To Buenos Aires

To me it remains something of a miracle. You move from one environment to the other, from one extreme to the other.

It all starts at Schiphol, where I had someone to see me off this time, an unexpected bit of company, which was nice. Then you go through customs, and you end up in this sterile environment of the airport. It's all clean, commercial, and the same as at any other airport. You have all these shops, people bored enough to go into them and spend money. I needed to get a battery for my alarm clock, thinking this would be the place to get it, but I was wrong. Not that one.

Then you move on to the gate. Everybody tries to get through first, not sure why. Then it always is a miracle how so many people get to fit into such a relatively small plane. I'm always worried I carry too much hand luggage, but I stop worrying when I see other people get onto the plane. I now have one of those camera rucksacks, and my handluggage weighed just two kilos less than my regular luggage... My excuse is that I'm carrying stuff for the ship and for Lex too.

The first flight was terrible. It was hot in the plane, and stuffy, and several times it all went black before my eyes. If I hadn't been strapped down I would have ended up on the floor. I was glad to arrive at Madrid and get a big bottle of water. That revived me a little.

From that moment on my biological clock went haywire. The flight to Buenos Aires left at about 1.45, then we had dinner, a nice vegetarian pasta. You initially fly over a huge sea of light, it seems like all of Spain is a built-up area.

I went to sleep pretty quickly, and slept through most of the night, fortunately. Then a hurried breakfast, yes, of course pork is vegetarian.... Flying over Uruguay makes you aware that this is a huge empty green space. Not such a sea of light or buildings.

Then you are in Buenos Aires, where it fortunately is not too hot today. Only about 22 C. A difference of over 20 C with the Netherlands, but it could have been a lot more. This is okay, especially when you get the odd breeze. The thing I noticed more than anything is the light. It is so bright, so different from the light in Amsterdam over the past few days, when it was continually dark and grey.

It was good to take a shower this morning, the first thing I did when I arrived here. Then I reorganised myself, grabbed a couple of hours of sleep during the hottest part of the day before heading into town.

I like this city because it feels so alive. So many elegant people, so much movement. On the other hand, wandering round here makes you wonder why Amsterdam thinks she has a problem with air pollution. It doesn't really smell that nice here. I went round to Corrientos and did some shopping at Florida. All sounds pretty exotic.