Arriving

The 18 hours of travel went quite smoothly. It was hard to leave my family and my girlfriend at security, fo I will miss them dearly, but after that I got into my groove. I have spent a lot of time traveling, and it gets easy with practice. There was an hour delay after the hour layover in Atlanta, GA, but after that the flight went exactly as planned.

I arrived in Buenos Aires after having slept for a good seven hours on the plane ride and feeling pretty well rested. I got my two pieces of luggage and went through customs no problem and went out to the terminal to try to find Christian Hiba, a friend of mine that I met last time I came to Argentina, one and a half years ago for new years eve. We stayed in his ranch house in Patagonia.

Christian and I were waiting for eachother in different terminals, but after a quick phone call from a pay phone we were on our way. As I went outside to meet him on the sidewalk, it felt like I was walking into a freezer. It is winter down here, and zero degrees Celcious with the humidity of Buenos Aires can feel quite cold and wearing nothing but a pair of athletic shorts and a fleece.

I went back to Christian's, washed up and went to meet Marcela, my employer, at her hotel. Unfortunately, the keys to her truck were nowhere to be found. We unpacked everything, double checked it and put it all back and still no keys. To make the long story of the day short, Marcela contacted hired help at her ranch and had him give the spare keys that they have there to the driver of the night bus. We went out and had carne parilla, which is basically grilled meat. I enjoyed all of it, although the cow intestine and kidney were not my favorite. It was the texture of the stuff inside of the intestines that really got me. The next morning Marcela got up early and met the bus on its route through Buenos Aires and got the keys from the bus driver. Marcela came back to the hotel and woke us all up and we popped into the car for a quick six hour drive to Esquina.

It is Sunday and father's day, so they was hardly anyone on the road and it seemed as though all of the police at the police checkpoints along the way were taking a break too, because we were not stopped once. We averaged about 125 KM/hr. I have no idea what that is in miles/hour. I think a little over 75. It went by quickly because the scenery of pastures was pretty and the kids were asleep for most of the trip.

We arrived in time for the middle of her father's father's day lunch, which was more parilla, pronounced par-E-ja. I just can't get enough of that stuff. The meat down here is so good it is ridiculous. They killed a sheep fresh that morning and have beef and chorizo sausage as well. The family is quite nice. Marcela has a brother and a sister who have a daughter and a son, respectively. They keep Marcela's kids, Sean and Liam busy, which is good.

Well, I am off to dinner with her sister. I will post more and put up pictures the next time that I have internet access. Love to all.