Welcome to Buenos Aires!

SO, here we are in Buenos Aires... It has been a wonderful, crazy, intense, tiring, lovely past month of non-stop travel and we are both so relieved and relaxed to be settling in to one place... We checked into our fantastic little apartment here at the corner of Uriburu and Las Heras just two days ago, and sitting here now, it seems like over a week... Brazil was such a fantastic, sun-soaked experience and Chile was strange, communist-feeling, and somewhat annoying, but moving around so quickly and covering so much in a relatively short period of time will naturally take it's toll on the spirit and the body, for sure... We both have been so looking forward to dropping our backpacks and "spreading out" a bit in our new flat, which has certainly NOT disappointed in the least...

We showed up on Monday at 12pm for our check-in and no one was there to meet us... after about 10 minutes of waiting around in front of the building, a short little blonde in high heels comes running manically towards us shouting "Oh My God, I'm SOOO late!!!" in this unmistakeable east-coast American accent, juggling a huge stack of papers and notebooks... This was our first impression of Vicky, our new landlady, who was kissy and huggy with us straight away... Born in Maryland, but raised in Buenos Aires, she's renting us her two-story "maisonette" and living in a smaller flat on a lower floor of the same building, both of which she owns... The apartment is crammed with beautiful oil paintings (Vicky's a painter), neglected but not yet dead houseplants, and the most gorgeous hardwood floors and bannisters... (You can check out photos of the apartment at www.4rentargentina.com and search for "Uriburu and Las Heras" in the "Recoleta" neighborhood...) We have a beautiful and huge outdoor terrace overlooking the city, and the location of this place simply cannot be beat: dead center in the most fashionable district of the city... we are walking distance to absolutely everything: countless shops, boutiques, cinemas, sights, and the final resting place of Evita, which is a block away in the Recoleta cemetary... The past two days have been somewhat of a daze, getting to know the city, stocking up on groceries, unpacking, settling in, getting a "feel" for the area... Buenos Aires in going to be an amazing experience and this city has so much to offer... we are both barely able to contain our excitement about being here!

We spent the day today running little errands and hanging out at our new gym, called Megatlon (pronounced Meg-At-Lone, which we have dubbed "Mega-tron.") This place is the un-rivaled high-tech playground of BA's fashion and grooming set, catering to gorgeous gay urban professionals and overweight upper class business men trying to delay another heart bypass... The swimming pool is amazing, but the Pilates instruction is pretty luke-warm... Paul and I attended our first Pilates mat class today that was, ummmm, let's say "creative," but was actually bordering on dangerous... Afterwards, Paul approached the teacher, who is a nice-enough guy, and asked him a few questions about his training and technique... Without being prompted, he asked Paul if the two of us are Pilates teachers, after watching us work in the class... hehehe! I think that we both have REALLY high standards for the classical Pilates work and it's made mediochre technique very easy to spot... If my Spanish were better... watch out BA!

Tonight, I think we are going to go out a check out a bit of the nightlife... the one problem being that they don't get started until after I am usually in bed!!! I've had a couple coffees, so I think I'm up for it... but after the age of 35, I often find myself standing in the latest, white-hot nightspot of the moment stifiling a YAWN! Let's hope I can pull it together and stay up long enough to see why this city has knocked Rio out of top-spot for South America's gay nightlife capital... We plan on starting at a club called "Titanic" which has a 1920's cruise-ship theme and is only about 4 blocks from our place... but they don't even open until 1am, and won't get bumping until around 3 or so!!! Wish us luck...

More soon! xxx Jason PS: Still having issues uploading photos... will keep trying!