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Published: December 18th 2008
Dancing in the Street
Typical Street performance in BAWell I am almost at the end of my 2 weeks stay in BA and it has been fantastic! It is so nice to be able to actually “live” somewhere rather than just pass through. I have realised however that I am a terrible tourist!
Throughout my life I have been to quite a lot of different places and have always known that I prefer to sit in a café/bar and people watch rather than rush around to tourist attraction after tourist attraction. May be it is partly some laziness on my part but I have had such a great time here and really I haven´t done very much!
I have been living in a lovely house with my own bedroom AND own bathrrom with Monika and her 2 kids Bei (19) and Eric (22). They have made me feel so welcome and they are so warm and generous that I have been utterly content to just fit in with their lives and routines. I love just sitting in the backgarden drinking a glass of red and sharing stories. I feel like I have a strong bond with each of them all in a different way.
I did
Recoletta Cemetry
Inside one of the many many streets do one tourist thing last sunday which was to go to Recolletta cemetry to see Eva Peron´s grave (Evita). I was expecting it to be just like any old cemetry but it was amazing. It is like a small town with paved tree lined streets and lamp posts and everything. The graves are more like tombs where the family members would have a key and can go inside and sit right next to the coffin and put flowers or pictures. You can look through the glass on many of them and see the coffins. Often a whole family is there.
I have realised that learning a language is not my strong point. To be good at learning a language apparently you need to have very good listening skills, an ability to repeat in the same intonation something you have just heard and of course a good memory for all of the new vocab you have learnt. I realise that I do not actually have any of these. I am at the other end of the scale on all of these qualities in fact. I can listen to a song over and over again and not actually be able to
The tomb of Eva Peron
Just to prove I actually did find it! hear the words that are being said. Even if I can hear the words I can never remember them to sing it the next time and also as you all know I am completely tone deaf so when i think I am saying something correctly people do not know what I am talking about and I swear they would then repeat the word exactly the same as I had just said it but apparently not!
Although it is great in one respect that my family here speak English it is bad in another because even if they talk to me in spanish I can answer in English and they know what I am saying. On the few occaisions I have been talking to someone who doesn´t speak english it makes me actually have to do it one way or another in Spanish. I spent about half an hour the other night talking to one of Erics friends on my own and we still managed to have a decent conversation. I think when I leave here my ideal would be to find a nice spanish speaking travel partner and practise on them 24/7.
Anyway, here are some observations I
Me with Eric and his friend
Typical weekend night while I was there!! Lots of card playing and vodka drinking!! have made since I have been here:
Roads and Driving Every day at least twice I cross the widest street in the world! I need to count the lanes but I think it is 7 on either side!
It is relatively easy to navigate your way around the city as it is in a grid system and most roads are one way (this helps if like me you still haven´t gotten used to looking in the opposite direction when you are crossing a road).
I cannot work out the road rules here though. Maybe it just is that no-one really follows them. At cross roads for example (and there are a lot of them as they have this grid system) it seems to be that whoever gets there first has right of way from any direction! I really can´t believe that I have not seen any accidents yet.
Wine and Cigerettes Both of these are really cheap which is my excuse for probably having consumed a tad too much of either of them! I have been paying about A$3 for a nice bottle of red and A$1.50 for a packet of Marlborough Lights!
People Quite a funny one because when you bump into them in busy places - the street, the subway, the bus etc they come across as being very rude and arrongant and certainly asssertive! Once you get to know them though (or at least the ones that I have met) they have all being really warm and generous and on the surface seem to have a similar standard of living as us.
The men Well, no where near as reserved as we are. There is certainly a lot of beeping of horns etc going on but not as much as Santiago. There is a lot of good looking guys here. Often a bit dark and broody and there is this really wierd fashion for young guys to grow their hair quite long but have it short and the front and the sides!??¿¿¡¡ People here tend to be shorter. I am considered quite tall! As a result the guys are shorter but formed quite nicely. Maybe it is because I have had a parade of 19-22 year olds in nothing but shorts every day that I have seen a biased percentage! Ok maybe I am being a little bit of a perv but I am allowed to look!!
Prices and shopping I was actually really shocked at how expensive most things are here! To say that the average wage here is about 1/5 of that in Australia the price of a lot of goods is almost comparable. Rents and house prices are definitley less but when you go to the shops for most things it is not cheap at all!
I´m looking forward to eventually getting somewhere that is cheap like I had been told SA was! Bolivia is said to be really cheap so I will see!
Anyway - it must be so tough for a lot of families. Inflation seems to have been running at a ridiculous amount. Monika told me that 1.5 yrs ago she was paying 0.90 pesos for a carton of milk. Now it is about 2.30 pesos. I think milk is a great indicator of general prices and that has definitely been reflected in most other goods and services.
Taxis Cost a reasonable amount but will definitely try to rip you off if you don´t know where you are going. As soon as I open my mouth it is pretty bloody obvious that I am not from these parts so have been charged much more than I should have been but I have not taken them so much anyway so not too bad.
Public Transport I catch the subway everyday and it is hot and busy but generally really reliable, a good service and only about A$0.50 per trip so is good value. In my first week here I was coming home at 6pm and it was hideous (worse than London) but now I finish at 4pm it is much better.
The climate God - it is so so hot here. It is only about 31-33 degrees most days and in Australia I am sure that doesn´t feel that hot but the climate is really humid here so it is stifling. It is lovely blue skies every day so I definitley like it but I have tried to wear my jeans twice and have had to take them off straight away.
Apparently in winter it does get really quite cold too.
The rest I am leaving here on Saturday on an overnight bus to Mendoza - wine making region just next to the Andes. It is actually only 8 hours on the bus from Mendoza to Santiago which is where I started from!
I plan to be there for Christmas. It is strange that this year I know for a fact that I will not be spending Christmas with anyone I have known for more than 3 days! Monika has given me a little gift though which was so sweet of her as I just assumed that this would be the first year that I did not have any presents!
I am sure I will sample some of their finest wines but I also intend to expolore some of the Andes before I head further North into Argentina and then go back to Chile to the Northern part into the desert before Bolivia.
That is my plan but it is always subject to change.
I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and look forward to keeping in touch.
P.S I have a local mobile now so my australian one isn´t working (Can you believe I have a $300 bill for the month and I have not really done anything other than send a few texts!
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Marjan1985
Marjan Althuizen
Nice story :)
Hi Nikki! Soo good to read your story because I will come to Buenos Airos on 8February for a month.. Seems like you are really enjoying yourself :) The weather looks also nice because here in Europe it's very cold... Enjoy your travelling! Best wishes, Marjan