Dateline: Buenos Aires, day one

Hola from South America! There's something really thrilling about being on a continent for the first time. Just flying here was cool - I wish they would have showed us on a map what we were flying over...Mexico, then Central America, at some point Bolivia. Just seems strange flying straight south instead of east across an ocean. And now that we're here, I keep having to remind myself that we're in South America, since Buenos Aires is so thoroughly European.

It was an epic series of flights totaling more than 18 hours of travel, but it actually went pretty smoothly. Then at BA airport, Nicolas, the lovely Russian neighbor of Russell (whose loft we're staying in), kindly picked us up and spirited us away to the loft (check out the loft in the pic, it's fabulous!). It was a somewhat chaotic scene at first - guys packing up the film crew that had apparently been filming here for several days, a couple of gals cleaning, and really loud American pop music on the speakers. Funny stuff. But it chilled out quickly and then Sarah, Russell's American assistant, showed up and gave us the low-down on the city, and a ton of maps. So we hit the town.

We didn't do anything in particular, stopped at several different wine bars and tried many, very nice Argentine Malbecs. So tasty! Love the peppery ones, and I'm officially a fan of Tempranillo. We wandered over to the Puerto Madero, a former port area that's now all swanky and trendy, and is accented by a really fantastic Calatrava bridge. I'll have to find links for all these things and places at some point. Jet lag kicked in and we made our way back to the loft, where we watched some Deadwood (brought the DVD!) on the huge movie screen from the loft's bed, sipping Malbec.

The city is very interesting, a fascinating blend of Rome (lots of Italian immigrants here, accounting for all the pizza and gelato), Madrid (reminds me a LOT of Madrid, just not as old) and Mexico City (the super-jam-packed-ness of it). But it's lovely, the people have generally been super nice, and it's CHEAP. Russell's wonderful right hand woman is Marita, and she arrived to make us breakfast this morning, and now we're listening to an amped-up, electronica-ish version of Tango music with her. Tonight, the triple threat: Tango, Steak, Wine. Life is good!