Landing in Buenos Aires left us, even seasoned to the rapid and unpredictable vicissitudes of travel as we were, a bit stunned. We sat on the curb out front of the airport for several minutes with the warm wind wrapping welcoming around us. We gathered ourselves and took in the departure from Europe, our home of some 6 months, and what had become our familiar ground. We took in the vast shift in the dynamic of where we had left, foggy, energetic, focused, draining London, and the vastly different and thus far totally undiscovered Buenos Aires. After a few quiet moments of shock and awe blending with fierce anticipation, we picked up our bags and instruments, so well known now as to feel almost weightless, and made our way into the vast city center. Still wrapped mostly in layers of clothing adequate for cool European spring we were soon overheated and sweating in sticky South American heat. We sailed smoothly into town, to a hostel called GIramondo, a brightly colored, light filled old mansion (BA, a city of such severe and rapid economic ups and downs, has plenty of converted mansions) that seemed perfect, but did not solve our now urgent need for food and drink. After wandering for a few minutes, we found ourselves in the grassy, sun drenched back patio of a little restaurant, drinking coca cola from glass bottles that dripped with condensation. Lunch could not possibly have been nicer or simpler. Two grilled chicken breasts on beds of fresh greens, all with a hint of balsamic vinegar, with freshly baked bread. Eating this, in the warmth and sunshine, in our new city, at the start of a whole new string of adventures, was almost too sweet and good to be true, and we beamed through the whole meal. 
After lunch we began what would he several days of endless wandering through what is really a vast city. Buenos Aires has 12 million people and has multiple central areas so it is totally unlike the small, clustered European cities we had gotten so used o navigating on foot. Luckily for us, our hostel is in Palermo, definitively the nicest neighborhood in the city, with quiet tree-filled streets and great restaurants and huge gorgeous green parks. We spent our afternoon exploring first the trendy. shop-filled Palermo Soho, and then the quieter, elegant Palermo Hollywood, as the north and south ends of the neighborhood have been nicknamed.
We made an obligatory and quote interesting stop at the Museo de Evita. Evita, merely a fascinating and endearing heroine back home, is literally treated as a saint in Argentina, and so to see this veritable shrine to her definitely said something about the people of the country where we would be spending several months. 
As the afternoon wore on, we found ourselves wandering through the divine, cool leafy spaces of the cities beautiful botanical gardens. Drained by travel, heat, and te excitement of the new city, we collapsed gratefully on the co green grass and lounged luxuriantly as evening fell. The gardens are like a perfectly manicured jungle, exquisite. 
In the evening we found a one of a kind restaurant in Palermo Hollywood, sheltered from the street by vast, sound muffling trees, and decorated in bright green and red. We drank Quilmes, Argentina's national beer. Though are palates are growing to be somewhat sophisticated having tasted ales and lagers from England to Austria, we enjoyed this Argentine specialty immensely.
After a pitstop at the hostel, we headed ambitiously far into the center of the city for a good cheap meal. After a good deal of walking it became clear we did not yet understand the scale of this city, and we decided to hop on the subway, which, it turned out, was incredibly cheap and efficient. We sped toward our destination but when we disembarked I made a mistake. I took out my IPhone to check the address of the restaurant and suddenly a hand wrapped around it's shining form to snatch it from my grasp. Instinctively my fingers flexed and gripped fiercely. The tug of war lasted only milliseconds and then the boy bolted away down the street ad disappeared, hands empty. Now we were shook up (not in kansas anymore (or California, or Europe)) and we struggled to find the restaurant in a hyperparanoid state of awareness. We actually spotted the boy again, and he and his buddy leered at us, but other than that it was all a series of shadows and noises and the endless rush of the big city that made us jumpy. We finally found the restaurant but somewhere in between the writing of our lonely planet guidebook and the present it had transformed from cheap good value family eatery into upscale bistro. We couldn't begin to splurge on meals just yet so, distraught and disoriented, we made our way laboriously back to Palermo, where we found our way into a big pizzeria (Argentina, with it's huge Italian population and culture, has amazing Italian food) where, glassy-eyed and motionless with fatigue, we ordered a vast pizza which we couldn't finish but brought back with us to the hostel. Back in Palermo we felt again safe and comfortable and relaxed, and we slept soundly that night, despite the heat and the rush of traffic only a few feet away outside.