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The weather started to cool down quite dramatically at the weekend and it was chilly but sunny when we walked down to the Museo des Belles Artes which has a range of stuff from Pre-Columbian pottery through Argentinian artists we didn't know to Manet and Picasso. There was also a rather strange exhibition from South Korea. After lunch in a very unIrish, Irish bar, we had a look round a craft market before heading back home to warm up.
Saturday evening we had been invited to Gabi's house a couple of miles away for a traditional Argentinian carbonada which is a bit like a stew. Gabi had another couchsurfing person staying with her - a Russian girl called Sonia who is a journalist. There were also a number of other friends and more kept appearing until there were 12 or so of us. The food was excellent (except for rice pudding - H's favourite but I hate it!) and company interesting although we struggled a little with the Spanish (OK, actually quite a lot - the Argentinian accent is very different to what we're used to and they speak very fast) but most people spoke some English. Sonia was very
interesting and told us a lot about her view of Russia - she has very strong opinions which seem pretty idealistic based on the current position that Russia is in but she argues her points well.
As ever in Argentina dinner was served pretty late and we didn't get in a cab to go home until around 2.30am. Sonia was getting a bus at 6.30am the next morning to go to Rosario, a town about 4 hours from here which was where Argentinian independence was declared. The Sunday was 25 May - the day that the revolution first entered the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, effectively the start of independence though it wasn't officially signed until 9 July. It's usually a national holiday though being a Sunday was not so different and there was going to be a huge gathering of demonstrating farmers in Rosario. They are protesting about increased export tariffs that the government has imposed and this has been going on for a few months now with no obvious end in sight. They are currently blocking exports of grain which is costing the country dearly as it is a major source of income. Sonia is hoping
to write about this and other important local issues as she says that they get little news from the region in Russia.
After such a late night, Sunday was very slow but eventually we got up and headed down to San Telmo, the area which is supposed to be traditionally old Buenos Aires with lots of tango bars and slighty dilapidated buildings. It's now quite touristy with a large market and people dancing tango in the street but it's quite fun all the same. We bumped into a couple of British girls who are at the Spanish school who were a bit worked up because the apartment they had been living in had been broken into the day before. They were not there but someone else was held at gunpoint, tied up and left in the bath. They had had cameras and debit cards stolen along with a few other bits and pieces. We were surprised as Buenos Aires feels very safe to us compared with many other places we have been but I guess there can be problems anywhere.
We finished the day off with a very late lunch at a recommended steak restaurant which turned out
to be very busy but not quite as good as I'd hoped although H enjoyed another piece of cow. We were exhausted by the time we got home and just managed to watch a DVD of an Argentinian film about corruption in the police (light hearted then!) before bed.
Monday morning I started Spanish lessons in a group with 2 others who have been studying the school for a while. They have quite strong Argentinian accents which I find quite difficult and were already part way through the subjunctive so I was really thrown in at the deep end. Hugh also had another week of classes:
H:
At the end of last week I had talked with the school about changing classes, but they had said they didn't have a group class at the right level, but to check with them again Monday morning. I forgot to check with them as we were preoccupied with Sarah starting classes at the school, and was sitting in my group class when my teacher Dafne asked "Didn't you want to change classes?". It turned out they'd arranged one to one classes for me to get me quickly up to the
next level. It was 3 hours a day rather than 4 but I've learnt much more in this time than in 4 hours of group lessons and it also gave us the opportunity to side track from the main syllabus into other areas that I hadn't properly understood previously or had simply forgotten. Next week I think I'm back into group lessons to spend the next 2 weeks learning the Present Subjunctive (Sarah's favourite!).
Back to S:
The week went reasonably well although I found one of the other students rather irritating - a bit like sharing a class with a sulky teenager who at times spent half the lesson with his head on the desk. Still, I think I learnt quite a lot and it was good to be forced to use more complicated stuff.
We also did some more volunteering, including a very cold afternoon in the back yard at one of the comedors with a big group of kids all wanting attention. Unfortunately one of the other volunteers I had got to know the previous week had changed her plans and was leaving BA at the weekend. That's one of the hard things about
travelling - just when you start making new friends one or the other of you has to leave.....there are far too many goodbyes for my liking.
On Monday night we went to a nearby slightly alternative theatre for a show called La Bomba de Tiempo. We were amazed to see a huge queue not long after 7pm and there was a big crowd inside for what is essentially a gig by two large drumming groups. The rhythm was really infectious and everybody was dancing - a great party for a Monday night and, weirdly for BA, over by 10pm so I could still be tucked up in bed at a reasonable hour.
By Friday we were both pretty exhausted and I was coming down with a cold so we settled down with a bottle of red and dinner while BA partied around us.....
Hope you've all been partying now that summer's arrived....(or has it?)
Lots of love
S + H xx
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