I made it!

Well, I arrived this morning at about 10:30 am local time. The flight took about 14 hours (including both legs), which isn't fun but it's not too bad. I slept 2 or 3 hours on the plane, so I felt okay when I arrived.

I asked the Spanish language school I'm taking classes from next week to have someone pick me up at the airport, so Jorge was there waiting for me when I arrived. He turned out to be a nice guy, and we chatted a bit (in Spanish) as he drove me into the city. My plan was to drop off my luggage at a hostel and them go to the apartment I had rented via the Internet at 1 pm, the time that the rental agency and I agreed to meet. However, no one answered the door at the hostel when we arrived, and I didn't have the phone number with me, so we ended up going straight to the apartment. We arrived 25 minutes early for my appointment (traffic really slowed us down), which meant that I had to sit outside with my luggage for about 20 minutes until the rental person arrived. That's exactly the situation I didn't want to be in: me and 170 lbs of luggage sitting out in the open with nowhere to go. It sounds worse that it was, actually, since the entrance to the buiding is set back a few feet from the sidewalk, so I wasn't visible to any pedestrians until they were within just a few feet of me. Still, though, I was a bit uncomfortable.

Anyway, we signed the rental contract and now I'm in my apartment. It's a furnished studio, not very large, but it's fine for the first month. My plan is to find a unfurnished apartment and rent that. Even with buying all the furnishings it should still come out cheaper if I stay here more than a few months. Here are some pictures of the place I'm staying.