Buenos Aires and my amazing friends

Hola amigos. Sorry I haven't rapped at you in a while. (can you name the Onion columnist that I stole that intro from?) I'm in Buenos Aires. It's nice even when rainy in winter. Here are three quick pictures to share from the past few days:

Train tracks in Palermo (the neighborhood I'm staying in).

Sunset from the balcony of my apartment, facing northwest.

Night view from the balcony, facing northeast.

The beginning of my trip was quite a rollercoaster in dealing with sleep deprivation and strangers. Here are three illustrative examples that occurred between 11pm last Wednesday and 5am Friday morning.

1. While in Highland Park (in Los Angeles), I stupidly left my iphone on top of my car while at a gas station. I drove away and did not realize until at least 15 minutes later what I had done. I raced back to the gas station and my friend called my cell phone. Amazingly, a motorcyclist found my cell phone and was waiting nearby with it. He returned it with a smile and mention that he found it in the middle of the street. No request for a reward or anything. I have no password on my phone. The Good Samaritan could have taken it and I'd never be able to find him. He's a rockstar in my book.
2. After traveling overnight to Argentina and getting no sleep at all, I immediately hit up an ATM at the airport. I stupidly left my card in the machine (I blame the fact that I got only about 90 minutes of sleep on the plane). There was a line of people after me. Clearly the next person would need to remove my card to insert theirs. They could have tried to give me my card back. I hadn't gone far at all. However, I found out later that same day that someone took the card and proceeded to try and charge a lot of stuff on it.
3. Immediately after leaving my ATM card in the machine, I walked out of the airport looking for transportation for me and my friend. All I was thinking at this point was to get to the apartment so we could crash out for a bit. Stupidly, I let one of the people at the cab stand walk me and my friend to a cab nearby. We were gouged on the cab ride and then the cabbie took our money and switched one of our 100 Peso bills for a 10 Peso bill. He claimed we gave it to him and we hadn't paid close enough attention to get into a confrontation about it, so he ripped us off for another 90 Pesos. I was furious at myself for the entire rest of the day once I realized what happened. For future reference, this is a common scheme in Argentina. Be careful.

Now, all three of these were examples of me being careless. Even the schemes in the last example were clearly identified in the guidebook if I had simply been diligent enough to read up in advance. However, the first showed a great example of a stranger not taking advantage of my mistake and instead doing what most of us would consider to be right. The other strangers... well you can judge for yourself. It's unfortunate that I was so careless as to rely on the kindness of strangers so much (and to such a large degree) in such a short period of time. But I think of the man who returned my phone and I am grateful. The other strangers... fuck 'em. I won't let their disrespect for fellow human beings get me down.

That's one thing that my road trip in the US showed me I have absolutely amazing and generous friends. I didn't even get to visit everyone I wanted to, but everyone I saw was so fantastic and these recent events just remind me how fortunate I am to have been able to meet and stay in touch with so many good people. I don't necessarily believe that human nature is benevolent or good (right now I think it is completely malleable), but I do believe in my friends and family. Thank you all for being you.