Sarah, Charly, and the President

Hello from Buenos Aires! Sorry it took me a while to get this going, but things are always a little nutty the first couple of days here. Tons of adjusting to do, the time, the weather, the overzealous grandparents, the usual.

The trip over here was eventful, as usual, so I'd like to share some of those experiences with you. LA to NY leg: After a long goodbye with my momma, I made my way to my gate. We boarded the plane, properly tucked away our stuff in the overhead compartments, watched some unfortunate stewardess explain for what is probably the bazillionth time in her life how to put on a seatbelt, and waited. About an hour later, we finally took off. This made me a bit nervous, considering that my layover in NY was only supposed to be an hour. And if we had taken off an hour late.... It was during this quiet contemplation that I met Sarah. Sarah was sitting right next to me, and on her right was her mother. Her mother fell asleep the instant she buckled that seatbelt, and did not awaken again until after we had landed. (I'm jealous). Sarah could be a doppelganger for my cousin Victoria, which was disconcerting to begin with. Then I got to know her. Sarah is 14, a JAP from Manhattan, attends private Jewish schools, and sings verses from her Torah portion at last year's Bat Mitzvah when nervous. (Seriously.) And as it turns out, Sarah gets nervous a lot. She hates to fly, and every little movement creates a hundred violent death possibilities in her head. She shared all of them with me. She also shared her suspicions about the veracity of TomKat's relationship, as well as her concerns about Britney's baby. Sarah is, if nothing else, very well informed about world events.

We somehow managed to get to NY with only a slight delay, so I hightailed it to my next gate. NY to Bs As. leg: The plane was full to capacity, which means any dreams I might have had about stretching out across 3 seats to get some sleep on the flight were dashed immediately. I took stock of the people around me, and after deciding that there were no likely terrorists and/or boys of interest, I tried to sleep. Now I don't know if any of you have ever tried to sleep while a baby screams at the top of his lungs 2 rows behind you, but let me tell you it's damn near impossible. I was practicing my Zen patience and understanding when the young man sitting next to me decided to introduce himself. Carlos--or Charly (yes with a y and not ie), as his friends call him--is from Buenos Aires, just turned 30, and spent the last 2 weeks traveling in Mexico and the U.S. He visited all kinds of fun places, like "Don't look now but I think that might be the homicidal rapist we saw on the news last night," Mexico, and the Bronx. Granted, he also saw Cancun and San Diego, but those were not nearly as exciting to hear about. Thanks to Charly and our conversations, an hour and a half passed and I realized the baby had stopped crying. I seized my opportunity and slept about 3 hours. Right before our plane landed, Charly and I exchanged contact info. Maybe we'll meet up for coffee sometime.

Once we landed, I collected all of my belongings and started making my way towards the exit. The boarding ramp we were crossing was of the kind that has windows on the sides, meaning that rather than see awful carpetted walls, you can instead look out to see all the airplanes and air traffic controllers with fantastic orange cones outside. As I start to cross, I notice that to my left there is a large swarm of people, including reporters, photographers, and security. Naturally, I'm curious. So I linger close to the window for a while and notice that the object of all that attention is none other than Nestor Kirchner, the President of Argentina. I tried to take a picture, seeing as how my last brush with a politician in an airport sadly did not result in one, but it did not come out. Grrrrr... Still, a fantastic way to enter the country!