Day One

The Adventure Begins! - 8th March 2010

Thank you for following our blog - this is our first entry as we sit in the hotel room in the fascinating city of Buenos Aires, Argentina!

We have had a very interesting Monday - we started in Sydney aftera good night out in Surry Hills with Jeff's mates. From Sydney we flew to Buenos Aires and after a 12 hour flight we arrived before we left in the bustling metropolis of Buenos Aires.

The culture shock was immediate with the traffic system an absolute marvel! The driving system here is more good luck and confidence than any rules. I have never seen so many cars move so fast in a confined area and ignore the concepts of traffic lanes and yet it all seems to work well.

We made it to the hotel and had a quick 2 hour nap before starting to explore this amazing city! It is so fascinating to be in a city that reminds me so much of Asia in it's look but could not be more different in it's attitude!

We have just made it back to the hotel and are waiting to go out for dinner - dinner here starts at 10pm. The Jet Lag is kicking in pretty hard but we are determined to make it to midnight and get a good nights sleep.

After a quick chat we have agreed the following for the blog:

a. Dad will not do any typing - we only have six weeks here! :)

b. We will summarise the top ten moments between blogs to ensure that the blog is fun to read

c. Plenty of incriminating photos will be uploaded to explain our stories when we can

So the top moments since we left Sydney this morning are:

1. David - after a few beers the night before - has a minor panic after waking up and not being able to find his wallet (not a big suprise there huh?). Finally the wallet was located as David had made sure he would not lose his wallet the night before by packing it in his bag! :)

2. Dad - having been upgraded to Business Class falls asleep for six hours. Jeff comes back to visit David 2 hours in saying he has never been woken by a smell before in his life - appartently Dad had some gas and woke Jeff with the smell. The funny thing was Dad came down to visit David a few hours later boasting that he had been "farting like a trooper" but no-one else knew.

3. Dad - sitting at a local cafe for lunch - after a long thoughtful pause announces "I think we are doing a good job of fitting into Italy". :)

4. After a long flight and a sleep we head out for lunch in a ravenous state. We order a pizza - believing due to mistaken language that iot was the four meats pizza to be greated by a 4 CHEESE PIZZA. The cheese was so thick and deep that the cheese layer was twice the depth of the pizza base. Let's just say the "Blue Cheese" was well aged! We are all suffering the aftereffects as we speak! Not a great into to the local cuisine! (Photo attached)

5. On our first visit to see Buenos Aires, Jeff (not used to traffic being on the other side of the road) not once but twice nearly gets run over by a truck then a car!

6. After being approached by every street vender in Buenos Aires, we came across the funniest one we have seen yet. The lady in question was well into her fifties, smoking a cigarette, dressed as either Red Riding Hood or Santa and advertising a local sex shop. We are not sure of the connection but Dad's attempts to take a subtle photo we hillarious.

7. Dad after 2 hours in town decides that we need to make an effort at using the local language and announces this to the the boys in a solemn statement. Upon being approached by the next street vendor Dad responds to his approaches with "G'Day, No Thanks Mate".

8. Jeff finally finds a new phone (3 hour search) and mentions to us that all messages he recieves costs him nearly a $1. Soon as he enters his SIM and charges the phone he recievs 20+ messages within 5 minutes - the language was not for the fasint hearted.

9. Upon our return from the recon mission of Buenos Aires we visit the local Supermarket. To our delight we find 1 litre bottles of Carona for the princely sum of $1.20 AUD. To those who know the Munro Boys we were a little impressed (Photos attached)

10.Dad after laughing at David for earlier losing his wallet - loses his passport. After a few choice words the missing document was located - in his pants pocket! :)

Well that is it for today's blog - we are off to Dinner soon and will update you soon on how our adventure unfolds.

Also check out Steve's blog @ http://shortwayup.omega-prime.co.uk

and,

Mauricio and Dani's blog @ http://ushuaia2cusco.blogspot.com/