Buenos Aires, Wednesday, 1995-07-05 00:30 local (Z-3)
Greetings from Good Air—I think that's what Buenos Aires means. However, while that may have applied when the city was named, I don't think the air here is particularly good any more. The city sits sort of on the south side of the mouth of the Rio de la Plata (Plate River—poor translation I'm sure). Across the mouth of the river is Uruguay. If my memory servies me correctly, it was in the Rio de la Plata that the Germans scuttled their battleship the Graf Spree during World War II when it was trapped by Allied warships after a big naval engagement where the German warship had sunk several British warships.
Wars are important here. They lost their last one, the altercation with Britain over the Falkland Islands. Argentina calls them the Malvinas Islands. I just came from looking at the memorial to their dead from that war. Small potatoes as wars go, 25 plaques with 26 names on each plaque. Each life of course was supremely important to its owner, very important to his loved ones. But to keep things in perspective, I think the number of U.S. dead in Vietnam was around 58,000, at least that's the figure that comes to mind. Can there really be that many names on the Vietnam Meorial...sounds too high. Does anybody know the correct figure?
It's winter here, and the latitude is roughly equivalent to Los Angeles. I arrived in short sleeves to a reported temperature of 60°F, at least that's what the flight attendant said when she repeated her last announcement in English. Nice of her to translate from Celsius.
We're at the Sheraton, which is right downtown. After we checked in I took a long walk. First impressions include:
Buenos Aires is expensive for an American. For one American dollar you get 98 centavos, almost one peso. A Quarter pounder with fries and a coke costs 5 pesos, about $5.10. For those of you who do not dine regularly at McDonald's, the same thing in the U.S. would cost about $3.50. No wonder crew members don't like to get stuck here.
Lots of monuments and old buildings around, but then this is the capital of the country. C.J., as an Art & Architecture major I'm sure you would be interested in looking at many of these buildings.
The city is reasonably clean, certainly cleaner than New York, at least here in the downtown area.
They don't use their car horns, but they also don't turn on their headlights. I almost got run over by stepping in front of an oncoming car which, like almost all the others including the busses, was using only parking lights. I assume they must turn on the headlights when they get to an unlit road. Traffic signs appear to be taken more as suggestions than rules. Our cab driver actually drove one block the wrong way down a one way street to go the route he wanted.
They stay up late. This was a Tuesday night, and many of the shops were open till 11. A couple of long streets closed to traffic had a lot of pedestrians in spite of a slight drizzle, a little wind, and a temp I would guess was running in the low 50s.
They dress up. Except for a few bums, I was the worst dressed individual around, and the only individual in running shoes.
Well, I'm fading fast. I wanted to stay up late because we don't leave until tomorrow evening, and then we'll be up all night. The plan is to ferry an empty airplane to Santiago (capital of Chile, which has got to be the longest country in the world—runs from well inside the tropics down to the tip of South America). We'll stay on airplane while they load it, fly to Lima (capital of Peru) to refuel, and then to Miami. Duty time is pegged at a little over 18 hours, but it never gets done in that short a time I'm told. If the weather is good, I'll get to take a nighttime look at the Andes as we'll be flying along their west side during the Santiago to Lima leg and they'll be on my side of the airplane.
More later, and this probably won't get sent until returning to Miami. This hotel is one of those places where it costs you $3.50 just to pick up the phone.
same day, same place, 16:25 local
Hi, slept 12 hours. Had to choose between getting up for the free breakfast or paying for food later but feeling better during the flight. I chose to pay and feel better later.
The sun is shining and the temp in the 60's, quite pleasant. The air is not clean. The major problem appears to be all the diesel engines in their motor vehicles. Went to McDonald's to eat—cheapest place around. Found that part of the U.S. embassy was right next door. Visited their library and saw a full set of law reference volumes. I picked up the one labeled Oregon and wound up looking at familiar names of attorneys n Eugene and names of clients they represent: Stretch & Sew, El Jay, Valley River Center, etc. Amazing, thousands of miles away in a strange city and a little bit of home can be found.
Sitting here at home in 2018, continuously logged on to the Internet, able to use Google Earth to look at the places I used to go, and talking to Alexa, now that's really amazing. Had our present ubiquitous communications technology been available back in 1995, would I have written these emails? I don't know.
Show time is in 30 minutes in the lobby. This is just a quick addendum before packing the laptop. I checked into using it from here, but the Argentinians seem dedicated to making contact with the outside world as expensive as possibe. You have to subscribe to Compuserve Argentina here to be allowed access. It would be worth it if one lived here, perhaps, but not when one is a transient.
On to Santiago-Lima-Miani...Terry