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Published: February 22nd 2011
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With having to spend an extra week in Buenos Aires waiting for my passport and for a package from the UK, I had the bright idea of enrolling us in a Spanish crash course. So Monday morning came, we packed up a bag and headed off to school. We signed up for a 5 day course, with 4 hours of private lessons each day which would teach us the basics of Spanish and vital phrases needed for travelling. Great in theory, a bit different in practise…so we realised.
We quickly worked out that our teacher, the eccentric Ms Maria, actually couldn’t speak much English herself and therefore her lessons were entirely in Spanish. Talk about throwing you in the deep end! I had flashbacks to my attempts at learning Italian in first year uni, and I think Zack almost had a heart attack. We scraped our way through the first two days, taking in as much information as possible but for the majority of it being quite overwhelmed. By the third day our verbal skills were improving and once Maria and Zack found a shared love for music and movies, the conversation was on for young and old! We even
got a laugh out of her a every now and then. At the end of the week, she assured us that we were “muy bien” (very good) and promised she wasn’t lying. Only time will tell how much info we actually retained but at least now we can actually tell what we are ordering on a menu.
So aside from school, this week also brought with it an awesome visit from one of my friends from Australia, the wonderful Miss Fransecsa Trott (aka Cesca)! She has been in Peru for the last 3 months running a volunteer program and was in BA for a well earned break before heading home. We also randomly ran into a very cool Irish girl who we had met back in Brazil and so the four of us teamed up for a night out. It was Valentines Day and Zack was heading to a local percussion show with 3 girls on his arm… lucky bastard! We celebrated Cesca’s new found freedom with a few ‘litre beers’ and made our best attempts of shaking it like the locals. The actual percussion show is a regular Monday night extravagant for tourists and locals alike, and was
entertaining to say the least. Afterwards we followed the crowds to a local club and unofficial after party where the musicians really let loose.
Over the next few nights Zack and I decided we had to share the “best steak house ever” with Cesca and Mary so we took them to La Cabrera to spread the steak and wine love. Once again, after dosing up on free champagne, we had probably the most amazing meal ever (even better than last visit…mainly due to the company), and had to be kicked out of the restaurant at 2am when it closed. Let’s just say we struggled even more in Spanish classes the next day thanks to the ‘vino tinto’.
As the week progressed, finally things started to fall into place for Zack and I. Our package arrived from the UK with a new camera and Zack’s credit cards, I was issued with a brand spanking new passport, we sorted out our insurance, and after a mammoth 4 hour fight between an airline and a travel agency, managed to get a promised a refund for the flight we had to cancel, and re-book a new one out of BA! Success! But
before we left there was one last thing we had to experience (well I made Zack experience)….tango! Now our hostel was charging a ridiculous 250 peso (about $60 US) for a tango show and we had put off going as couldn’t justify the money, and luckily we did as on our last night in BA, the city council coincidently decided to put on a 2 hour, open air, tango extravaganza…completely for free! Amazing! Tango was born in Argentina, however back in the day, mainstream Argentinean society saw it as a dance of the slaves and a representation of the poor, so they didn’t support it. Women were not allowed to partake as it was considered “too sexy” and made them look like prostitutes. However once the dance was taken to Paris and the French absolutely loved it, Argentina decided that it was not so bad after all and have entwined it as a big part of their culture ever since.
So after a fun-filled week, we farewelled Cesca (see you in KI hun) and spent our last day in Buenos Aires preparing for the next leg of our journey….a trip down the very South to Patagonia, a world class
trekking destination.
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