“I am inspired!” (Friday 10 Oct– Day 15)

(Where am I now: in the beautiful suburb of San Isidro, on the 9th floor of a beautiful apartment owned by MatiasR.) (What is the time now: 08:40 am on Friday 10th Oct, What am I listening to: Strolling by Jose Padilla – chill out wake up)

Some posts are better written on the spot. That’s what I learned when keeping a diary (you know, the “old ones” with pen and paper). I am sitting at this beautifully decorated, in minimal white, living room, on the 9th floor of Matias’ wonderfully bright apartment… with a view to a green residential area, where no building around us exceeds 3 floors. It feels I am in a high-rise building near New York’s Central park: the reward of springtime, unmistakably the season we are in, is direct and all-present. Green leafy trees in different tones complete the view for as far as you can see. Funny enough this place is next to the river and so close to Tigre.

Matias is another big pleasant surprise in Buenos Aires and another proof that the world is an extremely small place. It also proves that people in this country are extremely friendly. I had never met him before but he’s an Erasmus buddy of ApostolosT, a Greek P&G colleague and good friend that is now living in Geneva. They had spent part of an Erasmus program together in Cordoba (“my” Cordoba, Spain this time) a long time go – 2001 – and have never managed to see each other since then. “Look him up” Apostolos said, “he’s great fun and will show you around Buenos Aires”. We hit it off immediately. I am not sure it is the common style or the fact that we both work (I still do?) for multinationals but on top of his extremely warm and hospitable attitude, the guy is simply fun to be with. Knowing Apostolos, I expected this to be almost a certainty.

We drove around yesterday night, when he came to pick me up from my Couchsurfing friends (a post on them is coming up), and gave me a quick “Buenos Aires by night” tour. The city is immense, has so much to offer and even if we didn’t manage to have a drink at the first watering hole Matias chose, we ended up in Peru Beach – a great waterside club. Today is a working day for him, so we couldn’t really stay too late, however the initial reaction and impression is extremely positive and exciting. You can really imagine the potential of these clubs when full-blown summer is around, yesterday night was a great preview. Of course there’s great night life in Buenos Aires, of course there are clubs that play “my type of music” (my friends know exactly what I am talking about), of course there are gorgeous girls around!

Of course I am changing my travel plans to stay another weekend in BA and spend it with Matias and some of his friends. Ah, the beauty of a flexible ticket.
On a slightly more profound aspect of my thinking: It’s great to meet people from all walks of life. Styles and different attitudes towards life enrich your own: you don’t need to always follow them or incorporate them in your way of living but you do need to have an open mind and be willing to try it. In that sense, my experience so far (oh my, it’s already been 2 weeks into my trip!) has been extremely interesting and rewarding. Some of this might not be coming out directly through the pages of this blog but that’s the idea as well: I can’t share everything with you, some things still need to be only mine. You want more? Well you should have bloody joined me on this trip…! Then I would have told you absolutely everything that I am feeling and thinking. I know of a special friend that would say now: “No, some things you should keep to yourself.” I agree.

I stare out of the big sliding door into the suburb, beautiful weather and bright sky, waiting for Matias to get ready for work. I am thinking how lucky I am to be able to have this trip, meet so many interesting people and see different places.

And I haven’t even left the first country on my trip…. I am inspired!