By Paul
Clare may take umbrage at my having bogarted the first post on this, our new blog, but I may be able to get by on a technicality: technically, this is a pre-schlep post, as the schlep proper hasn’t yet begun. I lost my ATM card for the nth time on August 19 while visiting the end of the world (Ushuaia) with my sister Laura, and we can’t leave Buenos Aires until Wells Fargo sends a replacement card to my parents’ house and my loving mom sends said replacement to Buenos Aires. We did move out of our apartment today though, and say “go to hell and die” to our psychotic landlord for the last time, so in some sense it does feel like we’re already on the road but just haven’t gone anywhere.
Clare’s friend Gena has graciously lent us her apartment in the pseudo-hip Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo, where we’ll stay until my card arrives. The trip will likely begin with a brief visit to my high school Spanish teacher Mr. Parker’s wife’s cousins’ home in Federal, Entre Ríos. We’re told they are the salt of the earth, and also that no one has ever heard of Federal. Then we hope to take the train to Posadas, on the border with Paraguay and in the direction of the great Iguazú Falls, which I haven’t seen but which Clare has confirmed are “pritty, pritty, pritty, pritty good”. But we don’t have tickets yet, because we’re not yet sure when we can leave. Again, the ATM card.
I, for one, can’t wait to start this great trip from Buenos Aires to Goleta, but for now I guess I’ll have to be content with schlepping in place.
