Imperial Park Buenos Aires

... just the feeling you get there...The police state in the US and here maybe, too, will just get stronger as people become desperate and crime soars.... We really want to be somewhere where we can be more self-sufficient. I think if this were a year ago we would have stayed in Buenos Aires and built our future there, but with all that we have experienced and learned in the past year, we now know its time for a change ...

Vorbei an grossen Rinderherden geht es per Cama-Bus in knapp 6 Stunden von Mar del Plata zurück nach Retiro, der riesigen Busstation von Buenos Aires. Im Gedränge dort werde ich "getagged", d.h. ohne, dass ich es merke, mit etwas Rasierschaumähnlichem bespritzt. Ein paar Schritte weiter, macht mich ein junger Mann händeringend auf das vermeintliche Malheur aufmerksam ... da ich zum guten Glück den Trick kenne, gehe ich einfach weiter. Gerne hätte er es gehabt ...

... always count on the participation part of the grade to give me a little lift. In fact, I would even go as far as saying that I probably need to tone it down in most classes and take a step back, letting others get their opinions in as well. Well, that has certainly not been the case here. Because our classes are in Spanish, those with better Spanish tend to be the ones who dominate class discussion. And since I’m definitely in ...

... a good bus experience overall! Another wonderful thing here is that they eat sweet pastries and caramel for breakfast!

Arriving in BA at about midday, we step off the bus in shorts and T Shirts and are slapped in the face with the reality that we are no longer anywhere near the equator. Reality in this case came in the form of a icy breeze - its about 12 degrees! As always step one on arrival is to find a bed. We ...

... 2001 financial crisis (where the police shot at marching civilians with live bullets, killing people in the streets of BA). I took a walking tour round the city with Niclaas, a university student to see the sights such as the palace balcony where Evita talked to the masses, and the torture chambers where the military government were ¨disappearing people¨ in the 70´s. Its a pretty dramatic history here, if not tragic. And has lent itself to interesting ...

... another different group of people which all adds to the joy of travelling. The night I was there the menu was a Peruvian family menu - but certainly with a twist. Worth arranging a few weeks in advance as I did. Authentic experiences don't have to be traditional. I tried a couple of high quality modern restaurants run by really creative chefs. The first was recommended by Dan - Pura Tierra in the Belgrano district. The second was "La Vinerio ...

... started with prayer and journaling, followed by a run, shower and an afternoon sipping mate in the park with one of my first Argentine friends-he even brought me alfajores (he's the alfajores expert: http://losalfajores.blogspot.com/)... Then we walked down VERY BUSY peatonal streets in search of a not-too-touristy mate (gourd?...that's what my travel book calls it) thing. We found one, and got my name 'engraved' on it. I then headed ...

... the land annd built the museum to house it. Although it cost 15 pesos (USD4) to visit, when most other museums are free, it was a very impressive collection and its hard to believe it all came from one guy. At home Santi's mother had cooked up a feast and his younger sister and her husband came to visit. We had calamari for entree, chicken for mains and figs in a honey syrup for dessert. It was all delicious although the figs were incredibly sweet.

... been so good. I found many of the items on the menu here to quite expensive by Argentinian standards; I expected the prices to be less than what we saw at Puerto Fuy, but they were actually a fair bit higher. I guess this shouldn't be surprising, given that Tomo I is located in the Crowne Plaza, a high-end hotel probably geared towards international guests. The set menu was a great value in comparison to many of the a la carte options ...

... we had heard a lot of great things about it from people we had met or things we had read in the guidebook. On top of this we were meeting Daniella´s parents, Tamara and Maurice who were flying out to meet us in South America. They had been in Brazil for about 10 days, then had gone to Iguauzu Falls, and had arrived a few hours before us in BA. Daniella was obviously excited to be seeing them becuase she had not seen them now since December 07, so nearly a year ago. So we made our way ...