Landing Softly With A Bump

We're here. Finally, after more than six months of planning, thinking, figuring, we're here.

Yep, We're here. I have to keep telling myself that, because most of the time, I'm not sure where I am.

Our flight here took us through Miama, Panama, Bocas, Costa Rica, Lima and then finally. Here. There were at least three sleepless nights and one-almost missed flight in there, but it was great fun.

Buenos Aires is sort of a bizarro New York. Every new place somehow reminds me of a place I used to go. Or a sort of melange of places. Palermo is like the East and West Villages melded with Park Slope. Recoleta reminds me of parts of downtown Manhattan. Even the smell brings back spring mornings in the city. The odor of concrete, cigarette smoke and exhaust, but here whisps of baking bread and roasting meat creep in as well. No one makes eye contact. The streets are lined with London plane trees. Cabs everywhere, as well as everything you could possible want and need right outside your door.

There's culture shock, for sure, but it's more from spending time in Central America and then coming here to this bustling metropolis. Here, I'm immediately comfortable because it's a city. I know city. Country is far more confusing when you can't just step out your door to find food. Only here, everyone speaks Spanish, the people look a bit different and the empanada's are much better.

I am also painfully jetlagged. Without an alarm, I wake at noon. My entire self feels heavy and I feel like I'm walking through water. Until around 11pm, when I wake up and am ready to go.

Slowly, it's hitting me. We're here. I don't know anyone. I don't know my way around. This place, so familiar in its citi-ness, completely overwhelms me; it is enormous. I haven't felt this way since, well, since I moved to NYC.

Comments

[Cheap Like Me]

I have heard Buenos Aires is wonderful ... enjoy as she opens up to you! (After you wake up, that is.)