Good air

The alarm sounded at 7. At 8. I couldn’t quite figure out the time difference or where I’d stored the alarm clock.

Vaguely, I realized that it must have sounded in the hold of the airplane, ringing useless amidst the rolling bags and duffels, people’s clothes and people’s lives stuffed into packages of 50 pounds or less. In my own bag, it found company in the jars of sugarfree peanut butter and the Mike and Ike’s, the clothes and the camping equipment, more than a dozen DVDs.

All of this ran through my head mixed in a confused puddle of realization and memory as I looked for my clock at 7. At 8.

“Sorry,” I whispered into the dark as the shape next to me mumbled incoherently.

I found the clock in the bottom of a cosmetic bag dotted with bunnies and eggs that matched pajamas long since relegated to the trash. I shut off the noise and found my cell phone to turn off that alarm, too, because I knew it would sound soon and I was tired.

Later, I would awaken to find someone lowering the shade in my room. It may have been the cleaning lady, but in my sleep-addled mind I couldn’t quite figure out who or gather the courage to care. I slept more.

After a red-eye flight with too little sleep and too many edited movies, I walked out into an Argentine autumn morning. A friend and I collected our bags and met up with the driver holding a sign with my name who took us into the city to meet up with friends, with my brother who lived in Buenos Aires.

The day slipped quickly past, in a whirl of coworkers and friends, of food and Mendoza wine. We napped a little in the afternoon but it wasn’t enough. Not enough to make up for a red-eye, for crossing from spring into fall while movies played and travelers slept.

We were still tired on Friday afternoon.

“I could use a nap,” my brother said as he stood in the street, arm raised to hail a cab.

“It’s been a rough day,” I laughed.

“I know. We got up around noon, went to lunch, spent two and a half hours at a spa and went shopping.”

“It’s draining.” And everyone agreed.

“Now we’re going back to the house to shower and dress for drinks with friends, for dinner.”

“I’m sure we’ll all get online in the meantime.”

“It’s a rough life.”

In the cab, we passed through a charming little neighborhood that he had never seen, even though it lay directly between his apartment and his friends’. He said the whole city was like that, charming little neighborhoods that he had not yet seen, not in his four months as a resident. A day earlier, in his office, we’d stared at a map with the world turned topsy, with north to the right, to the east, and marveled at the size of the city.

In a few days, we’d go home, not having seen a thing, seeing enough to know I would want to come back. In the meantime, I had dinner with friends, wine, walking and talking and laughing, too little sleep and silent alarms.

Tag: Travel Friends Argentina