November 11th - A Long Day

First I must apologize for the lack of posts over the past few weeks. I have just recently returned from Antarctica and before that things were quite hectic in Buenos Aires. I will be updating the blog to include all these events in the coming days.

November 11th

This was literally the longest day of my life, 39 hours to be exact.

I awoke for an 11 o´clockish flight out of Christchurch that would put me in Auckland in plenty of time for my 7PM departure to direct to Buenos Aires. Upon my arrival in Auckland I grabbed some food and spent the last of my New Zealand Dollars in preparation for check-in to open 3 hours before the flight. It turned out to be a great thing that I arrived so early as the check-in was painfully slow and by the time I was checked in it was nearly time to board.

The flight was benign. Aerolineas Argentina is not high class flying, but the food was decent and it was just an 11 hour straight shot. The kicker of the whole thing is that I would be crossing the international dateline heading that direction. I left at 7PM and arrived at 3PM the same day, discombobulating to say the least.

I was recommended a hostel by a fellow traveler in New Zealand where she had stayed during her extended stay in Buenos Aires. I boarded the public transportation as usual and headed in that general direction. It was super smooth going and had arrived and checked into the hostel very quickly, the hostel would prove to have been fantastic advice. Before I knew it I was on the rooftop drinking a beer overlooking the city with a gaggle of brand new acquaintances. My first impression was that the city was beautiful, modeled very much in a European style with a distinctly Italian/French feel in the city center including many turn of the century buildings.

At about 9PM or so I went out with a few people to go eat some dinner. It seemed only natural to have a steak so we found a nearby "Parilla" (meaning grill) resteraunt. The steak was good, not on par with a fine steakhouse, butfor the money i´m certain there is no better place to eat steak in the world. For about 12 bucks US you can get a 400 or so gram steak, potatoes, salad and beer or wine.

We headed back to the hostel after dinner for a few more drinks and when people headed out on the town I decided to go ahead and end my extrodinarily long day.