Day 7: Buenos Aires, Christmas Eve

Set our alarm reasonably early today - Christmas Eve! We want to beat the rush at the Recoleta Cemetery. A few months ago, they introduced an entrance fee but apparently it hasn’t slowed visits. On a normal weekday, 1100 locals and tourists pass through. On the weekend, that goes up to 3000! 

We had a quick breakfast of dulce du leche spread on toast with fresh strawberries, and then made our way to the cemetery. 

I’m glad we made the effort to get up early as we almost had the place to ourselves - by the time we were leaving it was filling up with people. It was also pretty gloomy this morning, which was the perfect mood for visiting a cemetery. 

We decided to go straight to Eva Person’s site to beat any crowds. She was located near the exit but we couldn’t decipher the map very easily. We ended up going to the exit and then counting the rows until we found her site nestled down an alley. It seemed fairly innocuous, especially considering the extravagance of some of the sites we saw. 

We took a zig zag path through the mausoleums, spotting something here and there that took our fancy and led us down yet another narrow path. Many sites were run down and most sites were very old, but a handful of new ones had been added, and they’re style very different (one in particular looked like an elevator shaft). 

I found the juxtaposition fascinating. Crumbling tombs in the foreground, brand new glass high rises and rundown apartment blocks in the background. I took way too many photographs here! And I loved the little details on the tombs; a spider web covering a statues face like a mourning veil, little fronds of ferns that had self-seeded in the cracks. 

One tomb had been so destroyed that you could see right down into the cavity, and could see the coffin had also been destroyed and lay ajar. 

Others were lovingly cared for, with new fresh flowers placed on the doors and pictures of the departed inside. 

As we headed for the exit, we encountered a procession following a coffin - a new arrival to the cemetery. This was completely unexpected, and Dan and I stood to the side to be out of their way and to watch the mourners pass. At the front, a man was pulling a shiny brown wooden coffin on a trolley, followed by a line of perhaps twenty people. A man kissed a lady tenderly on the forehead as they walked past us. Others squeezed each other in comfort. As they were heading the same way we were, we veered off so as not to intrude. We came across them again near the exit and wound our way through the tombs to avoid being in their way as they gathered around the outside of the tomb. 

It was time to go back to the accommodation to rest before our afternoon walking tour. On the way we stopped into a proper, big supermarket and picked up some further supplies (baguette, strawberries and a few other bits and pieces). We tried using the self service machine but it kept asking us questions so we joined the people queue instead. The guy has issues with my card but got there eventually. 

Back at the apartment we made ourselves some Breakfast-lunch, scrambled egg sandwich with some of the ingredients we had gotten. At time of writing, I’m about to have a siesta before we join a free walking tour!

We had to race a bit after our nap because we overslept. Thankfully we had factored in a little extra time and when we missed the first bus (technically the bus we were waiting was either early or never came, or was quite late…hard to tell) we still arrived with plenty of time to spare. The group was divided into Spanish speaking and English speaking, and then divided into two again. Our tour guide was Martín and he turned out to be amazing. 

I can’t go through everything we saw or learnt as I don’t have lightning fingers to note down everything! We started at the National Congress, and finished in Plaza Mayor and walked between. I learnt that almost every block is 100m square, which takes roughly one minute to walk, so if a local guides you by saying it’s 5 minutes it’s probably about five blocks away. 

I learnt that the current congress has been in its longest continuous use since its inception, currently at 39 years - previously it had been on and off due to many many dictatorships. 

As we continued walking we stopped at a statue and I said to Dan, “The thinker.”  It sure was The thinker, and apparently one of three originals in the world and oft forgotten about. 

Martín spent a lot of time talking about the architecture in Buenos Airies because, frankly, the mismatch is hard to ignore. 

“Explore and you’ll find architectural jewels,” he said, “and you’ll find architectural crimes too, no doubt!”

Buenos Aires had many different architectural influences and the result is a mismash of styles - often on the same building. You’ll see beautiful Parisian ornamentation juxtapositioned with communist style apartment blocks.  

“The buildings are individually beautiful,” he continued, “but altogether - kind of a mess!”

But what a beautiful mess!

One building he discussed at length was based on Dante’s Inferno, right down to the height, dimensions, door knobs and more. I need to do some more research about this one!

Martín spent some time revelling in Argentina’s World Cup win, which has left the nation swelling with pride. “Money and fear - we have none!” he continues. 

We passed a few more monuments, including the Obleisk which was apparbetly once adorned with a giant condom during an AIDS campaign, and a water feature dedicated to Argentina’s beautiful waterfall “this is the most embarrassing monument to Iguazu Falls,” he shook his head. “Actually,” he said, perking up, “it’s a moment to the Brazilian side!”

We spent a while in front of a building adorned with Eva Person’s silhouette while Martín gave us a crash course in Peronism. I had done a little bit of reading but I felt his explanation put it more into perspective, how it supposedly catered for both the upper class and the working class simultaneously but ultimately alienated each. 

As we continued on, Martín gave us an abridged economics lesson to try to explain the crazy pricing in Argentina. Current inflation is at 96%, which is just unimaginable (but apparently not their highest). He told of the insane inflation rates of 1989 when he was a young boy, and rates changed so rapidly that cashiers in grocery stores couldn’t keep up with the prices changing every few minutes so would short of the price. People scrambled to get to the counter before goods because unaffordable in the few minutes since arriving.Unimaginable. They aren’t at this level right now and I hope it doesn’t happen. He explained how the Argentinan dollar was supposed to be pinned to the US dollar, but has completely collapsed, and where to go for best value for money exchange. Economics is a bit over my head, but I got the jist of it. 

We then arrived at Plaza de Mayo, and he told us of the mothers and Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, mothers of many young people who disappeared in the late 70s and early 80s never to be seen again who peacefully protested the military. However any young women who were kidnapped who were pregnant were not immediately killed (that was too immoral) - the military waited until they gave birth, the adopted out the children. Over 500 of them. In recent times, the grandmothers of these children have set up one of the greatest DNA centres in the world, where they have all given a blood sample.  They Continue to ask those who don’t feel right in their identity born during those years to take a DNA test. To date they’ve reunited 120 young people with their biological grandparents. 

At the tours conclusion we made our way back to our apartment, made some pasta and jumped in the pool. It’s a bit unseasonably cold here at the moment but that’s not stopping us from using the pool! From somewhere Argentinian Christmas music is blaring, and we can hear the occasional firework going off. 

At about 11pm we went for a walk around a few blocks to see if we could see or hear anything much going on, but we just be in a fairly sedate neighbourhood as it was very quiet. Amazing to see Buenos Airies so still! We returned to our apartment and  saw Christmas in with our feet dangling in the pool, listening to the fireworks going off in the distance.

Felix Navidad everyone! ❤️💚🤍

Day 6: Buenos Aires

 Had a nice sleep in - seeing as we don’t need to be out til we receive a call about noon! We packed up our bags, lazed around then decided to get a coffee and a light breakfast. We found a bakery around the corner and ordered a couple of coffees, a toastie and some delicious little medialuna (croissants) that were glazed in some kind of citrus. 

We meandered back to the room, peeking in shop windows on the way. Found an interesting jewellery store that sells reasonably  priced brooches nearby - may have to check it out properly later. For now, we just want to get into our proper room. 

Just after 12pm the owner rang and said it’s ready. She came up, and thrust the keys at us. She turned to leave and we were like “um, where’s the room??”

“Three.”  

After a pause she asked if we wanted to see it. 

I don’t know how she managed but she somehow still made this sound like all our fault. 

We shouldered our bags and made our way down to level three. 

Finally.

Dan met me and opened the door. Here was our room, at last. 

We unpacked (read: made a mess), found our bathers and made straight for the pool. It’s glorious. Shallow, but glorious. Comes up to
My high calf. Perfect for sitting on the bottom with a glass of Malbec (read: coffee mug because we don’t have wine glasses). 

After a decent swim (read: sitting on the bottom of the pool), we made our way to what we thought was the closest grocery store to stock up on supplies for the next few days. Eggs, ham, bread, pasta (couldn’t find premade sauce) and plenty of wine. It was getting very hot, so when we got back we got straight into the pool again! This time
We accompanied it with some Malbec which was delightful in the cool
Water and sunshine, and made plans for the next few days. I should mention our Malbec was a cork bottle and so Dan had to be resourceful and using a pen and a shoe (he’s practically MacGuiver), he pushed the cork into the bottle so we could drink it. Wine with a side of cork, yum!

I had another restaurant on my radar and Dan obligingly agreed to go there - it opened at 7pm which is practically lunch for argentinians. We started to head to El Sanjuanino, a restaurant renowned for its empanadas. 

On the way we spotted a grocery store right next to our hotel (we hadn’t turned this way yet) and a butcher that also sold fancy cheese. We about turned and bought some cheese for Christmas Day lunch platter. Inside the lady serving us didn’t speak English but she called over a colleague, and seemed to attempt to emulate what we were saying in English. We bought a few fancy cheeses and returned to our apartment to refrigerate them. 

Take two. Back on the road. The walk to the restaurant was delightful and before long we were seated at a table outside as the temperate and evening was equally as delightful. I knew we wanted empanadas but I wasn’t sure what else on the menu, or how many. We looked around and copied those around us. Another bottle of Malbec bought, we each got 2 empanadas - similar to small pasties but in a wonderfully light dough - I chose the camprese (basil, cheese, tomato) and the ham and cheese, and Dan got the tasty canne picante (spicy beef with veggies) and the Rockforde cheese. Our salad took a while to come (we need some vitamins, ok) and we saw a neighbouring table eat something tasty looking that arrived in a package.we motioned to the waiter and said “one of those please!” At the time of writing, I know this is called a tamale, but then we did not. It arrived, our salad arrived and it was delicious. The whole bill came to about aus$40.

 

As we were finishing off our wine, it started to rain, and we had a fun walk home in the warm evening being rained on. We noticed the grocery store next to our apartment was still open so we ducked inside. We thought we had plenty of time, but they were trying to shut esrly. We wanted to grt some booze supplies to last us through Christmas. A bottle of absolut vodka was less than au$11 so that joined the fray, and we hurried to the counter.

At time of writing, I am standing in our pool drinking a beer (with ice). This is the life. 

Til tomorrow xx

Day 5: Buenos Aires

 Day five has been a day. Dear lordie. Where to begin. At the beginning, I guess!

We left off at ungodly o’clock, I was awake, we weren’t too far off landing. Nothing to report here, we were slightly worried our baggage wouldn’t be with us but otherwise everything was smooth sailing. Off the plane and towards customs, where we are someone practically the first people in the foreigners queue (or only people in the foreigners queue?) and within minutes, after a brief line of questioning (and no bloody stamp) we were waved though. 

We now had an hour before our transfer driver arrived, so we set off to find an ATM. Due to the currency crisis in Argentina, people are Limited to 10,000 pesos (roughly Aus$80, Altho the currently can fluctuate quite wildly). It took me a few goes to get this right, and before long Dan and I had a few pesos each. 

Still running very early, our driver messaged and arranged to meet us as soon as possible. He was surprised we knew zero Spanish and so the drive was conducted in silence. The journey was about an hour and thanks to my weird foible with transport, I fell asleep. Or at least I sat there uncomfortably doing “the nod” and trying not to fall asleep. Eventually, after weaving in and out of very slow traffic, past glittery piles of trash as far as the eye can see (I assume revellers from the Argentinian FIFA World Cup win?) we were In the city centre, and deposited at our hotel door [name currently redacted until we have left]. 

Now most of this bit I’ll generally skip over because I’m still rather frustrated, but essentially the owner met us, was very rude, let us leave our things and demanded we return at 2pm. I’ll come back to this. 



It’s 9am and we have five hours to kill, no shower or sleep. We find a nearby coffee shop for a bite to eat and some caffeine and somehow an hour passed. 



Once the exhaustion shakes had passed, we realised we weren’t too far from El Ateneo Grand Splendid, a gorgeous theatre turned book shop. We spent some time here perusing the Titles and taking photos before setting a path for La Recoleta Cemetery, holding the remains of Eva Peron and generally quite beautiful. On the way we stopped at Starbucks for a cold drink / I tried the cafe du leche frappachio and almost passed out from the sugar. Was tasty tho.

Arriving at the cemetery, we didn’t realise it was pay to enter, so we aborted for another day and wandered into a nearby mall. By now we still had a few hours to kill before 2pm, so from here we went to the nearest subway station to figure out public transport tickets. 

“You need to go four blocks down to the next station”, the ticket attendant told us thankfully in English. Turns out it was five, but we got there. This attendant however had no English, so we had a bit of fun using Google translate to talk to each other. Dan and I eventually just nodded and said thank you, not thinking we had nearly enough on the travel card, to find out later a subway journey costs about 40c and a bus journey about 25c. Wow. No wonder she didn’t want us to load it up more!

Shortly after we decided to try the subway for the first time even though we still had a lot of time to kill. The subway works great! There’s one every 3 or so minutes, and getting from one line to the other was easy enough. A blind busker jumped on at one stage and started playing Christmas carols on a harmonica, using his cane as a percussion instrument. We popped up to find a little market! Mostly food stuffs, bread and grains etc but some of the pre made food looked tasty. 

We wandered into the Teatro Colon to see what shows they had playing (didn’t find this out til later - The Nutcracker, sadly sold out) and continued to meander our way back to the accom. It was about 1.35, so we sat in a nearby park to wait til 2pm.

 

So here we are back at the hotel. After much faffing around we were finally shown to our room. Or so we thought. We opened the door to see a tiny room with two single beds. I turned to the attendant and said “where’s the pool?”. He laughed and said “That room is a lot more money.”

Dan and I stared at him.

“I know,” I said, “We paid it.”

I’m starting to shake by this stage, and the attendant looked confused. Dan whips out the receipt we had handy and the look of dawning horror on the attendants face was (in hindsight) priceless. 

He scuttled off to investigate leaving us in what I can only assume is the worst room in their hotel. Cracked peeling paint, the shower was laughable with a door that only opened about a hand width and used soap, rust and dust everywhere. And two single beds. 

After an age, he texted Dan to say that yes, there had been an administration error and that they would let us know what to do about it. 

We continued to wait an age, and we finally received another text. It had been booked for tonight by someone else, we can stay in our room and receive the difference back and move in tomorrow. I exploded. First night free and we don’t have to leave and we go to the room immediately. 

Dan went downstairs. The bitch who saw us in in the first place had replaced the scuttling attendant, and thankfully I wasn’t there otherwise I would have made things worse. They wouldn’t give us any discount, but they conceded that they would call us around 12pm when the room was cleaned and we could stay in this shithole room til then. I did not want to have to go out and come back for a 2pm check in again. So that’s something. 

I was very upset, as yesterday was the hottest day, and we were so sweaty and gross and had had no sleep. We attempted to squeeze ourselves into the shower in this room (one st a time of course, the shower was literally the size of me and then had a much needed nap. 

We decided to make the most of the evening, and I wanted to try some local fare. Parrilla means barbecue, or steakhouse, and while there were many to choose from I had read and researched one called Javi’s Parrilla. It wasn’t the most convenient but reading the reviews of others, this one continued to stand out. 

It meant catching a bus, and we had a few to choose from. We joined a line and ambled onto a bus, and told the driver where we wanted to go. It wasn’t clear where Dan had to put the card for it to register, and the driver and people behind got a bit antsy. They could have shown us. In the end we were on and away.

The bus did not take the route it was supposed to. We discovered later there was a big protest happening on the main bus route (must remember to look this up) and the whole section was closed. We were just confused at the time but it ended up being a great little tiki tour. The drive was a jerky-stop-start affair, and I almost fell over a number of times  Hopping off, we still had a short walk ahead of us and as we walked down the cobbled street we passed many cool looking eateries and bars. 

We finally stopped at Javi’s and headed inside to be greeted by a lovely young man with very good English. He invited us to choose a table and as usual we dithered. Once we had looked at the menus I asked for his recommendations. 

“I am guessing you are here for steak,” he says. “I recommend the steak plate here, and it comes with a side of your choice.”

I balked a little at the price, as I thought it was supposed to be cheap, but then Dan reminded me that my 1:1 price change was more than the actual price. In the end, we chose the steak plate consisting of strip steak, rib-eye and sirloin, with roasted vegetables and a bottle of 2021 Cruz Alta Malbec. The wine list was a page of Malbecs, and then a handful of whites! The wine ranged from about $16 through to $80odd, so we chose one four up from the bottom at about $20. Some bread rolls with two little pottles containing tomato and onion salsa in one and a garlicky pesto and my word, worth the pain. I rarely eat onion and garlic but figured I’d suffer for this! 

The whole meal was fantastic. An absolute joy. I don’t often eat steak because it’s expensive and I usually get fairly average cuts of meat. To be able to experience the difference between different cuts was eye opening! The strip steak was delicious. Which was outdone by the juicy rib eye. Which in turn was overshadowed by the sirloin that simply melted in the mouth. 

As we were paying up, the young gentleman asked if we would like a complimentary limoncello and I think I said yes please before he’d finished asking. We haven’t really had limoncello since we overdosed on it in Amalfi in Italy in 2018. Just the right note to end the meal! In the end it came to 9560 pesos, which in Aussie $$ is roughly $70. The exchange rate through our Revolut card is considerably lower than what is displayed on xe.com. We aren’t sure quite why the discrepancy but it works in our favour. 

Having put a positive spin on the day we caught the bus back to our crappy room on a bit of a red wine and limoncello buzz, complete with meat sweats and ready for the food coma.

Day 4: Transit Houston - Panama - Buenos Aires

 2.30pm Houston time. Today is a transit day. We got up reasonably early as we wanted to leave plenty of time to navigate Houston airport - after the palava of customs coming into the country. 

We had found a tasty looking breakfast place a few minutes walk away while researching the night before, so in the morning Dan ordered and while I was in the shower he went to collect. He returned with a big bag of French toast, poached eggs, bacon, strawberries and a swather of jams, butters and syrups. We ordered one serving and it was easily Enough for the two of us.

Packing went smoothly, and we worked out we could go to level four and call the lift up to five, so Dan did this while I waited with bag city. Something was wrong with the parking ticket return so we had to call an attendant to let us out - he didn’t bother looking or checking whether we needed to pay or not (which was not). Returning to the car hire place was relatively strsightforward, Altho we had to do an around the block to get to a petrol station to top up. Again, once in it all went smoothly, and we waited for the shuttle to the airport. 

The funniest thing of this trip was the automated voice saying the journey would take approximately 5 minutes. More than twenty minutes later, and navigating ridiculous traffic jams, the bus managed to nose it’s way towards the drop off zones. Thankfully we had left so much extra time that this just put us on schedule. 

The bag drop didn’t accept our passports, so the machine turned from green to red and a lady came over to help. Another few people lined up behind us and she shouted at each of them to *try* using the machine and if it doesn’t work, it’ll turn red and an attendant will be over. She was getting quite frustrated with the other people but was lovely to us. We thought due to the sheer amount of traffic that it would be quite busy - it was pretty quiet inside and the lady said that “you won’t be able To see the white on the floor come 2:30pm”. Thank god we were going to miss that rush. 

Customs and bag check also went relatively smoothly. Many people had doggies, including the tiniest little puppy going through security. Ahead of my a lady went through the body scanner. She was pulled aside, I was waved through - and then forgotten about I was standing there with my arms up like…er, I think it’s done? I lowered my arms and looked around and was waved through - but my exit out of the body scanner was blocked. I sort of sidled past a security guard but no one paid me any attention. 

The lady ahead of me had scanned with metal on her being, and they sent her through again. I saw on her scan that she had metal showing up in her crotch region, and she started saying very loudly “Ain’t nobody gonna be touching my pussy!”. This was repeated many times, and I did witness her getting patted down eventually. The drama held up the line so Dan was quite a ways behind me, which gave me a chance to stand back and watch this unfold. Later on I saw her in the terminal, so she must have been let through. 

Aside from that minor delay, we were through! With two hours to spare. We meandered through the terminal to see where our gate was and found a reasonably sized food court. We inspected all the food options but ended up with good ol’ Wendy’s. We were rather impressed by the QR code scanning system - almost every table inside and outside of the restaurants had payment facilities where you could order and the nearest food joint would deliver it to your table. Clever!

We remembered we wanted to break up some US notes as apparently this currency is accepted, or at least the easiest to exchange, in Argentina. We had settled on a Twix when I spied something in the next aisle. 

Houston Texas Space Center Christmas ornaments. It had escaped me that Christmas ornaments were one of my (many) collectibles, so I was very excited to see these. There had been some at the Space Center itself but they weren’t very festive. This one is a delightful astronaut and shuttle in a wreath. Perfection. I even happily gave up the Twix in favour of the ornament, I was that happy!

Now we are sitting on the plane ready for takeoff. I’ll update once we arrive in Panama!

10:56pm Panama time. On board our plane, going to be a sleepless one despite our best efforts to take valerian and be prepared. 

The journey from Houston to Panama got quite wildly turbulent, then the pilot stated that it would last for about another 25 minutes. I wasn’t thrilled. Other than that the journey was uneventful. The guy next to me was an armrest hog and a man spreader, which was pretty unpleasant for four hours. Once on the ground, the guy on the end took his sweet time getting up and out - we had another plane to catch and I was a bit edgy. 

Racing through the airport it seems we had to walk the entire length of it to get to our next gate. We didn’t have to redo security thank god, but we weren’t 100% sure if our bags would go through. We were about 99%. 

We also weren’t sure about getting fed in board so we decided to find some food. After passing many signs for restaurants and none in sight, but many under construction, we concluded this was the new airport and that there was practically nothing. We raced back to a bar we saw had some sandwiches then proceeded to line up for about 25 minutes. I don’t know why it took so very long. There was one poor girl at the till and I think she was overwhelmed. When the Irish guys ordered ahead of us she had to keep calling another waiter over to translate. 

Once we finally paid we raced back to our seats, and things were a little behind schedule so we tucked into the food. Eventually they started calling boarding - this time we were in group cinqo, 5, so boarded last. It was all a bit of a weird scramble and I had forgotten how confusing it is being in a country where one doesn’t know the language!

On board Dan and I took our seats next to an older gentleman. I was in the aisle, and before takeoff there was a bit of a commotion going on in the row next to me. From what I gather a family of at least 1 deaf parent (father) was sitting with two children (one toddler, one teen- hearinf) and the mother (have confirmed, not hearing) was down the other end of the plane with a newborn baby. I think they were trying to find out if a seat in the row in front was free so one of them could move. In the end, mother with baby is next to me, with a screaming toddler and a teenager. The teenager (she’s maybe 11 or 11?) is translating the sign language from the parents to the air hosts. There’s a lot of noise from the baby and the toddler. Think this will be a sleepless one (writing in real-time!). 

As most of you already know, I don’t tend to like children at the best of times. But watching the family navigate in a hearing world has been eye opening. The girl has been trying to do some things to occupy herself but is always tapped/waved at by the parents to translate. It must be a lot. 

2:07am Panama time. Not sleeping - I fell asleep briefly on the Houston-Panama flight so apparently that’s all the sleep gods will allow. I’ve been playing with my phone for a while now, and I looked up before to find the teenager has moved seats and is next to me, staring at me. 

“You speak English?” She asked me. 

“I do yes!”  

“I speak Spanish.”

She then said she was from Costa Rica to which I replied that I am Australian. Her eyes widened in wonder! I pointed to Dan and said “He’s from New Zealand.” The girl looked completely confused so I grabbed my phone and pulled up Google maps, pointing out Australia and New Zealand. I put my hands under my head in a sleep motion and asked “can’t sleep?” She shook her head no, and I said “me too.” I tried to make a bit more conversation but we hit a stumbling block. 

She then said her mum is Argentinian (which explains why they are going to Argentina!). I tried to ask if she had been before but I was being too complicated. She then pointed to Dan and to her wedding finger, yes, we are married! It was a cute interaction, I might have to download a translate app that works offline so that more conversations can be had in future. 

Ok, back to trying to sleep. Or playing more Sudoku. 

3:50am Panama time. A little while ago Dan got up to use the baŋos and I thought I’d try to communicate with the elderly gentlemen in the window. He hadn’t stood up the whole flight and I was a little worried. I waved to him and shuffled over, and said “banos?” And pointed to the back. He unclipped his belt and repeated “banos?” But looked very confused. I tried again to motion “do you need me to get out of the way so you can stand up for a bit?” But he continued to look confused and I looked confused, so I laughed and said sorry and returned to my seat. 

It’s light out there now, there was a beautiful salmon peachy orange sunrise. We will be landing shortly, thank god, and we ordered a transfer because I knew I’d be too stuffed to figure out public transport with our bags. 

Check back in soon. 

Day 3: Houston, Texas: Space Center Houston and much Mexican food

Jet lag got the better of me and I barely slept. We had planned to get up early and head back to the Space Center to do the tram tours we missed out on yesterday. 

I slept poorly, so it was an effort to drank myself to breakfast. We chose a place around the corner that does breakfast tacos and it was a freezing and foggy morning. Taco a Go Go Midtown was fabulous and the bright and bustling lady at the counter asked me too many difficult questions having just rolled out of bed, but in the end we managed to order one serve of breakfast tacos and one egg plate, which we ended up turning into tacos too! I made a delightful fool of myself trying to get a cup of water, not realising after many instructions that on the sofa machine there’s a tiny little silver flap that serves water through the lemonade dispenser. Of course. But she was lovely and just laughed! When the food arrived we thought it would be too much, but ended up just about right. 

A bit about our accom. Fairly dodgy looking from the outside, there must be hundreds of apartments in this complex, all at jaunty angles and with right orange doors. The lifts on our level do not open from level five, so we walk down the stairs. They do go up tho, so that’s a relief. 

Our apartment has a small lounge off to the left of the front door (where we have dumped our luggage) and a big open plan full kitchen and living room with couch and TV. It constantly smells like weed. Like there’s weed stashed somewhere. I’ve been seeing if I can find it. It’s mostly in one corner but obvious when you first enter the apartment. 

Off to the left is the bedroom, with a very low double bed that is comfy but rolls inwards. From the bedroom are two more rooms - a spacious bathroom and a laundry with washing machine and dryer. Out the window we have a direct view to the pool which is lovely, but lit at night so the room is washed with light. 

Today the drive was a bit easier having done it before, with me navigating and trying to join a tram tour. To join the virtual queue, one has to book through the app. However the queue either didn’t open until 10 to 10, or it was proximity based, but in any effect I managed to get through at 9.51am. We were around the corner, so skidded inside at 9.55. 

Upon the bag check, the security guard spotted my selfie stick and told me it had to go back in the car. I was incredulous, as I witnessed the following exchange the night before:

Security guard “any weapons?”

Woman fiddles with bag. “I have a knife.”

Security guard “no problem go on through.”

Anywho, Dan dashed back to the car to deposit the selfie stick, and then we raced to the counter inside. We talked to a lovely British lady who found our name on the guest return list and let us inside, with 3 minutes to spare before the tour started. We joined the back of the queue and selected the seats that were the dryest, the “tram” being an open top buggy and trailer system. 

Normally three tours, it turns out they had smushed together the red and the blue tours. We trundled across the road past some giant horned cows and into the NASA complex, being waved at by important researchers like we were five years old kids. One of the things that struck me was that most of the buildings did not have windows. At all. That would drive me insane! And then we saw some deer, which really confused me but we decided they were real because they were missing when we returned. 

The first stop was the astronaut training Center. We were allowed to walk along a huge gangway at the edge of the enormous hangar, and I remarked to Dan “mustn’t be anything confidential in here!”  The space was a massive jumble and assortment of space bits and shuttles and shuttle bits and robots and robot bits. I’ve asked Dan what some of the things we saw were:

* ISS mock up for training

* Soyuz capsule trainer

* Boeing star liner trainer

* Orion capsule trainer

* Alpaca Luna lander trainer

Amongst many other things. I was fascinated by the robots and hanging suits, and we watched as someone used VR to move a lifeless dangling robot. 

Back on the tram, we trundled back over to Rocket Park, where there were three rockets on display. This is normally the Red tour, but our tram deposited us here and said “take your time, just pop out here and catch the next available shuttle when you’re ready”. 

Outside were the yellow Little Joe 2 and Mercury Redstone. The people ahead of us were very slow sowhile we waited i took some fun photos of the rockets reflected in a puddle. 

Then we went inside the enormous hanger to view Saturn V Rocket. 

It big. 

I believe tours are normally raced through here but we had the place largely to ourselves for a while and took our time taking photos, posing with the 5 giant rocket engines. I offered to take a video for Dan walking the length of the Rocket. Didn’t realise it would take me a minute and a half, which is long in filming terms! 

All the while we tried to join the queue for the white tour to mission control. Both of us got through but we’re bumped out. Once back at the main centre we asked at the info desk and our 12:30 had been accepted. To avoid confusion they gave us a physical card so we didn’t have to rely on the app when showing proof of registration. 

We had a brief wander, watched most of a show before deciding to head early to the white tour. We were requested to queue in a single file, and a family next to us looked expectedly at the queue, I assume they were expecting it to part for them like the Red Sea and for them to join. Eventually they mumbled that they had better go to the back of the line  I shook my head. 

This time when we trundled back over to NASA, I saw an egret it flight which was quite cool. They look like a skinny pelican. This tour was to the Apollo Mission Control Room. The room had been restored to look exactly as it did that fateful day on 20 July 1969. On arrival, we had to hand over our backpacks and were given strict instructions not to touch anything as the room we were going to be seated was the original VIP seats for families of space crew to watch the proceedings. 

They had recreated what was going on on all of the screens and monitors and projectors I. Those few minutes before the eagle landed. It was a little kitch but cool to be there all the same. We were allowed to single file stand and take a few photos being single file filing out. 

By now I was totally spaced out. It was time to farewell the Space Center - we had never intended to spend so much time there but we wrung every ounce out of it possible. On my list was to visit a restaurant called Ninfa’s Original on Navigation, so we plotted a course there. 

It was pretty fiddly and difficult to navigate our way to Ninfa’s on the unfamiliar roads, and Dan remarked that the poor quality of the roads is reminiscent of something rom Eastern Europe and not first world America. As we walked in, we spotted a big fat squirrel and probably confused passersby when we stopped to photo it. 

Ninfa’s was quite huge and once inside we were shown to a table on the far right. Service was almost immediate - I was sanitising my hands and didn’t know what I wanted to drink. Our waiter said “margaritas?” He then asked about twenty other questions about the margaritas, to which I. Ended up responding “however you recommend!”  We received a very strong but very smooth margarita on the rocks, and it was delicious. We were also given complimentary nachos with delicious salsa and verde dipping sauces. 

I also a confirmed that the speciality was the beef fajitas. He pointed out another plate I had t spotted on the menu - beef fajitas, enchilada and a taco. Perfect - a little bit of everything! Dan and I decided to get one each, but we chose different beans. 

Very soon the meal arrived, and it was enormous. We both managed to get through the majority, and it being about 3pm and many hours since we had breakfast - I had been quite hungry. In the background played  Christmas in Spanish which was a wonderful touch!

I was surprised when we had only been there about half an hour and we were all done. I embarrassed myself trying to find the bathroom, not knowing banos means bathroom. Good thing I found out now and not when I landed in Buenos Aires!

From here, we navigated our way to POST Houston. It gave me sort of Plant 4 at Bowden vibes, but as we had already eaten we made our way straight to the spiral staircase to check out the roof top view. With the sun setting, the view from the winter garden on the roof was quite lovely. We found a community vegetable garden up there; cauliflower, spinach, and much more. 

By now we were spent so made our way back to the apartment. Combination jetlag, general tiredness and food coma saw me pass out for a little while, before we made our way back to The Brass Tap for a cheeky pint. I was interested in the Fairweathers Smell the Van gin inspired cider but was recommended against it (complete with taster and yes- wasn’t for me). Instead we had the Austin Eastciders Pineapple cider, 8th wonder high grade AIPA and finished with the festive Saint Arnold Pumpkinator. 

Now it’s time to pack. Because Houston airport was such a ballache last time we are going to give ourselves PLENTY of time, so it’s a surprisingly early start in the morning. Wednesday is almost entirely written off, and next adventure will be Thursday in Buenos Aires!!

Day 2: Houston, Texas - Space Center Houston

Checking the alarm: it was 7am. Let’s sleep in for a just a little longer - our Houston Space Center ticket is for midday. 

Checking the alarm: 10:50am. Oh dear, we have accidentally slept in far later than intended. Damn you, jet lag!

We quickly pulled ourselves together and hit the road. Dan did exceptionally well navigating the spaghetti junctions with some help from myself and Mrs Google Voice. 

The weather in Houston today was dismal. I was glad we were doing mostly indoor activities, because it was a balmy 10C feels like 6C kind of day. Unfortunately, due to the weather being so bad, the Space Center tram was initially cancelled - and then booked up with previous customers. I had overheard another teller mention multi day entry and asked our teller, who begrudgingly put our name down on the list. We will tram tomorrow  instead!

As we had rolled out of bed into the car, our first stop was food in the cafeteria. We had to order via these weird kiosk machines, and then wait at the appropriate  food stall for it to be completed. We shared a pork roll with potato salad and a freshly made custom salad.  it was tasty and what we needed!

Inside the museum we saw, unsurprisingly, many spacey things. Dan was particularly excited and was filling me in on many facts that I didn’t know. For instance I learnt that there had been more than one moon visit. How did I not know this? What an idiot. 

One of the attractions was a screening room where we watched a video about astronauts talking about the beauty of earth from space and how much they appreciate - and fear for - Earth’s fragility. It made me tear up. I’d love the see Earth from space but a) I’m afraid of heights and fast moving things and b) I’m not rich. Or particularly smart. 

Other attractions included a complete space shuttle replica perched atop the real jumbo jet 747 that carried the shuttles between launch sites, as well as the real Gemini 5, Mercury 9, Apollo 17 and a replica Skylab, amongst many other things.

I found the moon rocks fascinating (and shiny) - I knew from my time in the engineering dept at the Uni that mining asteroids and the moon would be particularly profitable due to the amount of minerals able to be gathered. Dan and I even held hands on the moon! …rock. 

After a couple of hours here it was closing time, so we made our way across the road to a Chick-fil-A (pronounced chick-fi-lay for other philistines like me) to continue my obsession with American fast food chains. We both ordered the “entree” size which was larger than any normal meal at home. :/

By now it was 6pm and guess where we were heading? Back to the Space Center! We had bought combo tickets that included the Galaxy Lights exhibition. I was a little worried it would be kitch, but Dan and I had a blast! Outside they had decked out the jumbo and shuttle and a few other areas with space-specific lights, including a solar system, and inside we attended a presentation about light (which we expected to be a movie, but was presented by a zealous space Center employee). we also lay on the museum floor to watch balls drop. Repeatedly. To music. It was more entertaining than pubescent (btw this sentence has provided to you by Dan). I was going to say “Undulated light spheres moving in sequence to music” but Dans version sounds better. 

By now it was time to head back, so we battled the spaghetti junctions again and arrived in one piece at our apartment. Tonight we tried the other beer hall next door to last nights beer bar. This one was called Holman Draft Hall and it had a hundred craft taps. We had no idea we had organised our accomodation near so much amazing beer! We had a couple of tasty brews before calling it a night. We’ll be back at the Space Center tomorrow - stay tuned for the next instalment!

Day 1: Transit. Adelaide to Melbourne to Auckland and Houston

 7:45am Adelaide time. We rose early, eager to check our packing and make sure we hadn’t forgotten anything. A slight repack was in order, before piling into Bill’s campervan. Bill will be looking after our house - and newly officially adopted Chairman Meow - while we are away. He kindly offered to drive us to the airport at ungodly o’clock, and we were very grateful!

The airport was quite hushed - it was not busy yet at 6am on Sunday. Checkin went reasonably smoothly, except for being told about a form that needed to be completed before we can enter USA. 

“Why does America have to be so complicated?” I asked. Just because, and that’s the way it is, came the answer from Dan.

While we were waiting, a Qantas staff member came up to our desk and asked our checkin assistant what time we were leaving. She then handed us complementary Qantas lounge passes with an earnest “And Merry Christmas!”

We had hoped to talk our way into the lounge, but now we had legitimate access! It was a lovely way to start the morning. Once in the lounge, we endeavoured to print the form we hadn’t known about. Technical issues abounded, so I returned to the front desk where the lady kindly printed what we needed. And gave us Tim Tams in the process! 



Our transit today will be painful, there’s no other way around it. Adelaide - Melbourne - Auckland - Houston. Oof.

7.50pm Auckland time. We talked our way into the Amex lounge and got ourselves our first bubbly wine of the day! For free! This lounge life is for me. 😅 

Our flight from Melbourne to Auckland ended up being quite delayed, which of course has a knock on effect for following flights. Asking at the desk, they didn’t seem concerned so we said c’est la vie! We will deal with the next flight when it comes. Other than the delay, Melbourne to Auckland was uneventful. Dan was excited because we were on a 777, the Air NZ all black All Blacks plane. The food was surprisingly delicious! (I normally don’t include these details but fuck it, I’ll be detail heavy this time! I had roast chicken with a rose sauce and polenta and Dan had a Angus bolognaise and cheese pie, and dessert was an amazing dark chocolate brownie with berry coulis with crunchy shortbread on top). 

We both started watching a movie (the new one with Tilda Swinton, the name escapes me) but halfway through there was a decent amount of nudity and I felt a bit odd watching that on the plane!

Our plane made up time in the air but we ended up being told to slow down to avoid congestion. Upon landing and speed walking to the closest screen, our plane was scheduled to leave in 30 minutes and was already boarding. We raced to the security (again!) and met some fellow passengers there - everyone was delayed, and after another screening we power walked again around to gate 16. Once through the US rigmarole, we rounded to our gate to find…. It full. No one had boarded. 

We have now sat here for half an hour - apparently catering were slow - not annoyed but glad we made it! This is the final leg and then we will be in Houston. A little delay is actually quite good for us - we will be able to check in immediately once we get to our accommodation. 

See y’all on the other side!

4:56pm Houston time. Still Sunday 18 December. We were excited to try out the sky couch, and the service again on the air New Zealand flight was second to none. We watched the Nicholas Cage movie The unbearable weight of massive talent which was completely bonkers. We were laughing out loud! Then it came time to convert to the sky couch. In theory, it’s a great idea. But for a pudgy short woman and a very tall man, it didn’t quite work. We weren’t sure where to put ourselves and poor Dans legs were always butting up against a chair or an arm rest or sticking out into the corridor. 



We kind of took it in turns to lay downish, and generally gave up with about 6 hours to go. Sky couch would be amazing for one person (but then you’d have to calculate the price - perhaps a higher grade class would offer the same?) or two small people, or people with small humans.

We were surrounded by poor souls who were transiting through America, each one saying “this wasn’t the original route”. We learnt a valuable lesson - NEVER TRANSIT THROUGH AMERICA TO ANOTHER COUNTRY. Customs is a joke with absolutely no priority for connecting flights, and I’d hazard a guess most of the people on our flight missed their connections. We were somewhere near the end of the customs queue, and were shunted through to the American citizen queue to try to hurry things up. 

In total, we were in the queue for an hour and a half of sheer bamboozlement. As we approached our customs officer, I overheard him say to another Aussie:
“Wait what? It’s summer in Australia? While we have winter here?” Followed by a look of pure unadulterated mind-blown shock. 

Our next challenge was getting to the car rental place. After many confusing turns and twists we ended up at a sign for crew, parking and car rentals. Success! Once on the bus, it was about a half hour journey to the car rental centre. It was basically in its own city it was so far away. Dan and I have taken a note that when we return the car in a few days, to factor in MANY HOURS just in case!

As I write this I’m waiting for Dan to do the paperwork for picking up our chariot for the next few days. Once we get to the accom, I cannot wait for a shower and then we’ll find some food. 

8.11pm Houston time. At a bar called the Brass Tap which is directly underneath our apartment. We are starving and dizzy. It’s been an eventful evening since leaving the airport! Not least getting a dramatic flat tyre on a freeway, Dan the Man changing it to the space saver on the busy freeway and then having to back to the car hire place to get a new car, only half an hour later. 

Dan is doing all the driving, and for good reason. The left hand drive is confusing, and the freeways are just too much for my tiny brain. With google’s help (and a small input from me) we made it to our accommodation. At first we thought we may have made a mistake, but once inside it’s a fabulous space for us to relax and make our base for the next few days! 

Beer for posterity: Odell Sippin’ Pretty sour, Firestone Walker Cali Squeeze, B52 Wheez the Juice

We worked out that Sunday 18 December has been about 34 hours long for us. Time for bed. 
Let’s see what tomorrow will bring :)