Buenos dias from Buenos Aires!

After about 19 hours of travel, I've arrived at EZE, which is unfortunately not one of the more scenic airports I've been to. My flight was on time, although my friend Ann, who I'm meeting here, is apparently not having the same luck and won't be in for another hour or so.

I debated going to the hotel to wait for her, but since it's an expensive cab ride and I don't want to sleep (clarification: I *do* want to sleep, but realize that I shouldn't, so that I can adjust to the 4 hour time difference), I'm going to just tough it out and wait here at the airport cafe, typing this blog entry on my thumbs (blackberry), drinking espresso and flipping through the magazines I brought with me.

I am surprisingly relaxed, since I have this little device with me and can keep tabs on both work and my personal email accounts. I'm looking forward to a week of exploring, including shopping, eating and hopefully some pampering with a spa treatment or two.

I started reading a biography of Eva (aka Evita) Peron on the way here, which is fascinating so far, even though the writing is a bit stilted and formal at times. I admit that I know nothing about Argentine history, and am excited to learn. I wanted to get a more comprehensive book on the history of the country to read on my trip, but there wasn't a single book on it at the Barnes + Noble near my office, and even Amazon.com only listed a couple. It's quite a stark contrast to the miles of books in the history section on most European countries. I suppose that shouldn't be a surprise since the European countries have longer histories as modern states. It made me want to learn more about non-European world history, which isn't an entirely new thing for me: most of my friends and family know of my love for maps, atlases and globes, as well as my past habit of getting really into learning about random and often remote geographical locations (most notably Greenland, but I've also had phases of fascination with India and Bhutan). I have a couple of amazing world history atlases that provide a perfect tantalizing merge of these two interests. I wish I'd thought to look for the Argentinean pages in these before leaving!

I've now killed quite a bit of time with this post, so I'm going to return to my fluffy fashion magazine so that I can hopefully finish it and discard it before Ann arrives.

Much love to you all!