safe and sound!

Jan. 28

I met Xavier at the Buenos Aires airport and his friend Pablo brought us to our hostel: Tango Backpackers. The hostel was super hidden, but I figured it was probably for security reasons.

Some highlights thus far include:

1. realizing that there is a time difference in BA, 3 hours ahead.

2. finding a nasty ass crawling beetle or spider, not sure which, in the orange I purchased in the Miami airport

3. when I went to go brush my teeth, i realized that i left my nalgene on the plane...already losing stuff? not a good sign (don{t worry, my assertive self got it back)

4. i got a migraine in my eye for the first time in years so i couldn{t tell for the longest time that xavier was waving to me since i could only see out of my right eye

5. i had my first meal and it was repulsive. good thing my dad bought me so much dried fruit and trail mix! cross something like a pancake with gross veggies and a sick red sauce off my list!

6. pablo is a precious man who freaked out when he gave me a kiss hello saying that he{s sorry for doing that since it is not the custom in the states.

7. i made my first atm withdrawal and xavier had to help me figure out that it was touch screen...

8. our hostel is super cute and we are staying in a room of 6 total. a weird experience, but i´m sure it is just the first of many.

9. i went on a run to explore a little and found a zoo that smelled really bad, a beautiful plaza that was getting totally littered with dog poop as there are a lot of dog walkers with like 14 different dogs per walker, and roads that made me want to kill myself with all the dust that i was inhaling

10. xavier and i walked around for a long time and found a lot of cute places. then we got lost for a horribly extended period of time. we got to see a LOT more of the city than we intended on. but we also got to practice our spanish and hack our way back to our hostel. NOTE TO SELF: make sure that one traveling partner has written down the address of our hostel. oh, and bring a map too.

11. we tried to make friends with some of the kids in the hostel. but then i realized how exhausted i was so i went to bed. TOTALLY broke out the hostel liner my parents got me for Christmas and coiuldnt be happier crawling into that instead of the alternative.