What to do on a 15hr flight OR How to stop worrying and love the Mullet

Buenos Aires is far away. Like, Bangladesh far.

Luckily, every good traveler knows how warp time around him and turn eighteen hours of travel into a blip in the American-space-time-Airlines continuum. From Baltimore to Buenos Aires, I elicited the magic of mental time travel. I people watched and people ignored. I zoned out, tuned out, and spaced out. I entertained myself through music, books, TV, and computer.. I reached zen in my non-stop barrage of thoughts, mashed together without coherent conclusions or solid structure, designed specifically to kill hours of time without even recognizing the countries passing below me beneath the hazy clouds. Before I could comprehend that I was flying past Cuba, Jamaica, the Panama Canal, Machu Pichu,the home of Cocaine and kidnapping, and the Amazon, I was there. I slept four hours out of the eighteen. Was the trip worth it to spend six months abroad with free travel, room, board, bread, and booze? Just barely.

We lugged our luggage to Bob's, Pat's brother's, apartment in Buenos Aires. After a decent nap, Pat and I explored a small part of the city. That night, we all ate in a fancy Spanish restaurant. In the morning we packed up and left for Uruguay. From my tiny taste of Argentina, I had the chance to experience the three T's of Buenos Aires: traffic, trees, women, and women. (And women).

T number one. Traffic. On our ride from the airport, the taxi driver was consistently several inches away from having too much fun. Broken windshields, bashed doors and bumpers, broken horns from extensive use: these are the trophies of good driving in Buenos Aires. The aggression I saw was worthy of a new york cab driver – sponsored by NASCAR - in a race to the death - held in downtown Bombay. It was wonderful. Any country that threatens my safety on what would otherwise be a common activity, scores high in my book. In Mexico, it's drinking the water; in Iran, it's having a good time; and in Buenos Aires, it's a nice cruise down the highway.

T two: Trees. Although the city is expansive and home to several million people, they've maintained a great deal of greenery all around. Trees line streets and pop up between buildings without permission. Pat and I walked to a park where the branches of an ancient tree were so immense, they could have been trees of their own. Argentinians seem to have a keen sense of plant preservation. Although, they may have planted these trees purely to deal with the fumes from all the traffic. So, let's not get too generous with our praise.

And finally, the last T stands for women. Total ten women. If I weren't scared that on the wedding day of my marriage to an Argentine girl, she would ram our limo into six cars, swerve through traffic at 120km/h and finally park in the street with oncoming traffic screeching behind us, then I would be married already. The mix of cultures and backgrounds in Argentina has created this bizarre race of beautiful women that float up and down the sidewalks, dressed to get away with murder. And if I have to be an accomplice to a night filled of tango treason, so be it.

I'm in Uruguay now. We only spent the day and night in Argentina, and we'll return right before Christmas. As for Uruguay, I've only been here a day or so, and already I'm sunburned from a two hour walk along the beach, I tried a type of bird that is similar to ostrich, meet a dude who teaches surfing, and drove several hours through a country I barely know anything about. So, it's been good. Uruguay is peaceful and green - and then it's beach town and bold. I can almost hear its call for humanity.

I'll update more later. I'm beginning Pat's Spanish lesson tomorrow. It's not all fun and games here. I occasionally have to do something productive. At least once a week. Chao.

Oh, I almost forgot. Mullets are still in fashion in the Latin world. They refuse to die out. Mullets may turn out to be the blue jeans of the Latin hairstyle. Except no one looks good in a pair of mullets.