Life in Buenos Aires, politics....bus station

---

Things have been sightly hectic lately, so it´s been difficult to find the time to update this journal. Apart from preparing for Spanish lessons, I´ve been spending time working out how to organise my trip around Argentina, and as we´re approaching holiday season in South America this does require a bit of urgency (so I´ve been told). Working out the bus routes to start with is probably a good idea, so I can work out when and where to book hostels.
I went to the bus station (at a place called ´Retiro´) yesterday to find out about the buses, and it turned out to be more fun then first anticipated. The station is situated around a two storey building. Working my way up from the basement I finally found a bus company that has services between Buenos Aires and the Igazu Falls, and managed to talk to someone who could speak English.
It turned out that booking a ticket is fairly simple as long as you know where you are going, from where, and which bus company goes there. Of course there isn´t a map which shows where each bus companies go to, although the station does have a board showing a list of companies for each region. The way to figure out which buses to use is either ask at the informatin desk, or look up the companies the internet.
I also managed to find out from a very helpful assistant that since I´m travelling alone, I don´t need to book a ticket weeks in advance, a few days prior to departure should be sufficient. Booking hostels maybe more difficult at some places, so it´s a good idea to plan a few weeks in advance.
At the language school I had the most interesting conversation about the Falklands War, and being a Hungarian no doubt made this easier. From what I gather people in Argentina blame (at least partially) the then military government for the start of the war. As the US and Argentina had some kind of military allegiance, the Argentine government decided to invade tha Falklands, which wasn´t too difficult against approximately ten men. Argentines feel very strongly that the Falklands belong to Argentina, as historically the English has no business being there (I leave this for the two parties to debate), so the government achieved it´s primary aim to gain popularity in the short run. Mrs Thatcher of course had political problems of her own, and as we all know it things got slightly out of hand, and the US opted not to support Argentina against Britain.
I get the impression the Argentines are well educated people, and what happened in the past does not stop them welcoming or even liking the English in their country. I think people here are a lot more concerned with Chile´s supposed expansioanist policy, and still a bit hurt that a fellow South American country would support Britain against them.
Wondering around the city does make one aware just how poor some of these people are. At times when I walk into a relatively big shop I´m asked to put my bag into a locker, and at the railway station on Frederico Lacroze Avenue you cannot see through the window of the ticket booth. This has apparently been recently introduced to combat theft and violence against staff. On the train I spotted a few army personel standing, which is a bit weird as I feel perfectly safe in the city.
Buenos Aires is otherwise a great city, with very lively people. I think the economic situation is steadily getting better. Hopefully there will not be another crisis in the near future, which seems to come in ten year cycles according to the locals. At the moment there are many people without jobs. Apparently there are highly educated people triving taxis, and it is very difficult to get jobs for recent graduates without work experience.
Life at the hostel is fun, I have moved into ther dorm and it has been a fairly smooth transition. So far I´ve been busy planning my trip, updating my journal, learning Spanish and going out. There are two Kiwi guys in my dorm who seem to know how to party. Last night they were doing their usual 'mowning the lawn, then trimming the edges' routine in one of the bars. No one else was dancing, and it seemed the Argentines were a bit shocked and didn´t know what was going on.

---