The city of Tango...Buenos Aires
Trip Start
Jun 29, 2008
1
32
40
Trip End
May 15, 2009
Buenos Aires,
Argentina
Saturday, November 29, 2008
When I landed it was absolutely pissing it down, it was thundering and there was lightning. Not a good start, I might as well been in England. My hostel was only 30mins in a cab which wsnīt too bad and in San Telmo aquite a nice part of BA. The hostel was pretty small and I was really surprised that you had to buzz in to get in through the door and then buss again to get through an internal door. I was like...is it safe around here!! I hate hostels sometimes as they can be so clickey (wrong spelling I know). So I was lying on my bed reading my lonely planet minding my own business when a girl came in and said "oh youīre new so you havenīt stolen my pizza!" and then walked back out..I was like what the !!! However a bit later on the same girl (Judith) came in and asked if I wanted to go to dinner with her and a friend...how nice maybe I was wrong about hostels!! We just went round the corner for a quick bite of good food and wine. Later on that night Judithīs friend Jacob asked if I fancied going for a drink with him and his irish friend Pete. Well it would have been rude not to. Judith didnīt come as she was feeling a bit ill. Well I didnīt expect to leave to go out at midnight!! and it was still pising down with rain and guess who went out in slippy flip flops...yep you guessed it me..and I slipped over and hit the pavement real hard. We tried to get into an expat bar but it was full so we ended up going to an Irish bar instead where most people spoke english and they even had an english band playing!! You could have thought we were anywhere in the UK rather than in BA. We finally got home at 5am....apparently this city is party central.
THe next day I was feelin sore from falling over and had the start of a very nice bruise on my arse. Judith and I decided to go to the pictures and watch something in english, sheīs dutch!! We saw Body of Lies in a cinema in Recolata (a real fancy part of BA) and then had a walk around the local craft fair. She had heard of a really good pizz place nearby so we went in search of it. Well it wasnīt that nearby and took us ages to find after asking (well Judith asked) multi differeny people. One woman said she wouldnīt recommend it as she thought it was dingy. We eventually found it and it wasnīt dingy at all just really local. We were the only tourists in the place and they treated us so well. The pizza was pretty good and the house red wine was good at under 2 quid for half a litre. We ended up staying there longer than we expected as the wine went down really well and the atmosphere was really good. The local team, Boca juniors (the team Maradona played for) were playing and it was like being in a pub watching the match with everyone cheering etc. Good evening had by all. Judith was leaving the next day which was a real shame as she was so nice.
Monday was my first day in a new spanish school. I planned to study here for 2 weeks as they close for Xmas early. I managed to negotiate myself around the SubTe (metro) to get myself to school just about. Its pretty similar to Santiago with only five lines but much older and dirtier, more like the tube. My class was pretty big with 8 of us in it a bit different to Santiago. I got talking to an australian girl, Emily which was good. The level the put me in was the same as I had just done so I was just going over stuff I had already learned but that was ok because it gave me more practice with speaking as I hate speaking the language. I just sound really bad even if I get the right words. That night in the hostel I went to a gig where the band only play drums, El Tiempo de bomber, it was really good, a bit lņike there version of a rave. Cheap beer, 3 quid for a litre..yes a litre of Stella. There was a group of us from the hostel which made it fun. We then headed to a local bar afterwards for some food, pool and more beer. And no I didnīt make it to school the next day.
I arranged to move hostels on Wednesady to the same one as Emily as it was closer to school and sounded cooler. School was only a 15 min walk now rather than 30mins on the SubTe. The hostel is much nicer (Iīm still there), newer, cleaner and the people are friendly. For the rest of the week it was really school, cooking cheap steak (under a quid for really good beef) and watching dvds.
Friday - five of us from school went out for lunch together and we chose a small cafe/restaurant which was full of locals so we proabably all stood out as Gringos. Some guy came over to one of us, Andrew and started to shake his hand and saying help me you speak english, which we all denied so he said fine and left. we all thought how strange and that he was a bit dodgy. Well about 15 seconds later Andrew is like FUCK my bag has gone so he runs out down the street. Fortunately someone has seen what was happening and shouted and pointed to Andrew that the guy and some girl had got in a taxi. Andrew jumped part of the way in to the taxi and the couple got out the other door so he got his bag back. The guy however ran straight into a policeman and someother person got the girl. Next thing we know there are three police cars on the corner and the couple are hancuffed. Andrew was lucky cos his laptop, camera and wallet were in the bag. We all couldnīt believe that five of us plus the woman taking our order hadnīt noticed what was going on.
Later that night we all pretty much went out to a club called living. Some of us bought a bottle of Vodka to drink (2.50 for a litre..this was an expensive one!!). We eventually headed out at 2.40am...normally I would be coming home at this time. We all caught the bus, they go 24hr a day and are cheap, about 20p. The club was small but real nice and I pretty much danced the morning away. I had finally had enough so me and a Columbian guy, Gustavo, caught the bus back. Within a few minutes the others were back because the club had closed...it was 6.30am. Suffice to say the hostel was a very quiet place on the Saturday.
Sunday, Emily, I and a Seagram (norwegian) went to Palermo to go to a craft market. It was quite a way on the SubTe from us. We then walked to Recoleta, a posh aread of the city. Emily and I walked around the cemetary there which is really fancy with tombs and mausolems. This is where Eva Peron (Evita) is buried. Seagram went back to the hostel as she had a bus to catch later that day. We then got a really good icecream, the best I have ever tasted before heading back to the hostel passed the fancy hotels and shops. This area looks very much like some of the streets in Paris with Gucci shops etc.
No school on Monday as was a religous holiday and I was thoroughly lazy. Didnīt do much of anything other than watch some dvds.
Tuesday back to school and still learning the same stuff as before. All good practice I suppose. Emily and I attended a conversation class in the afternoon with other students. However, their spanish was much better than ours and we didnīt understand too much. However, we did get to try Mate which is a herbal drink that Argentinians, Uruguayans and Paraguyans drink all the time. It was ok a bit like chinese herbal teas, a taste you get used to I supposed. We lost some of the people we had got to know at the hostel that day which was not good but a new group of people had arrived to make friends with. I got talking to two irish girls, Katy and Netty and two american girls, Shauna and Katy. Later on I went out for a drink with the americans and an australian guy. Not a good idea again to get in at 2am on a school night oh well...whilts in BA behave like a Porteņo.
Wednesday more school and more people arrive at the hostel. I spent the afternoon wandering around the city. I needed to buy some headache ppills, too much drinking!! and a spanish dictionary. I walked for what seems like hours. The hostel has a different feel to it than before but just as good as nearly everyone got together last night for a chat before they headed out..not me I needed to sleep, most of them donīt have school the next day. The Irish girls were going skydiving the next day. Iīm completely jealous, if I had the money I would do it again.
Thursday - more school and we have a test tomorrow as we are finishing. Itīs been good this week as there has only been 4 of us in class, the rest have left. We have a test tomorrow to revise for, bringing together evgrything we have learned over the last two weeks. After school I went to the Plaza de Mayo as every Thursday s"the mother of the disappeared" protest. They are mother of people who disappeared during the dirty ware about 30yrs ago. These people were tortured and probably murdered. It was a similar situation as in Chile. They bang drums and wave banners about. Apparently the Argentenian goverment as investigating the claims now and are going to try the people concerned.
I have got very lazy in doing this so here is a summary of my last 10 or so days in Bs As:
Well I got 95% in my spanish test so....woowoo but I still donīt speak any more spanish, just read, hear and write better!!
I moved from the hostel into a private room in an apartment that a Cecilia from spanish school owns. There was one other student there, Trisha, from Hawaii and a David from Panama. Trisha and I tried to book bus tickets to go up to Iguazu Falls (275 waterfalls on the border with Brazil) for Xmas but all the buses were full so we stayed in Bs As for Xmas. David has limited english so it made Trisha and I speak more spanish. Always a bonus
Trisha loves to Salsa and I didnīnt know how to do it but David does so we went to a couple of clubs. It was really good seeing people who are good doing it. I watched most of the time as I canīt dance sober and each time we went we were completely sober...whats that all about?? I did get an impromptu 15min lesson from David in the apartment so I now know the basics, well sort of.
Boca (the most famous team in Argentina) won the football league after a three way play off. David introduced me and Trisha to a couple of his arg friends, Ariel and Gabrielle who are big Boca fans on the 23rd. This was the evening they won and about midnight we made our way to the Obelisk to see the Boca fans celebrating. No pics though as they told us not to take anything other than 20 pesos (4 quid) as it was likely that pickpockets would be about :o( There was a sea of light blue and white (team colours) around the obelisk, the police closed the road. There must have been thousand of people therte all ages. It was a great atmosphere.
Trisha was having a few problems with her boyfriend who was supposed to be flying into Santiago to go rafting for three days so I agreed to go with her instead. The futaleufu is supposed to be the best white water river to raft in South America. $900 for three days but hey..chaging plans is what travelling is all about.
Xmas was quite quiet. They celebrate here on Xmas Eve having a big family dinner and the kids opening their presents at midnight. Fireworks were being let off until the early hours of the morning. Trisha and I stayed in eating bread, good cheese and drinking really good cheap red wine (less than 2 pound a bottle!!) and watched a DVD. Everyone else were out with family or friends.
Xmas lunch was burger king, yes you read that right!! on our way to Davidīs friendīs apartment. Sergio lives in a really cool apartment with a pool on the roof. We all drank good wine and had home made pasta and sauce oh and of course obligatory red wine. Sergio is second generation italian so the food was good.
Trisha left for Santiago on boxing day which left me and David in the apartment. He left to go back to Panama the next day and I left to go down south to Puerto Madryn to see the penguins. I missed the whale season.
