Argentina May 16th & 17th

So for the next month I will be posting some blogs from Robert about his time in Argentina and China so enjoy =)
day 1 may 16-17Th
the first flight to Dallas wasn't bad considering i was in the middle seat. good think i had a book and sleep to catch up on from the previous week getting ready. the only thing was every time i closed my eyes i saw my family (which isn't a bad thing). on the layover i ate at cousins BBQ. it was really good and i figured i have no clue what the food is going to be like so I'd better get a good last meal. the second flight was almost as good as the first considering it was almost 3 times as long (10 hours). i usually try to make sure I'm the last one on the plane so i have my pick of whats left. i got this seat where i could stretch out my legs. we also had our own individual TVs where we could watch what we want. i ended up spending most of my time watching the tooth fairy, lovely bones (weird one), reading my book, and cat napping. i got into Buenos Aries about 7 or 8am i think. I got through customs fine but had to pay a new foreigner tax ($131!) which you only have to pay every ten years i guess. oh well. i then found my driver Miguel who had my name written on a piece of paper. i had a hard time understanding him cause the accent down here is more Spain Spanish than Mexican Spanish as well as having a bit of a different vocab. we did OK though. OK enough to find out i still had a 6-7 hour drive ahead of me before i even got to my destination (charules ??? spelling). the way here reminded of a mix between I-5 and where we hunt birds in eastern Oregon. lots of game birds and very rural. i don't think i saw a building for over 250 miles. it was crazy. it sounds like all the cities are far away from each other. when i got here my driver dropped me off at the hotel and they didn't have a room for me. they told me that the gm was looking into another place and that i should wait. i pulled out my book and 30 minutes later the receptionist told me they had a room and took me to my there. not a bad looking hotel. a little old on the outside but my room is clean and looked like it just had a face lift. i sat on my bed and tried to relax. by this time it was about 3 or 4pm and i was supposed to have practice at 7. i unpacked a little and tried to get on the Internet. what a surprise, no service! that was the only thing i told my agent that i wanted; Internet in my room. and i don't have an adapter to even charge anything. i started to deflate a little and asked the bell boy if he could help. he told me that he would get me an adapter and that i would have to go to the lobby to get Internet until a room that had wifi opened up for me. so i go to the lobby and he finds me an adapter and i get on the slow Internet and call don on Skye and e-mail Reena. since it would cost an arm and a leg to use my phone from the states i decided to buy Skye credit for the month to call landlines cause i could wait to talk to people just Skye to Skye. after about an hour i head back to the room and it's 6. at about 6:20 i get a phone call and it's the coach (Javier) waiting to take me to practice. he takes me down the street a couple blocks which come to find out is about all of the city. I'm exaggerating but it's only got 20,000 people and 2 companies make up the cities economy (a dairy company and i can't remember the other). they love sports though. they have 2 basketball teams in the 1st division as well as 2 soccer teams in the 3rd division. and the 2 basketball team are about 6 blocks from each other. talk about cross town rivalry. so i get to practice and meet the players and go shoot around for a minute before practice starts. the coach goes over the first week plans and then we go practice. a couple players aren't here and will be showing up throughout the coming week. we stretch and run up and down the court a little. we do some team shooting and play some 2 on 2 and 4 on 4 and it's over. intense but shorter that i expected. and I'm impressed with the players. they all are very skilled. i think i had a decent practice but not my best but I'm trying to cut myself some slack; i just got done traveling for close to 24 hours. there are 2 guys on the team who speak pretty good English. one is fabri who reminds me of pau gasol. we were teammates on 2 on 2 and won all the games. after practice he comes back to hotel with me to give me the run down on eating. i told him I'm not picky and he ordered for us. i guess it wasn't something that was on the menu but they would make it cause he was friends with the cooks. it was really good. rice, vegetables, and a chicken thigh braised so the meat was falling off the bone. it also had some spices and I'm guessing some creme cause it was rich. he also brought out these vegetable crepes with lots of corn in it; also rich. i was so stuffed. we parted ways and i went back to the room and showered and here i sit in the lobby making calls. tired and full stomach. once i talk to family I'll go fall asleep while watching the second half of the Laker game.