Day One:

I´ve just arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina so I´ve decided to take a moment to inaugarate this site with its maiden post...

I left from Dublin yesterday morning and flew to Frankfurt where my flight to BA was leaving from. Luckily enough I managed to sneak my way into the Lufthansa Senator Lounge and spent the day eating and drinking for free. I was actually a little bit mickey-monk getting onto the flight last night, but I thought that that might help my chances of getting a good night´s kip. (I duly augmented it with a couple of Warsteiners, so I was actually fairly hammered during most of the flight).

I was chuffed to pieces with myself cos I managed to get a fantastic emergency exit seat and could stretch my legs. I was sittin´ there all boozed up and lookin´ smug at all the commoners that would have to sandwich themselves into regulation seating, when low and behold a man-mountain trundled up the gangway (with much difficulty) and starting eying up the chair beside me...

I´m not a holy person, but I did pray to Jesus, Allah, Muhammad and Papa Ratzi that he would keep on walking... alas he plonked himself down beside yours truly and rained on my parade. As if that wasn´t bad enough, the second he had his meal, he fell asleep and began to make these sounds that wouldn´t be out of place among rabid warthogs... (Dad, you´re like the fucking pan-pipes compared to this chap... I will never say another word...).

Anyway, so I didn´t get a single second sleep and ended up talking with the air hostesses all night...

I arrived in BA at about 9 this morning, but I didn´t get to my hostel for another couple of hours... the traffic in this city is loo-laa... The concept of lanes doesn´t seem to exist and everyone weaves in and out between cars to the extent that I very nearly soiled myself in the taxi on the way to the hostel.

I was sitting beside this mississipian who introduced himself with "Hi, I´m Steve and I voted for Bush!"... (those were the first words from his mouth, I swear to God!). He then proceeded to torture me with the intricicaties of Argentinian geology and the importance of amber for Kaliningrad in Russia... Holy jaysus... I had to staple my eyelids to my forehead!

Buenos Aires is an aesthically pleasing city. Most of it appears to be fairly open space and not too built up. There are lots of wide tree-lined avenues and green areas dotted with palms... The architecture is colonial and against a sunny backdrop like today, its fairly stunning.

The argies have all been very friendly and smiley up until now, patiently letting me squirm with my phrasebook. Have tried only to use "Habla usted ingles?" as a last resort, and try to communicate with spanishified french and gesticulation.

Next projects are to find a spanish course, a job etc etc... but that can wait till tomorrow... I´ll see whats going on in the pub tonite... Hasta la proxima...