Buenos Aires, a brightly colored neighborhood where most of the houses are made of tin.

Buenos Aires is so different from Santiago. Sounds strange, but it has much more of a "city" feel to me; it is extremely crowded and much more "concrete", if you know what I mean. It's definitely dirtier than Santiago and the exhaust fumes can be choking but so much of the architecture is really beautiful, reminiscent of Europe. And my initial impressions of the people hasn't changed yet... everyone has been extremely friendly and very helpful. Also, for some reason I seem to stand out here a lot more than I did in Chile; I've already had several people stop me on the street to talk to me, the obvious American. Sometimes it's just to tell me how much they despise President Bush, other times it's just to talk to me about what I'm doing here and yet others it's to try to sell me something. I may find it to be a mixed blessing by the end!

Tomorrow I'm going to Uruguay for the day. Pretty cool that I can get to a whole different country in just an hour boat ride! Not cool that I have to get up at 6:30 am to do it... here's hoping it's worth it!