nosotros somos en buenos aires!

caro is writing a hugely long blog entry next to me, but the internet is free here so i'm gonna go nuts too. here are my thoughts on the city so far:

1. it's been heaps easier doing things like getting around, talking to people en espanol, etc, than I expected. I understand a lot more written spanish than I expected to (when things are in context it's especially easy), but I still struggle with understanding spoken spanish because people speak so fast. but other people we've spoken to in el hostel (muy gringo!) say that argentians speak quite a lot faster than other south americans so hopefully it will get easier. we are picking up a lot just by walking around on the streets.

i had to ask a shop assistant where to find a toilet today (donde esta un banyo?) and we conducted yet another successful spanish conversation, and ACTUALLY FOUND the toilet. we were pretty stoked.

2. being surrounded by a different language is actually really fun! all we've done today is wander round the streets of buenos aires (initially very nervously, expecting to be mugged/harassed at any moment, although when nothing bad happened we gradually got more confident) and it was a major adventure because everything was in a different language. ordering food was pretty fun too: it's a game of charades half the time!

3. having caroline around has been awesome. i'm so much less stressed doing this kind of travelling than i was in new zealand, and new zealand is easy in comparison. it is so much easier to be chillaxed in situations like "we're at a bus station in the rain and we have no idea what to do next" when you are not alone!

4. getting over jetlag still... caro and i seem to be on opposite schedules, because whenever one of us is perky the other is exhausted. but we're making good use of coffee and drowsyflupills where appropriate and we should be better adjusted in a few days' time.

5. i had a wierd moment when i woke up this morning and thought, "it's 9am here... so it's... 7pm in Perth? oh my gosh... they've already finished wednesday!!" for some reason this was an upsetting thought. i wish everyone was behind us in time instead of ahead of us!! haha.

pero todo es bueno! it's all very surreal, and i keep expecting i'll wake up tomorrow back in Perth. but it's also all very exciting and i definitely wouldn't want to be anywhere else!