When it rains it pours

I am sitting in the airport lounge on my way to Germany, and the weather is making this an easy goodbye. The sky has been grey all day, humidity is at a whooping 91 % and Buenos Aires looked extremely sad and depressing through the car window on the way to Ezeiza. Yes, although the climate down here is generally much nicer than, let’s say, in you average German town, we still get our fair share of rain that sometimes drizzles along like today and sometimes makes you think of tropical rain storms.

Until a couple of weeks ago I had been lucky enough to watch these downpours from behind a window, safe and dry with a cup of tea, either at home or in the office. But eventually, my luck had to run out.

At that day, I had to go home by train and continue on to the dentist, of all things. I made it home ok in a light drizzle and only had to change pants and shoes. But when I ventured out again after a quick bite and brushing my teeth, things had not only turned to cats and dogs but to a regular zoo.

Leaving the house and struggling to lock the gate with the biggest umbrella we own in one hand gave me the first hunch that this wasn’t going to be pretty. And when I tried to cross the street at the first intersection sinking up to my ankles into a huge puddle I started feeling like a character in one of those disaster movies. You know “The Big Flood Monster Part 1-3”.

There was really no way to avoid getting completely soaked, neither from above nor from the ground. Torrents of water were running down the streets, and I swear there was plastic bottle floating down one of the curb, though luckily without the rat passenger that you see in the movies.

I considered cancelling the dentist appointment but taking out my mobile in this was impossible, especially with the big umbrella and all. So I continued towards Martinez station where I wanted to take the train to Acassuso and walk the rest of the way to the dentist office. When I reached the station the downpour was luckily easing up but everyone was soaked, including me. Not even the fact that I didn’t have to pay the train fare because the chute for the money-ticket exchange was full of water could divert me from the water floating around in my running shoes.

Luckily, the checkup at the dentist went well with no major findings and no painful repairs. But guess what? When I left the house it had started to rain again.

So when I came home I took a hot shower, hung up my clothes to dry and made myself a nice cup of tea to watch the rest of the downpour safe and dry from behind the window – which is definitely much nicer.