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Published: October 21st 2009
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Next Derick and I moved onto a Couchsurfers place out in Flores, a suburb just out of the city. We met our host Bent from Mexico and his French girlfriend, Cecile, on arrival and looked around the place. It was a bit shabby with outside-looking bricks on the inside and two Estonians were surfing there already so we had the floor. They had a great rooftop though and Parilla (BBQ machine) up top. We ended up hanging out with the large array of people which included Tolga from Turkey, Mel from San Fransisco (here to dance Tango) and Alfonso from Meixco. We went to a Futbol game with Mel and Alfonso, River vs. Independencia (a local game) and it was quite overwhelming. The stadium had separate entrances for the supporters of each side so nobody would see the other side, then once you got in there were about 50 police lined up with full on protective gear including helmets and batons for in case there was a riot. Almost everybody there was in their team's colours which was kinda funny because both teams were red and white, but I guess there were different patterns. The game itself was a little tragic because we chose to support the team with the best cheers and most atmosphere but they actually kinda sucked at Futbol and lost 1 - 4. The cheers were pretty amazing though - everybody shaking their fists and yellling things like 'your mother's a whore' and 'bastard' in Spanish, as well as singing about 15 different chants. Apparently there are different songs for if the team is winning or losing. Our side was singing a song like 'what are you doing, you suck' at one point!
Another day while staying at that house we all went to a CS party in Palermo area. That proved to be a good opportunity to practice spanish as many of the people were Argentinian or Porteno as you call people from Buenos Aires and did not speak English. I ended up talking to a guy called Fabian for a while and am quite impressed I was able to get out of him what he studied and his desire to work for the red cross and doctors without boarders in Africa, but after an hour of chatting in Espanol I needed some English. The party went on til 5.30am when we attempted to leave and some guy grabbed my hand and said 'donde va? Es temprano' (where are you going? it's early'). This is typical Argentine behavior - start a party at 1am and finish at 6am. One nice thing is I did make a Porteno friend out of Fabian and he came round for dinner the next week - he made traditional Argentine soup and Derick and I made Pavlova.
Another day we went to the zoo in Palermo. Zoos are funny for me, I always get really excited like a kid when I think of going but then when I get there I get sad at the animals in cages and want to release them back to their natural habitats (except for the snakes- they are scary). We went to this zoo on a Monday so not many annoying kids to watch out for. The first thing we encountered once inside was what I can only explain as a giant rat or guinea-pig. Think of a rat the size of a small dog (20kg) walking up to you and raring up on it's back legs and sniffing at you. It obviously wanted food but you're not meant to feed rats are you? Turned out it's called a Caipi or something. Also there were animals that looked like wallabies or kangaroos but had four legs of equal legs so also looked like mini deers aswell....
We also saw all sorts of monkeys (mono), birds, snakes, giant tortoise, iguana and birds, plus bears incliding a polar bear which is my absolute favorite. It made me a bit sad because he was just lying there with his head on his paws an in BA it must be very hot for a bear. Many of the animals especially the big cats actually looked a bit agitated and were pacing up and down the cage.
Another day we decided just to hang out in the suburb and not got to the city and instead just get something to eat across the road. This 'restaurant' turned out to be a Bolivian hang out and we were promptly invited to sit at a table with a couple of brothers. They asked us all about where we were from and although I explained about New Zealand and even drew a map showing where it was in relation to the rest of the world, they still kept asking if my president was Obama or if I was from England. They kept buying more beers and we ended up sitting with them for two hours, being told we were 'buena gente'(good people), that I was hermosa, bonita and look at her hair! about 20 times and then having to explain to them the lyrics of 'wonderwall' by Oasis after they made me choose a song from the jukebox the y were so proud of. It was definitely an experience! When we decided to leave as their speech was getting more slurred and our Spanish was getting exhausted they pleaded for us to stay, bought another beer and started telling us again about Bolivia being the heart of south america etc and how we were buena gente. It was fun but yeah quite full on!
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Emma Buckle
non-member comment
crazy
sounds fun and the people sound really friendly if a bit intense. Ur spanish sounds like its getting really good, hows the cooking going? learnt many new dishes? how much would it cost me to send u some whittakes chocolate or something else youre missing?