Today completes my first week on the trip and it feels much longer.  People even stop and ask me for directions.  I wonder if I look Argentinian or if I'm good at faking that I know where I am.

Spanish is starting to sound like a succession of words rather than an indecipherable sequence of sounds.  I've also been using translate.google.com and it's actually quite helpful!

My new hotel is on Avenida de Mayo and the avenue has some truly astounding buildings, but most seem to have fallen in disrepair.  One can definitely see how the country was much wealthier at one time.

It turns out I'm staying in the cheap part of town (my hotel is $35 a night).  I visited the nicer neighborhoods yesterday and they very fancy. 

My goal of getting in shape during this trip will have to wait until I leave Buenos Aires.  It's almost impossible to get a meal here that does not have a mound of meat or a bucket of cream.  I wonder how people here stay skinny, but they do.   I also found out what it means to be "Porteno" i.e. you never sleep during the night.  I stayed up late on wednesday night and had a full meal at 3am and the restaurant was full of people of all ages hanging out like it's 3 in the afternoon...

I also went out over the weekend and made some new friends while asking for directions.  People are very friendly.Though I of course got laughed at when I left for my hotel at 3:30 am apparently when the party is at it's best.

See my picasaweb album

I've spent a lot time walking around the different neighborhoods.  This picture to the right is of the San Telmo neighborhood which is very pretty, though very touristy.  There were Tango dancers in the plaza and I captured a small video which is in my Picasa album.

Healthwise, I'm doing fine though I had a small alergic skin reaction near my right eye, unclear to what, so I walked into what turned out to be an emergency room.  Within 5 minutes, I was seen by a dermatologist, given great personal attention and prescribed medication, and it only cost $28.  I think only coming from the US can we be impressed with the healthcare systems of other nations that are relatively less wealthy.

On thursday, I'm flying south to Argentinian Patagonia, and from there, take a 5 hour bus trip into southern Chile.  There I will be a the Torres Del Paine National Park for 2 weeks of outdoors activities.  This is the part I've been planning for the most and am most excited about.  I'll be doing a 3 day Kayak trip with a local company and we will be passing near glacier ice floats which sounds really great.  After that, I will be hiking 80 kms over 6 days following a popular trail and staying in modern well equiped refuges overnight.  Then I'm going on a ice hike on a glacier with a tour guide.  My back back is every shrinking.  Anything not worth carrying 80km is already out...

Also, I had accidentally deleted my itinerary from my previous post, so here it is again.