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Day 177: Crossing old borders
Having had a lazy morning and then spent seven hours on a bus today, I haven't really had much time to do anything exciting. I left the lovely warm hostel in Puerto Varas at about lunchtime, taking a shuttle bus to Puerto Montt, where after a half hour wait, I boarded the bus to Bariloche. Having had plenty of sleep recently (I can't remember the last time I was in a dorm where I wasn't the only occupant), I wasn't feeling too tired, and so was awake for the whole journey. Border crossings involved the usual faff of paperwork, and questions about one or two people's luggage, but proved to be fairly straightforward, and I arrived in Bariloche at about nine o'clock local time. This time round, I'm not staying in the party hostel in the centre of town, but have gone for a slightly smaller and quieter affair up near the language school.
Having checked into a dorm, I 'cooked' myself some rather revolting spinach flavoured packet soup (the only food I could find in the depths of my backpack, but at least it saved me having to walk all the way into
town), before watching a bit of television (well, it was on), and settling down for a good night's kip, in my four bed dorm, which I'm actually having to share with two others.
Day 178: Back to school in Bariloche
Last night unfortunately didn't prove to be the restful night that I'd hoped for. Although I was only sharing with two girls, they arrived back at one in the morning, soon after I'd gotten to sleep. This in itself didn't bother me too much since I have developed the ability to get back to sleep fairly quickly when people are coming and going, in and out of dorms. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to have any real intention of going out again, or going to sleep (or letting me do the same), and after much talking and noisy faffing, they decided at about half two that they were going to start packing. Words were had, but they insisted that they needed to pack since they had an early flight. I eventually got back off to sleep at about three to be woken up again at seven as they got up to repack all their belongings. Rather than lose
it completely, I decided to goto the bathroom for a nice long shower (after which they still hadn't finished). Bearing in mind there's an hour time difference between Chile and Argentina, and that that hour time difference becomes all the more important when you're short of kip, I was not in the best of moods as I sipped my third coffee at breakfast. In all other respects, the hostel is great (they have heating and croissants for breakfast).
Having to start classes at ten, I went into town first thing to top up on pesos, to find that my bank (Natwest, don't bank with them, they're rubbish), had decreased my limit for the second time in a month, and with the amount I could take out, I could just about pay for Spanish lessons, but would have to be careful with my change for the rest of the day (and unable to withdraw a larger amount of money, the cashpoint fee worked out as a whopping 4%). Obviously by this point I was none too happy and going to 'school' really wasn't top of the list of things that I wanted to do right there and then (going back
to bed was pretty high up on list of priorities); however I will stop whinging at this point, because things started looking up when I got to the language school.
Having paid and had a coffee, I met my teacher, who was really nice and went over a lot of grammer that I'd found problematic, before leading a rather complicated discussion which had me discussing various psychological theories in spanish. After a three hour class (with a much needed coffee break in the middle), I headed into town, where I picked up a salad for lunch, leaving room to sample four flavours of icecream for pudding. With no other plans for the afternoon, I went back to the language school at four where they were screening an Argentinian film that I had meaning to buy. It turned out to be really good, with the added bonus that when the language got too difficult, a teacher stopped the film and explained what was going on! That said, it was a real tear jerker, which is never good in a bright classroom full of other students concentrating on spanish!
I finally got back to the hostel at about half-seven where
I cooked some dinner and sat around with a bottle of wine trying to finish the Alchemist, before reatreating to my dorm, where I was very grateful to disover that I was the sole occupant.
Day 179: Lessons and books
After a good night's sleep, I was back at school again this morning, where I had another three hour lesson. We covered a bit of grammar but otherwise discussed anything and everything, from magazine articles, to sentence construction in swahili. Although the topic matter wasn't all relevant, I still got a fair bit of conversation practice in, and I do have a really nice teacher, who has quite a lot of amusing, although not always appropriate, anecdotes from her personal and professional life!
Apart from school, I didn't really do a lot else today. Apart from wandering round town gawping at the chocolate shops with my nose pressed up against the glass (I didn't trust myself to enter any), I found a bookshop, where I bought another Paulo Cuelho novel to plough through (which will probably take the next six months) and bought another quarter kilo tub of icecream (hurrah), which was eaten after a proper, nutritious dinner of pasta and cheese (hmmm)! Otherwise, I don't have a lot else to report. I do have some dorm mates now, a couple from Hertfordshire, but they seem nice, and have promised not to start packing at half two in the morning.
Day 180: Icecream addiction worsening
After packing up my things, I went to 'school' for another lesson, covering grammar, speaking, listening, and my teacher's problematic lovelife! Today was meant to be my last class, but I'm having so much fun that I've booked a couple more for next week - any excuse to return to Bariloche and eat more icecream! Talking of icecream, I managed to try another four flavours at lunchtime today. Although I have now sampled a wide variety of the icecreams on offer (today's unusual flavour being blueberry), I do seem to have a preference for the more traditional flavours (chocolate, chocolate suiza, chocolate blanco, chocolate amargo etc). A little later, I stopped in town to buy a couple of CDs of Argentinian music, and a copy of the film that I watched on Tuesday, before picking up my things back at the hostel and calling a taxi to go to the bus station. I'm going to have a few days exploring two towns nearby, before returning to Bariloche for a few days next week.
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