Upgraded, Downgraded, and Jet-lagged

Joe and I were behaving like Beverly Hillbillies when we unexpectedly received an upgrade to first class on our 12 hour flight from New Zealand to Chile the other day. So fun! Chairs that moved into a million positions (I could not stop pressing all those fancy buttons), good food, wine, movies, service. Ironically, we hardly slept. I may have slept better cramped in with the unwashed masses back in Economy class. We are paying for it now. Our internal clocks are all messed up. We sleep during the day and are awake at night. We have just moved 18 time zones. We left at 5 p.m. New Zealand time on March 25th and arrived at 2 p.m. on March 25th in Chile, 12 hours later. This International Date Line is a strange item.
When we arrived in Buenos Aires, finally, we took a taxi to the neighborhood of the apartment we rented. We were early to meet the landlords and sat at an outdoor cafe across the street for a couple of hours, watching the neighborhood in action. We were mesmerized: nice weather, lively, diverse people, so much street activity! And we were using our Spanish and understanding people, despite the fact that Argentinos speak differently than anyone else. There are a lot of Americans floating around San Telmo neighborhood, and Buenos Aires as a whole . Many expats, and laid of New York bankers, apparently. It is a place people can live a good NYC-ish life for much less money than it would take there (of course).
Our apartment is a bit of a disappointment. The pictures on the brokers' web-site were amazing (and very misleading). It is on the first floor and it is a noisy, noisy corner. It is very small, too. I guess gringoes pay too much in these situations, for the convenience of being able to arrive at a fully furnished place with internet, etc. We are content, nonetheless. It is convenient and comfortable enough. We'll get used to the noise, I am sure. It is nice to unpack, and go to the grocery store and put things in our own fridge. After living out of our backpacks for 9 months, these small things seem like luxuries.
We have been walking around the city and trying to visit new neighborhoods each day. Our first night, we went to the wealthy neighborhood of Retiro to an American-owned bar (over-run with Americans) that was televising the NCAA college basketball tournament. I got to see Duke play for the first time all season: they lost! Horribly! I was so jet-lagged, I could hardly feel anything about it. I am going to start taking a Spanish course on Monday. Joe is going to start working on some projects with colleagues at home. We are going to keep exploring this city and looking into where we will go when our one-month lease is up.