Camping at the post office.

The best part about living, well, anywhere is receiving packages in the mail, and we got the news on Tuesday that the packages Brent´s parents sent us had arrived.

Since there were three packages, we waited until I was done with school on Wednesday so Brent and I could go together and pick them up. In and out job, right? Pick up packages! Easy! We should have known better.

We walked to the post office and were surprised to see a dozen people standing outside the entrance to the international section. Bummer, we´ll have to wait a little bit. Then we walked inside -- where a couple hundred people were waiting.

We took a number. 86, and they were on 40-something. Okay.

Until 86 was called, and we realized we had the ticket 86A. They were on 86E.

It´s not as bad as it could have been -- E was as far as they went with letters, so we were excited to have only 100 people left to go before we were called again.

When 86A came around, Brent handed in the three notices that we received at our apartment. They were accepted and stamped and we were given -- you betcha -- some more numbers. These numbers corresponded to the numbers assigned to our packages, and we had to wait for them to be called, which happened in random rather than chronological order.

Some hours later, the numbers were called. Rejoicing, we walked through a door into a warehouse-like customs area. Even though the tracking information on the packages said they had cleared customs on September 23 or something, a customs official opened one of the boxes and went through it a bit, asked us how long we were staying here, and whether the things were used or new. After he approved the transaction, we took the boxes past another man, where Brent signed for them, confirming that we had indeed spent four hours at the post office to pick them up.

Two things: #1, if you want to send us a package, ask yourself if the contents are worth spending four or more hours in a post office for. #2, these definitely were worth it. Thank you, thank you, Jody and Larry.

Back to school.

I started Spanish school on Monday, and I´m loving it. It´s four hours a day, five days a week, and I enrolled for five weeks...which I might extend at that point, we´ll see how it goes and what else I am busy with.

They put me in a level that´s a little bit easy for me, but it has been great review and practice. The classes are small, 3-5 people depending on who shows up. My only regret is that I didn´t start this four weeks ago, but we only just found this school last week, and it´s really close to our apartment, so in the end I´m glad I held out for it.

In other news, yesterday was the first day of spring, the official start of dress weather.

You can take the rat out of the gym...

At last, we have joined a gym.

It was not an easy task. There are a lot of them, and when we think of joining gyms, we think of paying about a dollar a day to do so, since you can join very decent gyms at home for that much. Here, every gym we visited was more expensive, so we kept brushing them off, thinking we'd uncover a better deal. Not so much.

The good news is that most gyms let you go month-to-month, and many don't even charge a registration fee -- like the one we decided on. It's about six blocks from our apartment, not the gym of anyone's dreams but perfectly adequate.

It's a little on the smaller side, particularly the weight room. On the first day, there were four of us in there, and it felt packed. Luckily, working out during the day means you won't see it much busier than that. They also have a variety of fitness classes, though most of them are in the evening -- when it is much busier.

It feels so good to be sweating and sore again. The break was good for my system, as I was definitely overdoing it for the last year, but as I learned through some weird bug bites under my arm and on my back (Chile, circa the entire month of July) that also resulted in my face breaking out in fury, and a weird stomach unrest right after we got to BA, I don't know the out-of-shape body very well. It's been gymified for so long, for really most of my life, it becomes very unfamiliar when it goes two months with little more than long walks. I understand it from a fit perspective, and I feel that if I had been running through the bug bites and tummy trouble I would have known how to handle those things and get over them quickly. As it were, I did not. So, I am relieved to be getting back on good terms with this body, and back to a state from which we understand each other.

Really, Argentina? Really?

We love living here, but wherever in the world you go, you will come across a few things that make you go, ''Oh, come ON!''

• Buses will hit you. Cars will hit you. Taxis will hit you. They are not afraid. Your best chance of survival is to be in the crosswalk when there is a pedestrian light, and it is set to ''go'', but even that is not a guarantee. And not all crosswalks have those. And some intersections don`t have official crosswalks. Good luck.
• Some restaurants have a cover charge. It's just a few dollars, usually, and it is mentioned on the menu and added to your bill at the end. According to my guidebook, this covers the use of utensils. What if I bring my own?
• You need a note from a doctor in order to join a gym.
• You need someone who owns property in Buenos Aires proper to sign off on you if you want to rent. We got around this with our apartment because we are renting from one of Brent's old friends, and there are ways around it with the office, but they are painful things like paying someone to sign off on you, or paying six months of rent up front.
• The dinner hour is very late here, 9:00-midnight. The awesome Mexican restaurant down the street opens at 8:00, and we have been the first people there at that time on two occasions. We're hungry!
• Breakfast is sort of a non-thing, so if you want to go out for breakfast, you have your choice of coffee or coffee and a croissant at any of the many cafes around the city. We haven't been out to breakfast, but we love breakfast and do miss the opportunity to go get some killer french toast. Well, the french toast part, that's mostly just me.
• The cinnamon is a joke. In Chile, too. I don´t get it. It looks different, smells different, and tastes different than the substance I have known as cinnamon all my life. It's still recognizable as cinnamon, but it's not as powerful and not nearly as good. This is a blow to a girl who is used to eating and loving cinnamon every single day.
• Clothes, shoes, and electronics range from kinda to silly expensive, and there is no Kohl´s equivalent.

A quick back-track.

In the excitement of getting to Buenos Aires, I glossed over the bit about how we got here. We crossed the Andes on a bus, after all.

And it was majestic. Rock and snow, so big, so beautiful. For the first two hours especially. The last 10 hours weren´t as fantastic, especially since three or four of them were spent at the border, waiting for the immigration officials to get their act together. Apparently the pass had been closed for the previous five days due to snow, and there was quite a backup of cars and buses wanting to get through.

That brought us to Mendoza around 9pm, where we visited seven hotels before we found one with a room to spare. We ate six different kinds of grilled meat (minus the intestines) and called it a day.

The next day, a Sunday, was Argentina´s Día del Niño (see previous entry). We wandered around Mendoza, a very cool little city, and boarded the bus for another 14-hour journey to Buenos Aires.

A beautiful day in the neighborhood.

If this is winter, Buenos Aires, I'm in love with you already. I have been wandering around coat-free today, as has been possible on most of the days since we've been here. On the other days, I've felt totally comfortable in my winter coat or light jacket. Finally, the kind of winter I've been dreaming of my whole life.

It occurs to me that I've never lived in the city. Denver is as close at it comes, and I lived in the suburbs, not the city itself. I've visited many, but with just a few days in each one they were novelties to be enjoyed, not jungles to be survived. It's madness, really. So much traffic, most of which has no concern for the pedestrian in the crosswalk. I wanted to go running the other day, but realized that I would have to walk to the park to run, since it's impossible to run down the street when there are so many people out and about.

Nonetheless, it's pretty awesome. Within a two-block radius you can find several gyms, countless restaurants, a store that sells dried melon (among other fruits, but melon quickly became the most important), a couple of convenience stores (perfect for picking up a beer or alfajores), several specialty stores where we buy meat and quinoa in bulk to avoid the grocery store, and a grocery store.

Ah, the Disco. The other day, Brent went to meet up with a chiropractor friend of his and I went off to run errands and do some housework. I needed four things at the grocery store. Quick trip, right?

An hour or more later, I emerged and beelined for my apartment, not to emerge again for the rest of the day. It was impossible to compare prices, not only because the aisles are narrow and I spent most of my time getting out of the way of the millions of other people, but because the price tags are never under the appropriate product, if they exist at all. Exhausted, I got in line to checkout, where I stayed for the better part of the day as it backed up behind me. This was the middle of a weekday!

So I will try to survive on dried melon. I don't want to go back to the Disco again for a long, long time.