Back to school in Buenos Aires

---

Day 120: Busy San Telmo amidst Sunday shutdown

What with a slightly erratic sleeping pattern which tends to involve me getting more sleep in the afternoons that I do at night, the boundaries delineating one day from another seem to be getting somewhat blurred. Nevertheless, I got up this morning, and after a rather nice free breakfast which included some Argentinian-style pastries covered in dulce de leche (a thin, very sweet caramel), headed down to San Telmo. It being a Sunday, pretty much everything in the centre of town was shut, including the supermarkets, cafes, phonebooths and kiosks. With traffic scarce on the road, and fewer people around than had been the case at three in the morning, it was like walking through a ghost town until I reached San Telmo, the city´s Bohemian quarter. From one extreme to another, the pavements lining the streets here were packed, with market stalls, antiques shops aplenty, and people spilling out of bars and cafes onto the streets. In the centre of the district was the busy antiques market of Plaza Dorrego, with everything from gramaphone stalls, photos, street performers and small (apparently functional) cannons! It was certainly interesting to look round, and if I wasn´t going to be travelling for the next four months, I´m sure I would have bought something!

It was soon time for me to move accomodation and take my luggage over to the language school. I picked my things up from the hostel and found the student residence where I would be staying for the next two weeks. Unfortunately, I was on time, but the person who was meant to be letting me in wasn´t. Initially, I sat on the doorstep for twenty minutes occasionally ringing the bell. Eventually an unfriendly American guy, who was very disgruntled that I had disturbed his ridiculously high volume television watching, came down and let me in. He told me to wait in the hall, and then went back to gaze lovingly at the screen in the living room. Ten minutes later, an Argentinian woman arrived to show me to my room. I wasn´t immediately understanding everything she was telling me and so a rather superior Brazilian girl intervened and translated some of it into English for me, speaking to me like I was a three year old. Not the greatest start. Thankfully I wasn´t staying on the same floor as the American/Brazilian combo, and my flat two floors above actually seemed much nicer. By this point, I was quite tired and grumpy, but relieved to have a bed at last! I met my new room mate, a dutch girl who having already been there for a couple of weeks, knew the location of a supermarket that didn´t close at six, and so after going out to buy some food, I had a leisurely dinner, before finding out that I was going to spanish test first thing in the morning. There followed a couple of hours of revising basic grammar, before finally crawling to bed.


Day 121: Language classes

My bodyclock still not improving, I couldn´t get back to sleep this morning and so ended up getting up at five to do some more work! At half seven, breakfast arrived, a rather uninspired four slices of bread with dulce de leche (I´m not a fan), a cereal bar, and a carton of condensed milk. Yum. I left the house soon after eating and walked the short distance to the language school. On arrival, I was presented with a test. Covering mainly grammar, I was able to complete it without too many problems, and after a brief chat with one of the teachers (who spoke very clearly and wasn´t too difficult to understand), I was put in the intermediate group. I started classes at ten, and arrived to find that I was in a class with three Brazilians, one of whom was the girl who had been my translator the night before, and a German girl, who had been studying for spanish for years and was due to start an elective at Buenos Aires medical school. The teacher was a lovely lady called Laura, and whilst everyone else seemed to follow everything she was saying, it has to be said that I was feeling rather out of my depth and was trying to rely on non-verbal cues! It turns out that the Brazilian posse had never taken any spanish language classes, but being able to speak portugese, they seemed to be able to automatically understand it anyway. Very frustrating. I´m going to try not to pick up the Argentinian way of saying things, which is completely different to everywhere else in Latin America and Spain, and so therefore probably not of much use to me outside the country. The accent is very different (and difficult), with all ´y´ sounds pronounced as a ´ch´, and lots of different words from olde spanish! Four hours of not having a clue and one splitting headache later, and morning classes were finished. Normally, I´d have had time for lunch at this point, but since it had been a late start, I had to go straight on to my afternoon ´private tuition´ with Adrian.

Adrian, was a nice smiley argentinian bloke, but with a strong accent, again I didn´t understand a word he was saying! The fact that he is quite nice to look at, made up for the language problem somewhat, but I wasn´t feeling like we were making too much progress. Since it was a one-to-one class and I was spending quite a lot of time staring at him blankly, he did start to slow down a bit until I was just about following the class. We went over some grammar and had some conversation practice (me talking, him responding, me not understanding a word he was saying, and so carrying on, trying to guess what I should be talking about). After two hours of this, I was quite exhausted and relieved it was all over for one day, and with a whole heap of homework, I walked back to the flat, wondering what had compelled me to go back to school in the first place.

Back at the flat, I felt shattered and so after a bit of food, I thought I´d take a little nap....and that was the end of Monday.


Day 122: Getting nowhere slowly

I woke up still lying on my bed fully clothed at five this morning. On the bright side, I´d had lots of sleep, although not so good was that I hadn´t actually done any of my homework. Armed with coffee, I set to the task of completing grammar, writing about my travels, and preparing for a discussion about Cuban politics (that´s all in spanish). Not really finished, I left the flat for class at nine. Today followed along similar lines to yesterday, with everyone else seeming much more competent. It really isn´t a good feeling being bottom of the class, and certainly not one I´m used to! All quite demoralising. On the bright side, my grammar is ok, and I seem to be alright at understanding basic written spanish! After lunch of empanadas from the local kiosk, (an absolute bargain at about 25p each), I was back in class for the afternoon´s one-to-one tuition.

Today´s lesson with Adrian wasn´t much of an improvement on the day before, particularly the Cuban politics discussion. I really didn´t have too much of a clue, and my side of the discussion was limited to little gems like ´Yes i liked Fidel, but I think he is too old now´, or ´Raul seems to be a calmer person than Fidel´. It certainly wasn´t Newsnight. Behind the smile, Adrian now seemed to be trying to cover up a look of desperation, when he told me that tonight I should buy the paper and pick an article that interested me to discuss. Along with some written homework and a bit more grammar, I again had plenty to keep me busy for at least four hours, and so once classes were finished, I was soon heading off home to get on with it. I should add at this point, that not many people have private tuition in Spanish as well as morning classes, and so all my flatmates do have a lot more free time than I do, making the completion of homework amidst the noise of people coming/going/watching television/playing music/talking loudly outside my door, rather difficult. Unlike the majority, I think I´ve also reached the point where I think I could be called a mature student. I always wondered in halls why post-grad students all lived together, whilst us youngsters were all thrown into flats in a separate block. Well, having discovered the will and propensity to actually want to do work and make the most of classes rather than rocking up late every day with a hangover and unfinished homework, now I know. Oh God. I´m so old. When did this happen?


Day 123: Groundhog day

I went to bed at midnight last night and woke up at six-thirty this morning, so I appear to be making progress with the sleeping pattern, even if my spanish still leaves a lot to be desired. Morning classes came and went, with me still managing the written work ok, but not understanding the rest of it. (I appreciate this probably isn´t making exciting reading).

Having spotted a laundrette on my way in this morning, and desperately short of clothes, I ran back to the flat to retrieve my washing at lunchtime, picking up some empanadas on the way back to school. It is rather nice not to have to go through the chore that is using hostel washing machines/dryers. For the afternoon class, my topic of choice from yesterday´s paper for discussion, was the discovery of a gene making patients with depression resistant to treatment. Much easier than discussing Cuban politics, particularly since a lot of the sciency words are fairly similar in spanish, just requiring a bit of guess work and an accent! Over all, it went a bit better than yesterday, even Adrian said so. I have been told however that I need to do the same tomorrow, but I´m not allowed to talk about medicine all the time, so I need to select a different topic.

With not much else going on in my life at the moment, and having declined the opportunity to go clubbing in the local meat market (which didn´t sound so fun anyway), I managed to remember brother Ben´s 30th birthday, and gave him a call, before getting on with the joyous task of yet more homework! I think I´ve realised that people are good at different things, and although I´m good at sciency stuff, when it comes to languages, I suck!


Day 124: Fun and games

I can´t believe it´s Thursday already. I´m not convinced that I understand any more of what Laura says, than I did on the first day, although I am getting better at asking her to explain more slowly (and then eventually just agreeing). I swear she has a much stronger accent than most. Anyways, we played a card game in group Spanish today which I did ok in, so am feeling a bit more positive (good at card games, bad at Spanish). Afternoon class does seem to be improving and I managed to relate a robbery in the local supermarket and have a discussion about crime and policing in Buenos Aires, so maybe I am making a bit of progress.

Back at the flat, I thought I deserved some nice food and so cooked lots of pasta and veggies, followed by cake from the bakery along the road, before pressing on with homework. There aren´t actually too many opportunities to cook in the flat, since my flatmates (and indeed those from the flat below), have a tendency to cook all their food (and sometimes other people´s), wreck the kitchen and make it rather difficult for others to make dinner. I do feel sorry for the maid who comes up every morning to clear up, the place invariable looks like a bomb´s hit it. I know I probably wasn´t much different at eighteen, but I did clear up eventually....and there I go again. Time to stop!


Day 125: The empanada diet catching up with me?

Retrospectively, Spanish lessons today were a bit of a non-event. Laura was off sick and so we watched a film in the morning and then discussed it. Since it was an Argentinian film, I didn´t actually understand too much of it, but followed it by reading the subtitles (yes, they were in Spanish). The afternoon, I started talking with Adrian about the film we´d watched, and made the big mistake of getting my past tenses muddled up. It wasn´t a first and it´s not that I don´t understand the grammar, it just gets a bit more difficult when I have to talk! There subsequently followed a good forty minute lecture on types of past tense, and by the time we´d been through my written work and its many errors, it was pretty much time for home. I was quite relieved to be heading back, since I´ve not been feeling too well at all today. Rather nauseous and with an upset stomach, I got back and led infront of the television for a couple of hours, until one of my Dutch flatmates (the flats are ninety percent Dutch or Brazilian) turned up with about ten friends, and set about taking over the kitchen, which included taking everyone else´s food out the fridge and filling it with their beer. There followed a rather long night of me not being well at all, thumping music in the background, and the flat full of people shouting, singing, slamming doors, and playing drinking games in dutch. During their festivities, the Dutch group managed to trash the bathroom, including breaking the door. I´m just hoping I don´t have to pay for a replacement out of my deposit. I´m not sure why I feel so lousy though, I´d like to think it wasn´t my cooking the night before. Possibly a dodgy empanada catching up with me, but I always thought you couldn´t go too wrong with cheese and pastry!


Day 126: Not much doing

It was lunchtime before I started to feel a bit better and after managing a couple of croissants from the local bakery, I was feeling well enough for a wander around town. I took a walk into the town centre, and feeling much better, managed to force down an icecream, before braving the shops. I couldn´t really find too much that I liked, and with prices in the main streets, slightly out of my budget, I was pretty much just restricted to window shopping and trying on a few things in Zara.

The weather hasn´t been so great in Buenos Aires over the last week. Although it´s hardly been jumper weather, there has been the odd thunderstorm (producing enough rain to result in some local flooding around the city on Thursday), and with the rain starting up again this afternoon, I paid another visit to the Cathedral for a look round and shelter from the rain. The Cathedral didn´t look so great from the outside, but inside it was huge, and being Catholic had some quite fantastic paintings, sculptures and other artwork inside.

From the cathedral, it wasn´t too far to walk home, and feeling a bit grotty, I headed in the direction of the flat, hoping that the night wouldn´t be similar to the previous one. I bumped into a new dutch girl in the kitchen who was actually really nice, and spent the evening talking with her and an Israeli woman (also a ´mature student´), who lived in the room next to mine. Although there was plenty of noise emanating from the lounge, it was nowhere near as bad as the previous night, and at least nothing was destroyed in the flat.


Day 127: Floating around Tigre

I´d arranged to meet Karen, a girl from the language school in town today, for a day out of the city in Tigre, a town sprawled over an extensive river delta. We took the train (a bargain at 30p for a return), arriving at Tigre station an hour later. First stop when we got there was the tourist office to get a map, and then it was only a short walk to the arts and craft market, a sprawling mass of stalls selling handicrafts, clothes and all kinds of food and home furnishings. Although there weren´t too many foreign tourists wandering around, it was a popular day out for residents of Buenos Aires, and so was fairly busy.

After a good walk round, and with the skies starting to get darker and a thunderstorm clearly imminent, we started to make our way to lunch in the area of Tres Bocas. In the absence of roads, this required us to take a boat for half an hour down one of the many unbridged rivers. Soon after boarding the boat, it started to pour, with the rain continuing until our arrival in Tres Bocas. There followed a rather speedy passage from the boat to the nearest restaurant, although only about five metres from the jetty, we still managed to get fairly soaked. With the silty rivers close to bursting their banks, we sat inside the restaurant and had a pleasant lunch and a couple of beers waiting for the storm to blow over.

Back outside, we were soon following muddy paths alongside narrow canals and wider rivers, with houses on stilts, set just a little way back from the water. Finding a circular route proved near impossible, with bridges few and far between, and after a lengthy stroll in the now hot sunshine, we were ready to return to the bar for another drink or two before waiting for the boat back. On reaching the jetty to catch the boat, we were a bit surprised to find that it had been eight hours since we left Buenos Aires and we were only just in time for the last boat! Soon after boarding, it started to pour again, and so on arriving back to the centre of Tigre, we were soon at the station to board the train back to town.

I had been planning on heading straight home to finish my homework ready for the morning, but instead, we met a couple from Columbia (and their three month old baby) on the train, and got talking. Well I attempted to converse, although they didn´t speak any English, and since my language skills still aren´t that great, I found it a bit of a challenge. Fortunately Karen´s spanish is a lot better than mine, and so she pretty much held things together! Anyway, they were keen to take us to a shopping centre near to their house for dinner, and so on arriving back in Buenos Aires, we found ourselves getting the subway five stops out of town to a giant mall. It was a bit of a surprise when we found that all the shops were still open at half-nine at night, and with a huge range of food, there was even an extensive vegetarian selection. It was a very pleasant evening, particularly since our hosts insisted on paying for our Subte (c.f. subway) trip (which although not much, was certainly cheaper for us than for them), and walking us back to the subte station after we´d eaten! Attempts to complete my homework when I got home at eleven were thwarted by a trashy american film on television that proved to be compulsive viewing with homework pending(I seem to have regressed since last week)!


Day 128: Dinner and dancing

Starting the week feeling knackered is never a great idea, but I dutifully crawled out of bed at six this morning to complete my homework before heading to class at ten (it´s a late start on a Monday). Our usual teacher was still off work and so we I had to get used to a new lady. To be honest, she spoke so fast I didn´t even catch her name, so it wasn´t the best of lessons, and I left four hours later not too sure what we´d just been doing. Fortunately, afternoon class with Adrian (*sigh*) went much better and I managed to talk for the best part of the two hour lesson, despite not having had any food since breakfast. I made up for lack of luncheon by stopping off at the fab little bakery on the way home for a couple of cakes. Very tasty and obviously highly nutritious.

Back at the flat, there was no time for a nap, since I had a whole heap of homework and later would be meeting with Karen and some other people for dinner. I worked for the best part of two hours and still only managed to get half way through all the work, before it was time to start getting ready to go out. We had a lovely meal at a restaurant in San Telmo, although famed as a steakhouse, it did lots of other nice food besides and I had a ginormous plate of pasta. After food, the German couple who had been eating with us left for home, and me, Karen and Marianne (a dutch girl doing some volunteer work in Buenos Aires), went to Cafe Tortoni, an old establishment in the centre of town to go to a Tango show.

Having been led through the old cafe/restaurant, we were shown to one of about twenty tables in a room with a small stage. Things didn´t actually kick off until half-ten, when the man on the grand piano, and another on a concertina-y thing started playing and the show started. It was quite touristy, but still really good, with lots of singing, dancing, and some fabulous Tango outfits. Well worth the money, it was a very enjoyable evening, although I could have done without the audience participation in the final few songs! I got home at one, and quite tired, it was straight to bed, with the prospect of school again tomorrow.


Day 129: Catching up

After all the excitement of yesterday, I was up again at six this morning to finish my homework and go to class. Despite not having had too much sleep, I was feeling surprisingly awake, and was pleased to find that we had our old teacher back, so I could at least follow parts of the morning lessons. Afternoon class went well too, though I am getting jealous of everyone else disappearing off to do other things in the afternoon, particularly when my room mate appeared this afternoon laden with new tops. I´m glad I´m only doing this for two weeks, I feel like I´m fifteen again, always waiting for hometime! On the bright side, at least my spanish actually seem to be improving!

Although I survived the day, I was knackered when I got home and not having too much homework to do for once, I got it all finished in record time and caught up with some other work I´d meant to do before getting an early night.


Day 130: Fond farewells and shopping therapy

Well, it was a sad day today, since after my morning classes, it was time to say goodbye to Adrian (*dreamy sigh*). For some unknown reason, he´s taking holiday on Thursday and Friday, and so I´ll have a different teacher. Rubbish! Our afternoon class went well and again, I managed to do most of the talking, but four o´clock arrived all to soon and sadly it was time to say goodbye. All I managed was a ´muchas gracias´ and a ´hasta luego´, before fleeing the room like a teenager, and that was the end of that! (Yes I do still have a lovely boyfriend, but the odd crush here and there never hurt anyone. Sorry Nick, looking forward to seeing you on Sunday!)

Karen and Marianne decided I needed cheering up and so took me shopping this evening at the giant shopping mall that the Columbians had taken us to on the Sunday. My mission to buy skirts and underwear didn´t really go to plan and I came away with three tops, a load of chocolate, and a copy of Paulo Cohelo´s Alchemist in spanish. It was a really nice afternoon/evening though, particularly since the shops stayed open until ten, and we had chocolate and icecream for dinner. Hurrah!


Day 131: Testing times

I did actually have an exam today, and having not done any revision the night before, I got up early and started studying. For once, I don´t actually mind how I do in the exam, since I´m actually just trying to learn the lingo for practical reasons, but I thought I´d make a bit of an effort all the same.

Unfortunately, the ´exam´ took place in the computer room/cafe and so there were lots of people coming and going and Brazilians speaking in Portugese, which didn´t really help concentration, but I managed to answer all the questions, so it wasn´t so bad. It was then back to morning classes, with a sprint home at lunchtime to pick up my washing, drop it off at the laundrette, and get some cake for lunch, before heading to afternoon tuition with Guillermo, who was a nice lad, but he wasn´t Adrian.

Back at the flat, I had a little sleep, before doing my homework for the last time, picking up my laundry, and having a quiet night in.


Day 132: School´s out

I woke up feeling rubbish this morning, and so bunked off watching the morning film, another Argentinian production, though apparently better than the one we watched last week. I eventually got to school for eleven and my final group class. Although it had been quite challenging studying alongside the Brazilians, since they have very similar grammar in Portugese, we´d actually all got on alright towards the end, and it was quite sad saying goodbye after a fairly intensive couple of weeks together. I got my exam results (intermediate) and certificate, before going to say goodbye to the empanada man who had provided my bargain lunch most days for the last couple of weeks, and going to my last class with Guillermo.

Back at home, I had a little while to relax, before getting ready to go out and celebrate my last day of school (with Karen and Marianne again). Wearing one of my new tops, we walked down to the posh restaurants on Puerto Madero, where we had a lovely meal. Following a complementary drink on arrival, a shared bottle of wine, and some complementary glasses of champagne (which were offered to us when a waiter tipped a glass of white wine over Karen), I actually managed to get quite tipsy. I just don´t have the alcohol tolerance I used to. The food was great though, and somehow, despite having arrived at half-eight, we didn´t actually leave until gone two in the morning. You´d think that everything would be packing up at that time, but there were still people arriving and sitting down to eat. The Argentinians do like to stay up late! There was a bit of a party happening at the flat when we arrived back, as the dutch people from downstairs had reappeared and were intent on trashing the place as seems to be per usual at weekends. Fortunately I´d drunk enough to get straight off to sleep despite the thumping music.


Day 133: Moving back to pastures old

I had to get up early this morning to finish packing, ready to meet Gladys, the accomodation manager, at half nine. She turned up on time, and I was pleasantly surprised when she handed back the full amount of my deposit. Although I hadn´t actually done any damage to the flat, given the state that it´s often left in, I was anticipating a bit of a battle to get my money back.

Feeling a bit the worse for wear, I stayed horizontal on the sofa until I felt I could finally brave the world outside, and having said goodbye to the others, it wasn´t too far to walk back to Hostel Suites Obelisco, where I´d stayed when I first arrived in the city. My bed wasn´t ready when I got there and so I ditched my luggage and headed into town to do some essential chores like confirm flights, book bus tickets and do a bit of shopping. It was a bit of a mission walking to the bus station, and I was a bit surprised when I got there and found out that first class seats were in limited supply on the buses, and me and Nick wouldn´t be able to sit together on the journeys I was booking. I bought tickets in first class anyway, since these had fully reclining seats and so would probably be relatively comfortable. I´m sure if I ask really nicely I´ll find someone who´ll change seats so we can sit together.

Back in town, I finally managed to purchase a couple of skirts and some slightly rubbish underwear. All recognisable brands here cost a fortune (actually I´ve just realised they´re actually a similar price to in England), so I went for the Argentinian local stuff. Buying undies isn´t the most fun experience here either, since as soon as you show an interest in anything, shop assistants start pulling out bras and pants from draws all over the shop, and make such a mess that you feel obliged to buy something. With my bras falling apart at the hands of agressive washing machines around the world, I was quite desperate, and it´s quite nice to actually own something white, even if it won´t stay that way for very long!

I had the munchies today, and despite already having had a full-on pasta lunch, I had to stop twice for icecream. The icecream here is amazing! Back at the hostel, I checked Nick´s flight times, since he was due to leave England this afternoon, and it´s a good job I did, since it looks like his plane is due to arrive three hours earlier than I´d arranged to meet him at the airport! If he gets here on time, we might even be able to make the long awaited Boca Juniors vs Independiente football match tomorrow afternoon. I don´t know too much about Argentinian football, but it´s supposed to be a biggie.

A bit later, Marianne and Karen came round to the hostel for a couple of beers at the bar, before we head into town and went for coffee at a local cafe. With Karen leaving before I get back from my travels with Nick, we said our goodbyes before I headed back to the hostel for a night in a hot crowded dorm.


Day 134: Return of the boyfriend and an impromptu trip to the Bonbonera

Although we had arranged a pick up time from the airport of two, I was sure that I had Nick´s flight number right, and he was arriving at quarter-past eleven, and so with much anticipation, I took a long bus journey to the airport, went to the wrong terminal, found the right one, and then sat down to wait for him to arrive. Sure enough, at five-to-twelve, a tired, slightly bedraggled Nick entered arrivals. Although delighted to see Nick, after rather rushed greetings and with not much time, I knew I had to get my priorities straight and dragged him in the direction of the payphones to see if we could still get tickets for the Boca game. I rang the hostel and the lady on the desk said she would try and sort some out, but that we would need to be back in town for two o´clock. This wasn´t too much of a problem, since a taxi to the centre of town took half an hour, and we were soon having a quick empanada lunch before being picked up by a bus, for the trip to la boca.

The famous bombonera stadium was actually only a half hour drive from our hostel in the dangerous district of La Boca, renowned for its street violence and muggings of locals and tourists alike. Despite this, it somehow took us about two hours to get there and park up the bus, having done a tour of the various hostels, picking up other tourists, and then circled Boca a couple of times, with much umming and ahing about where the bus was going to be left and where we were actually going to get off. From the bus, we walked down the road a few blocks before joining the masses of Boca supporters in a giant queue to get into the stadium. Before we even got past security, the noise was deafening and the atmosphere absolutely awesome. Finally in the stadium, me and Nick escaped the group and stood at the back of one of the crammed viewing areas overlooking the pitch above one of the goals. In the stadium, there was much shouting, people climbing over fences and barbed wire to put up banners, and people clambering over one of another to reach the front. I think the folks in charge of the premiership would have had something to say had they seen it! We´d had no idea what time kick off actually was, and it actually turned out that we had an hour and a half to wait until finally the players arrived on the pitch (preceded by the scantily clad cheerleaders, because there really wasn´t enough testosterone in the stadium already).

The game finally started and the noise in the stadium became deafening to the tune of ´Dale Boca´. Independiente seemed to have the upper hand at the beginning and were one up midway through the first half thanks to an own goal. Following the sending off of a Boca player, I was a bit worried that someone in the crowd might try and shoot the referee, but the match continued, with Boca appearing to thrive as the underdog, upping their game, and all over the opposition with only ten players. Half time came and went, with noone moving for fear of losing their place in the stands. Several yellow cards, quite a lot of play-acting, and a little while into the second half, and Boca finally got one back, causing the crowd to go nuts. With renewed energy from the crowd and the players, the match was entertaining right up to the final whistle, although Boca unfortunately managed to miss an easy opportunity to score as the ball crossed the goal with the keeper nowhere near it. Otherwise, it was a great match, and definitely a once in a lifetime.

It took a bit more faffing before we were finally dropped off at our hostel, a good six hours after we left to go to the match! Nick, unsurprisingly, was absolutely shattered, and so after a takeaway pizza and a drink, we both got an early night.


Day 135: A leisurely tour round the city

Having spent over two weeks in the city, I felt that I´d seen most of the sights and so was quite happy to give Nick a guided tour. Taking things at a leisurely pace, we started off with a look around the inside of the cathedral, before crossing over into the main plaza and the Casa Rosa (the fab pink, government building), complete with the famous ´Evita balcony´. From here, it was a half hour walk down to San Telmo. Although the market wasn´t on, there were still some antiques shops open, and we stopped for a leisurely late lunch in Plaza Dorrego to watch a Tango show and drink beer in the sunshine.

In the heat of the afternoon, we wandered back to the hostel via Puerto Madero, where we stopped off to have a look at one of the museums on board on old Argentinian Naval boat in the harbour. After a much needed siesta, we got ready to go out to dinner at the nice steak restaurant that I had been to with a group of others the week before. We arrived there at about ten and managed to get the last table. Although the food and wine were still fantastic, it turned out that things were rather different going there accompanied by a man rather than a group of girls, and I was very much out of the picture, as the english-speaking waiter addressed Nick, rather than me, throughout the meal, disregarding almost anything I said whether it was in english or spanish. Even at the end of the night when I said thank you as we left, there followed only a ´thank you Sir´ from our waiter. Having been travelling on my own for so long, it was all quite annoying, and Nick wasn´t feeling too chuffed about it either. I guess that´s machismo culture at its worst.

---