12 days in...

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Having successfully packed everything apart from headphones, I found myself in Heathrow ready to spend 120 days in South America. I strode out, slightly nervous but ready for adventure, and was then promptly told the plane was full and I was not going to fly. Still, with a good compensation package I was happy enough and returned the next evening.

There was a tricky first hour where my bankcard was cancelled and I was told to visit a UK Natwest branch to sort it out. I eventually managed to withdraw cash, only to find out later one of my banknotes was a fake. This was resolved later in the Citibank HQ in BA where I spoke loudly at people in english until I got a real note. Anyway, I got to the Millhouse Hostel in central BA eventually, exhilarated and ready to begin.

I signed up for a tour to the suburb of Palermo, which started imminently, so after ditching my stuff in the dorm upstairs, I set out with my camera, ready to see the city. Palermo is a beautiful part of Buenos Aires. There are a lot of parks, ponds and open gardens which are pleasant to walk around. It was reasonably mild despite being midwinter here, although there have been some cold days since.

The highlight of the day came with the beef tenderloin for dinner, perfectly medium rare, it was the most tender steak I have tasted almost melting in the mouth. Combined with a couple of cervezas, it made a good start to the evening before we moved on to drinks at the hostel and later to one of BAs clubs.

The other interesting area I visited in BA is the La Boca area. Escorted by a group of Brazilian chicas I met on the first night, we wandered around open air tango shows and the street craft markets, while I picked up bits of some useless hybrid spanish-portuguese. We went back to the neighbourhood where the apartment they were staying in was for dinner, before I headed back for school on Monday morning, ready to start learning real spanish.

I spent the week reasonably quietly learning spanish and then trying not go to bed too late. Despite being intense, the classes I have been doing have been a lot of fun. I am at the point where I can just about have a useful conversation with someone and its easy to practice with random people who all seem keen to talk to you. I was getting lunch today when an Argentinan started talking to me about the UK, and how his daughter is heading over in January.

On Friday night I went out with two other English guys from the hostel to Crobar. The standard time to leave to go out in BA is 2am and clubs kick you out around 7am. It is pretty impossible to do anything useful the day after going out and you typically find people trying to sleep off the night before, until up to about midnight when they get up for the next night! Its a pretty crazy lifestyle which apart from the two Fridays I have not got into, because of the spanish lessons.

The current plan is to stay in BA until Friday, and then head up north a bit to see the Iguazu waterfalls on the Brazilian border, and then making my way across to Mendoza and Chile.

Until next time x

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Comments

[Chrissie]

More updates please
You have been gone for almost a month now, so we need anther update here please xxx