Well, hey there!

Long time, no write!

It’s been a few months since my trip to Jordan and Egypt earlier this year but, here we are, back again.

As I write this blog, I’m currently sitting in my dorm room in Buenos Aires on Wednesday morning.

But let’s rewind this back a couple of days because this whole adventure of what I’m calling “Day 1” actually began 2 days ago…

An early start

For those of you who know me, I’m not an early riser.   In fact, I’m usually going to be at the wee hours of the morning.

Yeah, mornings are just not my thing.

Anyway, after working my last shift for almost a month on Sunday night, I went home, got everything ready for my trip, and went to bed at the (relatively) early hour of 1am.

Yes, for me that’s “early”.

Even still, it was only going to be a 5 1/2 hour sleep cause I was back up at 6:30.

I got ready, doled some love onto my cats, and walked out the door.

After a couple hours on Translink, I had arrived at YVR at just before 10am.

Again, arriving 2 hours before my flight was totally unnecessary as I was in and out of security in less than 10 minutes.

And, for once, my gate was one of the first gates after security.

Off to a good start!

Only three flights to go…

Vancouver to Toronto

My first flight, a 4 1/2 hour one, would take me across country to Toronto.

I boarded the flight, got my aisle seat in the middle row of 4.   It was just me and another guy in the other aisle seat with 2 empty seats between us.

As the crew announced that they had done boarding, I smiled at my neighbor as we both acknowledged our good fortune.

Of course, just before me started to leave, I overheard a guy in the seat right in front of me talking to the flight attendant about possibly moving seats.

And, wouldn’t you know it, he literally moved to the seat right beside me.

Like, what the actual f*ck?

Guess he had paperwork to do and now he could sprawl his notebook across the trays of both middle seats.

And so began a 4 1/2 hour fight for that precious arm rest between us.

Anyway, I killed time first playing Yahtzee before switching up to start a binge watch of Tulsa King.

Damn, Sylvester Stallone is the man!   Great show.

Despite this being cross country flight, no food was included with the ticket.   Instead you could purchase a meal from their bistro menu.

Oh, and those cheap headphones that are normally handed out at the beginning of flights?   Yeah, those cost $3.50 now.

Sigh, some of the low cost airline ideas are apparently starting to rub off on Air Canada.

Seriously, just raise the price of the ticket $20 and give me a meal and some headphones.

Anyway, I was prepared for the lack of food and I munched on some pepperoni sticks I had packed along with a turkey sandwich.

No more money from me today Air Canada!

Before I knew it, we were touching down in Toronto.

Toronto to Sao Paulo

After a layover of just over an hour, I was soon boarding my second flight of the day.

The second flight was another Air Canada flight taking me to Sao Paulo in Brazil.

Over the weekend I decided to switch up my seat from my usual aisle seat to a window seat for this flight.

I was going to give up the comfort of being able to stretch out my legs for a wall to lean on in the hopes of getting some sleep on this flight.

Did I sleep?   Well, not really.   Maybe and hour, maybe two.

Was it worth it to switch from the aisle to the window seat?

Ah, no, definately not.

Not being able to stretch out my legs and feeling trapped definitely didn’t feel good.   Plus, after the flight, my tailbone was killing me.

And then there was the whole feeling of guilt each time I had to get past my neighbours to use the bathroom.

Yeah, no, it’ll be aisle seats from now on for this guy.

Unlike the previous flight, we were served a couple of meals on this flight.

Since I had preordered gluten free meals, I received mine first and had actually finished them before the rest of my row even received theirs.

To top it off, just after their meals arrived, there was some pretty huge turbulence and they couldn’t even eat theirs straight away.

Holy crap, this flight had some patches of that heavy turbulence.   Let’s just say it was enough to let the “is this it?” thought creep into my head.

But, despite it all, we eventually landed in Sao Paulo 10 hours later.

A 8 hour layover

We landed in Sao Paulo at 9am but there’d be no racing to the gate for my connecting flight.

Nope, my final flight to Buenos Aires wasn’t for another eight hours.

This would be the longest layover I’ve ever had.

Originally I thought about heading into town to experience, albeit brief, part of Brazil but with a long commute into town and actually needing a visa, I opted to stay in the airport all day.

Nope, Brazil did not get crossed of my list of countries I’ve visited.   And, no, being in the airport all day doesn’t count.

Another time, another trip.

I followed the connecting flights signs and soon food myself in a security area between two terminals.

As I approached it, one of the people working there looked at a list on a piece of paper and called out “Todd Slater?”.

And, I was dumbstruck!   And spooked!   How the hell did she know my name?

I still don’t know how but I assume there weren’t alot of Caucasian males making this transfer despite it not being for another 8 hours.

She wasn’t even asking me for another particular reason, she was just pointing out that she guessed who I was.

After going through security, I found a bench with no armrests so I could sprawl myself over it and try to sleep as I had been up for almost 24 hours at this point.

It was here where I was thankful I decided to cram my little pillow into my backpack at the last minute this morning.

Being able to put my head on an actual pillow propped up against my backpack made all the difference and I’m happy to say that I actually got a full 3 hours sleep lying there in the airport.

I still had a bit of time to kill before my flight so I walked through the terminal looking at what my food choices were.

Sadly, the best choice ended up being TGI Fridays.

Yup, my only meal in Brazil would be at this Americanized restaurant chain.

Oh, the shame!

I ordered a ribsteak with fries and veggies and it hit the spot.   That was $43 well spent.

I was now semi-rested and fully nourished – ready to board flight number three.

Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires

After the 10 hour long haul flight and an 8 hour layover, this 3 hour flight would be a walk in the park.

The final leg of my journey would be on an Ethiopian Airlines flight which, to be honest, was not the airline I’d expect to making a Brazil to Argentina route.

Turns out that the flight I was boarding had just arrived from Ethiopia and, after a brief pitstop here, was now continuing onto Buenos Aires.

In fact, there were only 14 of us who boarded the flight here.

I found my aisle seat and this time there was nobody at all in my row.

And, despite it being only a 3 hour flight, they fed us too!

Not just a pack of crackers either but a full hot meal.

Let’s just say that Ethiopian Airlines but Air Canada to shame today.

Oh, yeah, and there were free headphones too.

Anyway, if i had realized that I was getting fed on this flight I wouldn’t have stopped at TGI Fridays earlier.

I heard the flight attendant offering fish or chicken to the row in front of me and figured I’d take one and figure out how to make it gluten free.

Well, turns out that they the special meal request I made when I booked this journey on Air Canada was also passed down to Ethiopian Airlines as she handed me my own meal.

No fish or chicken for this boy.   Nope, instead I was given a meal of steak with rice and veggies.

This might actually be one of the rare times when the gluten free meal was actually better than what the normal offerings were.

Of course, since I had just eaten a steak literally less than 2 hours ago, I wasn’t hungry but I wasn’t going to let this good food go to waste.

So, I packed up the meal, along with the fruit cup, salad, bread, and granola bar into my daypack to eat later at the hostel.

At 8pm, after 33 hours in transit, I had finally landed in my final destination.

Hola Buenos Aires!

After disembarking my flight, the first things I saw as I entered the airport here in Buenos Aires were, I kid you not, Burger King, Starbucks and Outback Steakhouse.

Oh my!

Anyway, there was no line at all at customs and from the time I got off the plane to the time I was exiting the airport, only 15 minutes had passed.

I easily food the Tienda Leon shuttle bus booth and paid my $14 to get me into town.

The ride only took 45 minutes but the one and only stop in the city center was about 15 minutes walking time from my hostel.

Now, normally 15 minute walks are nothing, but lugging a 25 pound backpack after being in transit for 30+ hours can be a bit exhausting.

At just after 10pm I had finally arrived at my new home for the next week.

I set my stuff up, took a shower, and ate my Ethiopian Airlines steak meal before turning in for the night.

And, that, was day one!

Over the next week I’ll be exploring different parts of Buenos Aires and going on a day trip to Colonia del Sacramento over in the nearby neighboring country of Uruguay before finally embarking on the Antarctica portion of the trip next week.

Time to go live the dream…