Budget Hotel Buenos Aires

... I had been moaning at Mark for ages that I wanted a pair of ear-rings and I finally found some that I liked so I brought them. We met a few of the girls from the tour and had lunch with them. We could all smell a BBQ so we headed in that direction and what an awesome BBQ. We had a meat roll but the meat was steak (obviously because we are in Argentina) but they cut us three pieces of steak for our sandwich. It was absolutely huge and well worth it rather than going into a restaurant ...

... each, the "Presidente Sarimento" which was a good fun ship to explore for 30 minutes. We headed back to the centro area hopingto go into the casada de rosada (Pink house), which is where Eva Peron used to speak to her adoring supporters. It was closed, but still a very impressive area of town. It is surrounded by some wonderful architecture and sits on the "Plaza de mayo" which is where we were last weekend. This time someone was giving a speech in support of the Mothers of ...

... and lows…on the Thursday after, having developed a very good relationship with Aaron I came home to be told that his father had taken his own life. Aaron left the next day. The way he took it was very strange but in a way I understood it too. He was very quiet (he was anyhow) and couldn’t start to mourn yet, not until he got home. As he said to me: "I was only just getting my head around being in Argentina...I’m only just here now...but now it’s all changed."

... the park!
Every chance that I get when I go to Buenos Aires I make it a point to visit a Museum. Buenos Aires has so many and I must say that every one that I have gone to have been worth it. Two other museums that were very impressive and a must see were the cultural museum at recoletta right next to the mausoleums; Museo Historico Nacional in San Telmo located in the park grounds.

... We stayed in a place called Ostinattos, choosing it as you got a free Tango lesson and Spanish one too. In the arvo we went wandering around our new district, soaking it up and getting a feel for it.. it all seemed a bit... quiet? Something I was not expecting of BUENOS AIRES of all places!? We ended up getting on the train and going over to Palermo which was coool! Loads of wonderful markets, a real buzzy feel to it, people sat outside cafes and shops ...

... down the street. A more clear a present danger would have been food poisoning, especially when our hostel´s owner mentioned that our burger filling was probably cat or dog meat, apparently backfilling stocks of beef when it runs out on busy nights. I think you could safely call Carnaval weekend a peak period.

So there were a few aspects of Rio I was glad to leave behind as I arrived back `home´ to the familiar cityscape of Buenos Aires again. Fate, however, was insistent on ...

... of wine to fill us up. Better luck next time.


On Tuesday we decided to check out the zoo. I love visiting zoo's in other countries, for one - the animal variety is different than back home and two - every country is different on how they run the zoo (like in Thailand, it's completely okay to throw full size jelly-filled donuts at the gorillas). This zoo was great. We saw everything from elephants to those animals that are always ...

... girl from Aust, US, 2 from China!! and a Dutch girl....and we all speak one language...how beautiful. Actually, everyone is REALLY SERIOUS in my class (mostly graduates) and the other students give you the Death Stare if you even utter a word in English! (and i mean EVEN DURING the 15 min recess!) Hence why i have taken a liking to the girls from my Advanced I class, who are WAY more normal and for 15 mins give some sort of freedom of expression that i dont ...