Lima to Uptown Minneapolis???

I arrived in Buenos Aires last night without a hitch. The only downfall on my flight was listening to this professional tennis player, Vladmir, from Greece talk to his coach the whole way here. It wasn´t just that he was rude and talking inappropriately the whole way, which he was, but that he seemed so proud to be speaking English that he did so at a volume that made even me blush. And every sentence ended with him saying, "MAN." It went something like this...

"I don´t want her as my girlfriend, man!" Coach nods, entirely bored with the spoiled brat´s monologue, "who whants a b--ch man "she just wants me cause i´m famous man!", "man that´s a waste of time man!"

So yeah this guy is cussing, and there are kids around, and he doesn´t care partly because he doesn´t think anyone else can understand English. Well news flash, everyone does.

So other than homey, everything was as smooth as can be getting out of Lima and off to Buenos Aires. I had time to have my dress shoes shined in the airport and was feeling dressed up and ready for the Paris of South America. Shortly after getting through customs, I was in a cab, a brand new Renault and was zipping down an impeccably clean 3 lane highway into BA. Even from the plane, Buenos Aires is a huge contrast to Lima. Lima looks like an accident and BA looks like it was laid out by DaVinci. But here on the ground things are obvious that people just plain think differently. The streets are clean and well laid out. People obey stoplights, stopsigns and even seem to drive with care. There is not the constant beeping and honking of the streets of Peru. The incessant honking in Peru is rediculous. It is as if the drivers think they talking with their horns. None of that here. When we get off the highway, the streets become cobblestone sprinkled with asphalt patches, but people still stop at the stop lights. And the stoplights not only go yellow then red to stop but they are kind of like drag strips, they go yellow then green as well. So when you are waiting at a red light, it turns yellow and everyone revs their engines and tear off as soon as it turns green. I love it.

Checking into Tango Backpackers Hostel is a breeze, and after a quick shave, I´m already meeting up with a young lady I met on Craigslist, Ana. Now Ana is one motivated and interesting woman. She is a freelance documentary film maker working on a project for Discovery Espanol. As the Senior Producer she is in charge of basically everything, including hanging out with cats like Santana, who is featured in the first episode of the project she is currently working on.

Buenos Aires has a bustling production industry. From what I understand, the talent is strong here but most importantly a fraction of the cost of California, not only for the work, but accomodations and everything else.

So Ana and I went out for an awesome dinner, which we started shortly after midnight, at a very chic joint called Miranda. I had some great Malbec and a dynamite ribeye. I´m going to like Buenos Aires just fine. I couldn´t help but to feel like I was sitting somewhere in Uptown Minneapolis though. Even after dinner, when I was sipping Balvenie Doublewood scotch, neat, in a cozy little pub named ocho7ocho, with the Beatles White Album dripping from the speakers, I felt like I was in Uptown or even LoDo in Denver. We were in the hip Palermo area of Buenos Aires. I could see myself scooping up a trendy apartment for fifty grand, setting up a studio and getting fat on juicy steaks really easy.

I´m off to check in to my next hostel in Downtown, The Milhouse, which is a party hostel I understand. Maybe some discotheque action tonight! Then I get to swing by Ana´s office to check out some post-production editting work they are doing. Not too bad being a jetsetter, I could get used to this...