This morning, I finally arrived back in Buenos Aires, after a long weekend in Cordoba and Mendoza, the former, the 2nd largest city in Argentina, and the latter, a city located in Argentina's renowned wine country. Before recounting my trip over the weekend, I first want to talk about the endless bus ride I took from Mendoza to Buenos Aires. I left yesterday at 4 pm and arrived in BA at 9:30 this morning- the trip took a whopping 17.5 hours. That's almost 2 flights to Israel!!! Unfortunately, you don't have the beautiful El Al flight attendants nor any men poking you in your sleep to wake you up for a mincha minyan. However, it truly was an experience.
It really seemed that we stopped everywhere during our trip. You name a town/city/province/village/rest-stop/bus station in between Mendoza and Buenos Aires, we stopped there. The distance covered was over 1,000 kilometers. It was almost equivalent to taking a bus from NY to Chicago, except that instead of driving along interstate highways, we always seemed to be waiting at a red light. Yes, it was mostly local 1 lane roads. Large highways in Argentina simply do not exist (except when nearing the capital). Speaking of which, as if the trip wasn't long enough, we sat in rush hour traffic for about 2 hours as we approached the center of Buenos Aires. It made the Cross Bronx Expy seem like a pleasure.
Which isn't to say that the journey was utterly miserable. I made a lot of progress in my book, the Book Thief, which if you haven't read it, it should be on your list. I was in and out of sleep, often disrupted by a man whose heavy snoring reminded me of a chainsaw. Being up for a while, however, gave me the chance to think a lot, which I usually enjoy doing. In fact, I had enough time to replay almost every single memory from my 23 years. Luckily, I had a friend sitting next to me, someone I had met at the hostel so that was good company.
Although it was hard to see the scenery during the trip, one image sticks out to me as I awoke in the middle of the night- driving surrounded by fields with very little light- I was able to see tons of stars, and the Moon was shining really brightly. That was nice.
At some point during the trip, we were served a meal. I'm not making this up: the meal consisted of 2 types of cookies, and 4 different types of ham and cheese sandwiches- all rolled differently and laid out on different kinds of bread. I guess it didn't occur to the people preparing the meals that some people don't like ham.
Anyway, glad to be back in Buenos Aires, especially now that I just made my schedule for next semester back in Maryland- I am super excited for my classes- civil war, prison, Israel and nuclear bombs, and more.. This will make it even harder to focus on my classes here.
I will talk about the weekend next post just so this isn't too long...
ariel
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