Buenos Aires!!

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Hey everyone!!!

Sorry i havent written a blog in such a long time..... the last month has been really hectic!! Although... every cloud has a silver lining and theres a good chance this blog wont be as long because i wont be able to remember everything i did! ;o)

Stayed at Palermo House hostel in BA which was really cool - some American friends ive met a few times along the way were staying there so i went to join them! The first 10 days there (before taking a break in Tigres and Uruguay) were spent doing lots of socialising and not very much sightseeing to be honest.... made so many great friends and went out quite a lot - in BA (and actually i think nearly everywhere in Argentina) people generally dont go for dinner until 11/12pm and dont go clubbing until at least 2am (when the clubs shut in England!) so that took a bit of getting used to! During the days we just wandered around the city, the markets and the massive parks here - rollerbladed, got a pedalo out on the lake etc! Everything felt like such hard work though because it was soooooooo hot and humid everyday - high 30s!! The hostel didnt have airconditioning or any fans up stairs in the lounge/kitchen/computer area so even at breakfast everyone was sat at the tables sweating... it was horrible and we never seemed to get used to it!

The US election was really exciting as there were quite a lot of Americans in our hostel all threatening never to go back to America if Obama didnt win! And all the non-Americans completely agreed with them! :o) I had also just finished reading Michael Moores "Dude wheres my country" book which was really interesting and realised i had really underestimated the mess Bush made so i was even more interested in the elections after that! We watched some of the polls coming through in the hostel and then went to a big bar/club where they were showing the results on a big screen! I was at the bar and had lost everyone else when they started counting down so i ran back over to where everyone was crowded together watching the big screen and watched the big "Obama is Americas next president" announcement and everyone went absolutely crazy - it was insane!! Everyone was jumping around screaming (I was too.... even though i didnt know a single person around me!) and spraying bottles of champagne! I somehow ended up in the middle of group who all had champagne and by the time i wandered around and found the others i was absolutely drenched in champagne and stunk! hehe! Then we watched the speeches, I had a rather heated discussion with someone who started booing and swearing at Mccain when he gave his speech which i though was so rude and disrespectful considering he was having to humbly congratulate Obama!

Id really wanted to do a Spanish course again in BA but all the lessons/schools i could find were twice the price i paid in Ecuador so i gave up! Brain, of the American guys, and I were thinking of going to the university and asking if anyone wanted to teach us Spanish and we would teach them English, however, i ended up meeting an Argentinean woman in a cafe who asked me if i knew where she could find English lessons! I told her i wanted to learn Spanish so we agreed to meet up and have lessons! We met up one day just before i went to Tigres and Uruguay which was good and did help a bit but i found it nearly impossible to understand her because she had such a strong accent and spoke so quickly! When i started speaking Spanish she told me i was pronouncing too many of the letters and i thought if you pronounced a few more letters in the words then maybe i would understand you!!!

I though about trying to find a room in a house, or an appartment for the time i spent in BA and Aubrey, an American girl in my room, was looking for one too so we started looking to move in somewhere together but then quickly realised that as we both wanted to go to Uruguay etc. and wouldnt be in BA the whole time that it wouldnt be worth it!

Aubrey and I went to Tigres and Uruguay together for a week (which ill do a seperate blog for!) before she headed off to Brazil and i came back to BA for another 10 days! I came back with a Scottish guy I had met in Uruguay who told me about a much cheaper Spanish school in the city center, so the next day i went along, took a test to establish my Spanish level and then started on the Monday for a week! I learnt lots and really enjoyed it..... and won the Spanish competition at the end of the week!! :o) I also recommended the school to other people so i got a discount! :o) The only down-side was that it sometimes took nearly an hour to get there.... nearly 2 hours one day because someone had comitted suicide on the tube and it was soooooooo hot! The tube was an absolute sauna - it was unbearable!

I think during the week the Spanish school was the only constructive thing i did.... the rest of the time was spent socialising and partying! An Irish guy, Willie, who id met in Uruguay came to stay at my hostel and is without a doubt the funniest, craziest person i have ever met in my life and despite us both promising ourselves we wouldnt go out during the week because of Spanish school (he joined up too!) we ended up going out until 7am every night! :o( We also had 2 lovely lovely English girls in my room and by the time they left 6 days later i felt like they were my best friends and id known them forever - you really do bond with people so quickly when youre travelling! We met lots of other lovely people in the hostel too so after a couple of days of being back in BA we quickly had another big friendship group which was really nice as i was a bit lonely when i first got back to BA because all the friends i had made had already gone and i didnt know anyone anymore!

The hardcore sightseeing began on the Friday evening (as i was leaving last Monday) and after my Spanish class I wandered around the city centre and Plaza de Mayo! On Saturday Willie and I went to the famous cementry (Cementerio de la Recoletta) where Argentinas elite are buried, including Evita!! Its absolutely amazing - huge statues everywhere and some of the tombs look like castles! Evitas grave is quite small in comparison! Then we wandered around the center and found the building/balcony where Evita sang Dont Cry for me Argentina, however, ive since found out that it was the wrong building - a local taxi driver obviously doesnt know much about BA! Quite annoyed as I really wanted to see it! However, i didnt manage to see one of the famous football games here as we couldnt get tickets so im definately going to come back to Argentina and do the south - Patagonia etc (see the glacier and the penguins! :o) ), see a football game in BA and find the right building where Evita sang!! That afternoon there was a huge thunderstorm and the roads were completely flooded on the way back to our hostel, we found some friends sheltering in a cafe, but needed to pick up our washing before it closed so we had to brave the rain! It was insane though.... at times we were wading in water up to our knees! Once we got back to the hostel we nearly decided against going to La Boca because of the rain but then decided we couldnt get any wetter so we might as well just brave it especially because it was Willies last day and although i could have gone on the Sunday i didnt want to go on my own! Its quite dangerous there and the 2 English girls got mugged there at gunpoint! :o( La Boca was really cool - lots of character and there are a couple of streets where all the houses are painted all the colours of the rainbow - it feels like a little toy town! We were going to try and find the stadium but it was getting late and was like a ghost town because of the rain so we decided to quit while we were ahead and get back to the hostel! The next day i went to teh famous San Telmo market with a few American guys, it was really fun - just wandered around, watched crazy artists painting to music on the streets, but unfortunately because i was with guys i didnt really get much of a chance to look or buy anything which is actually probably a good thing!!

I really really loved BA and was sad to leave although i really needed to get away from the partying scene.... its the kind of place you just cant stay to long for health reasons! ;o) I think its one of my favourite cities in South America although it feels quite European and apparantly most South Americans think the locals (portenos) are stuck up! I dont think they are but you can notice a big difference between Buenos Aires and other cities in South America - its obvious by how they are dressed that they have more money, they look more European (for once not just the tourists are blonde!!), there are lots of expensive boutiques, they lead better lifestyles and most of them can actually speak English which was quite a big shock! However, there are some very rough areas around BA and every now and again youll see something that makes you realise that not everyone has benefited from the citys renaissance! At night the cartoneros (garbage recyclers) appear everywhere!

The city is also a lot cleaner than most others and despite being a big city is actually really pretty... they are so many huge parks everywhere filled with professional dog-walkers (paseaperros) some of which walk over 15 dogs!!!! ... and they seem to have it all under control.. i dont even want to know what it would look like if i tried to walk more than 2 - think it would take weeks to detangle us all! :o) The city really is massive including the roads - its quite scary crossing a road with 10 lanes when your in the middle and the little green man starts flashing red and the cars start reving their engines.... and in South America noone, not even in BA, would slow down or stop for someone crossing the road!

Oh i nearly forgot... the famous steak!! :o) Absolutely amazing!! A couple of nights we bought our own meat and cooked steak in the hostel which was yummy and a couple of times we went to a famously good restaurant round the corner and ate the world.... literally had to roll ourselves back to the hostel afterwards! So needless to say ive gotten very squidgy round the ages since BA and its definately time for a diet/detox otherwise im going to need 2 seats on the place on NZ! ;o)

Im sure ive forgotten a millions things but this blog has already turned into another essay (again!!) despite my best efforts not to babble! :o(

Hope ur all great and look forward to hearing from you!! :o) Sorry but i cant put up any pictures because my camera battery is dead, charger lost and im on the hunt for a new one!! When i manage to charge my camera up then ill put up some photos!! :o)

Lots and lots of love xxxxxxxxx

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