Buenos Aires numero dos - Settling into BA life...

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I have now started my Spanish lessons at a school called Bueno Dale, I am in a group of 5 at the moment doing Spanish for 3 hours a day. The Buenos Dale is a really friendly and homely place in a really nice area of the city called Palermo Soho, it is only 10 minutes walk from my hostel that I have now moved to so it’s perfect really, there a lot of nice bars, clubs, shops and restaurants around and there is a lot more relaxing atmosphere compared to Florida street where I previously was.

All of us in the class have a great time as the lessons turn out to be good fun, most jokes are based on how bad we pronounce the words and Sandra our teacher finds it hilarious and just imitates how we’ve said the word until we get it right. We all seem to be at a similar level so it’s been good and a few things have started to sink in. I do think it would be a pretty entertaining job teaching a language especially with beginners because you can see how Sandra loves it when we come out with some random words that have different meanings to the ones we are trying to say.

On the 2nd day of classes my brain was like scrambled egg, the homework from the previous day took me a while to do so with that, then classes it was around 5 or 6 hours straight learning. After class myself and Andrew a kiwi bloke from the class decided to head out for a drink in the night. We went to Plaza Serrano which is a really nice place full of bars and clubs all next to each other in a small square, after a couple of beers we both agreed to stay out a bit longer...it was only 1am which is still early in BA we stayed in the bar for a bit longer then headed to a club called Kika which was decent so we stayed for a few ours turning in at a reasonable time of half 4. The lessons don’t begin till 2:30 so plenty of time for sleep.

The next day I had to move rooms as I had asked to stay a further few nights the room I was in would be taken so I had to check out at 11am and then check in at 2pm so I could go into my new room (pain in the behind if you ask me). Got to class to find that everyone was there apart from Andrew, which everyone thought was a bit strange. After about a half hour the others said that definitely wasn’t like him...I started to think that I hope nothing happened to him after we left but AJ managed to get through to him to find out he was in bed hungover which everyone found amusing with Sandra shouting and swearing down the phone at him trying to make him feel guilty haha. In the night I decided that I was going to stay in until a girl called Elena from Uruguay came into the common room...we started chatting and she explained she was here for the weekend but no-one want to go out...so as any gentlemen would do I asked if she fancied heading out for a drink, she agreed so we went out to Plaza Serrano for some drinks which was good fun, (definitely lucky that Helena can speak English perfectly as well as Spanish and also Portuguese) then onto the Kika club again for my 2nd appearance in a few nights, we ended up walking back to the hostel at 7am in broad daylight with still a lot of people inside the club...good night BA style!

On the Saturday me and Helena arranged to meet around midday and go for some lunch, surprisingly I didn’t feel too tired after my sleeping marathon of 4 and a half hours. In the afternoon Helena was going shopping and also picking up her Aerosmith tickets so I decided to go for a walk around the parks nearby then do a bit of Spanish homework and have a look into the next leg of the journey in Patagonia. In the evening me and Helena decided to head out again but try a different area of town, the guy in the hostel told us to turn right and in about 6 blocks there is an area of bars. We then headed in that direction but somehow walked too far and got lost so I was winding Helena up as the guy had told her in Spanish the way to go, it then started to rain to add to the drama, I got the map out to find out where we were but I think we were too far north so it didn’t show on the map, we asked a few people along the way and must of gone round in a few circles before eventually finding Palermo Hollywood which is obviously the posh area in BA, we sat down at a place for a drink which looked like a stylish cafe to soon find out the high prices so we agreed to just stay for the 1 drink and stick to what we know and go to the Plaza Serrano once again. We had seen 2 people from the hostel in Palermo Hollywood and they mentioned a club to go to, after our drink in the Plaza we jumped in a cab to find out none of the taxi drivers knew where it was so we ended up driving all the way to Pacha where the queue was humongous then to a club called Esperanto which is very upmarket as I soon found out by the entry price. Once inside the music was a mix of Latin American with some old English tunes which included Cher, there appeared to be a tv show of some sort being filmed as a woman was going round interviewing people in the club...all appeared very high profile. After half an hour or so some dancers were introduced and they danced on the bar for 20 minutes or so and I must admit those girls were incredible...my thoughts must of been shared as every bloke and most girls it must be said in the club were at a standstill just staring and not quite believing what was in front of their eyes...hmm worth the entry fee??... Yeah I think so! We then went to a different room in the club and danced for a bit while also watching some of the rugby was on being New Zealand v Argentina, then turned in early at around 5:30am.

It’s now Sunday and I was a bit stuck for ideas on what to do during the day, Elena has now left to go back to Montevideo so time to make some new friends again. I got chatting to a bloke from my dorm called Josh who is from the US and lived in BA for the past 2 years, we spoke about us both not having much on so we went out for a coffee and then checked out the local markets which was cool. We then went back to the hostel where we sat on the terrace with some other people and shared some mate (pronounced mar-teh) and had a good chat about languages and how hard it is the learn them as it has taken him a fair few years to speak Spanish and Portuguese to a decent level. We then grabbed some Empanadas then I had an early night to catch up on the lack of sleep from the weekend.

My working week has begun so for the next 5 days I have my lessons and hopefully some of it sticks. Not much to report as nothing exciting has happened the past few days due to the Spanish homework taking up a lot of time as well as the lessons. I have gone out for a few runs around the parks nearby that are really nice where there always seems to be a lot of dog walkers with something like 15 dogs with 1 carer which quite funny to see. I feel like a bit of a local in the hostel now...nearly been here the same amount as my previous tour so got a good knowledge of the area now and where is good to go, feels weird to have a routine going although it’s nice for a while I’m looking forward to getting on the move again!

Sailor Anna from the tour I previously went on (we call her sailor Anna due to 2 people on the tour having the same 1st and middle name) came back to BA on Thursday so we went out for a drink to catch up and that day I also had my test for the level 1 Spanish which I passed and got a nice certificate which I’m happy about although I’m a long way off being able to speak it comfortably. On Friday everyone from the class arranged to go out in the night as it was my last day of lessons. Sandra our teacher recommended a few places and we decided to go to a nice restaurant called La Cabras we all had a few glasses of wine and a nice meal then headed back to our hostel for some cheap drinks before going to a club called Crowbar. Amber-Jay had managed to get us on the guest list so we got in without paying which was a result so we turned up there around 2:30am and it all went quite smoothly and we got in after 10mins. When we got in the place was jumping with loads of people filling all corners of the dance floor and the levels above around the sides, we all grabbed a drink and hit the dance floor with Amber-Jay getting whisked off a few times by some Latinos which was entertaining for us as she didn’t seem too keen. Andrew and Sailor Anna left after a few hours to catch some of the Rugby as it was starting at 5am and me, Mark, Agnieszka and Amber-Jay stayed until the early hours and I randomly bumped into Graham that I had met in Rio which was cool, strange how you see the same people around. We then left the club around 6:30am to broad day light once again and had an entertaining walk (Mark and Agnieszka proving to be very funny stumbling and pushing each other) to a pizza place where we had some food (which I must say was disgusting...had allsorts on the pizza including fish, carrots and a lot of stuff i didn’t know urrgh) we eventually rolled in at 7:30am which was a bit of a shame as breakfast starts at 8am at the hostel haha.

I’m now just relaxing watching the football and sorting all my stuff out for tomorrow which is when I check out of room number 11 (which has been my home for the past 11 days) so I can get up early to meet Karl at the airport and check into a new hostel back down town in Av. de Mayo.

It’s now time to add a member to my travelling group for a few months, good times ahead!

Speak soon...

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