Leaving Oz and the 10 minute flight to Buenos Aires
I really love Melbourne – Its a great city which I am very sad to have left, I would love to think that I would return one day and stay for just as long if not longer, the place has such a wonderful spirit and drive to be cool that you can´t help but fall for its clumsy charm. I spent 10 months there and have met some quality people, drank some quality coffee and devoured some quality nosh. The city has changed me for the better, but now I am gone, I am in the capital of Argentina.
I left my friends apartment in melbourne at 5 in the morning, ronaldo had just clipped in the second goal in 10 minutes against arsenal in the second league of the champions league – game over. I bid farewell to ian and cate and walked down fitzroy road down past st vincents hospital and on down thru the city centre. Public transport was going at this stage but I decide to walk it, backpack or no. Its not terribly far but far enough to know that you have walked some distance. A couple of weeks previously while showing my friend Debbie around melbourne we called into relations of hers who had been living in melbourne since the 60s, the woman of the house in her 70s sounded exactly like my own mammy, she cooked us a savage easter roast dinner before supplying us with a seemingly endless parade of beer. She asked me if I noticed how different the light is in Melbourne compare to at home, how twilight barely exists… I kinda understood what she meant, the evenings don´t seem to linger while dawn occurs quite abruptly, anyways this sprung to mind as I walked down collins street. At the top end of the street the place was dark, by the time I had made it to spencer street station it was almost fully bright. I guess its a weird quirk of australia that maybe doesn´t get reported so much and so I have probably deprived you of 5 minutes of your life just reading this – good luck trying to get that back!!
Anyways I took the bus to the airport and checked the bags in. If the plane left on time I had just over an hour and a half to negotiate customs, immigration etc etc in sydney, plenty of time. IF… The plane left melbourne 40 minutes late, panic set in. When we arrived I made a burst to get off the plane, ran down the ramps, across to the terminal transfer and onto the bus to the international terminal. I had 30 mins left till departure. Immigration was next, just infront of me a 40 strong troop of chinese tourists were in queue. I shuffled, skipped a couple of them and eventually made it to the desk. I handed in my brand new spanking passport, no stamps, brand spanking new. The girl stamped it out then asked – sorry mr gill, where is your entry stamp?
Thats on my other passport, here´, I handed over my old crappy photocopy jobbie which had big red ink cancelled scrawled all over the shop, I must have looked so dodgy, I get called into a room.. Feck Feck Feck, I tell them my plane is leaving in 20 mins, they didn´t seem to notice. Typing away on a computer, avoiding all eye contact she could well have been playing tetris. Palms were sweating something serious!! Eventually with a smile she hands me back my passports and asked if I enjoyed my trip to OZ, she got a smile and then a vision of my ass disappearing into the distance. In true hollywood style i made it completely out of breath to the disapproving flight attendent and got my ass on the 13 hour flight to Buenos Aires.
Due to the quirks of planetary shape and rotation I arrived into Buenos Aires 10 minutes after I left sydney, May 6th 2009 was officially the longest day of Phil Gills life. Flights are boring and don´t require much explainin though on this one the pilot seem determined to land the plane on its roof! I got through immigration quite quickly. I did have to bluff the name of the hostel as I had nothing at all booked, came up with a name that sounded vaguely spanish and it did the trick. Once you are past that part the rest is easy, usually. They had managed to lose my bag in melbourne… Idiots, they said it would take two days for it to arrive to me.
Oh well, no need to pick a fight, not when there is much more pressing issue of accomodation. I jumped on a bus into the city without a guidebook or a map I should probably have gotten one or both. I spent 1 hour walking around the bustling city, up florida street in search for an internet cafe that would tell me where somewhere okay was to stay, it was warm and very very bright. Telling ya I was glad I didn´t have a backpack on me! QUantas should include such an arrangement as an option, twould be handy to bring enough clothes for 2 nights if you knew you would get all of your stuff within 48 hours of arriving.
I have only been here little over a day, first impressions are ´How very european everything is´which is probably the most obvious thing you can say about the place, it reminds me of bilbao in so much that everything is spanish and it is highly industrialised, but that is but an initial judgement, more judgment to come 😉
Tags: Argentina, australia, buenos aires, easter dinners, lost baggage, melbourne
Phil Gill
Sounds good Billo keep me informed on Riquelme and Boca!
Sure feck it you’re in the Americas now. Drop up my direction and we’ll go scoopin.
Will keep an eye out for you on ‘Nothing to Declare’
They gave us Carlos Tevez, we gave them Phillo!
Fair swap.
Stay safe!
Hope Arg is going well for you and that the toothache is gone. Keep the blog going// Should be interesting trip. luv