Rosario - Tigre - and things I miss...

Hello again! This must be a quick entry, because I'm already in Rio de Janeiro and gapping the time before going to a party. But if I don't write this entry now I will never do it and this would mean loosing the last three weeks of my travel memories...

What happened so far:

The weekend before my birthday (thanks to everybody who thought of me that day) I travelled to Rosario a nice city about four hours from Buenos Aires. It's ridiculous how my perception of distances has changed. After travelling to Iguazu and Puerto Madryn, four hours seems like a nice little bus ride. I slept a while, I read a while and when I got there in the early evening it wasn't even time for dinner yet. Perfect! My friend Franziska, whom I had met on one of my earlier travels, had already been to Rosario and could thus recommend a hostel to me where she had made friends with the people working there. This was great, because when I arrived in Rosario there was already a cool bottle of beer waiting for me and Juan, one of the hostel staff, was being a very agreeable company for the weekend, showing me the city and how to prepare mate - the traditional "green tea" - as well as introducing me to his friends. All of this made this weekend to one of the most relaxing weekends I had so far and lets me think that I might visit Rosario again before I leave Argentina.

The city itself surprised me quite a bit, because, to me at least, it had the most European flair I could imagine. Everywhere it's noticeable that at one point it used to be the second important city in Argentina. There is a big pedestrian-only zone, there is a lot of really nice architecture, and a feeling of safety which I haven't experienced in Argentina so far. It even led me to quietly taking a nap in the sunny park after having strolled around for a few hours. Two things I would like to point out especially: firstly, Rosario is the birthplace of Che Guevarra (see picture) and - as most of you know - I'm real "tight dogs" with Che... (yeah...or so...). Secondly, Rosario is home to the monument of the flag, which is supposedly the only monument to a flag in the world. I didn't notice while I was there, but looking at the pictures now I have to say that it is a quite phallic symbol. Well, it's a men's world...

The other weekend I finally managed to catch a train and go on a one day excursion to Tigre, which is a little city located at the beginning of the delta of the river Paraná. Tigre, being located at the river delta, offers tons of boat trips and island hopping which ended in Teresa - the new intern at the office - and me fighting our way through a lot of green, nature and mud, listening to birds and enjoying the change of scenery from Buenos Aires.

Otherwise I have been pretty busy with the internship lately. The event in Rio de Janeiro turned out to be time consuming, especially because I had to prepare the official working part as well as to organize my personal travel details. Also, I started taking up Spanish classes again; one and a half hours, one on one, twice a week. Let me tell you, after nine hours of office work, these classes kill me...Last but not least, I very spontaneously decided that I was tired of financing the whole apartment while John - my Columbian flat mate - enjoys sweet life together with his girlfriend. In the turn of 24 hours I found an apartment which I'm now sharing with a French girl (or woman, after all she is 28...) from the Ivory Coast, who is travelling through Latin America. We get a long well and will have some good times together.

Sentiments:

Buenos Aires in spring is incredibly beautiful. There are flowers and trees everywhere, it has just the right warm but not yet hot temperature, which permits me to take full advantage of the parks and of all the fun things here. But there have been already a few days of unbearable hot humidity which gave me a hint on what summer will be like. I'm immensely enjoying my time here and admittedly the very beneficial Euro-Peso exchange rate (1 Euro = 5.6 Pesos) has its share in this. The financial budget permitting a fair student life in Maastricht, opens up consumption possibilities in Buenos Aires of which I could only dream in Maastricht.

But, besides all the nice and comfortable things and besides the fun we have, I'm already looking forward to nice little Maastricht and to coming home. In particular I miss (this is not a ranking of importance now!!) my car and also my bike. I miss crossing the whole of Maastricht in 15 minutes. I miss going for a walk in the vineyards in Kenzingen. I miss the cosiness of a grey autumn day and the colours of the leaves when they fall from the trees (how romantic...). I miss stopping by for a coffee at Julia's place on the way to the library and usually not being the only one who is taking a break there. And most of all I miss being a student! But enough of the melancholy, everything has its time and place and right now its the time of spring and of Argentina, of Tango, of meat, of Mate in the park with friends and of being squeezed to pieces in the metro...

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