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After saying goodbye to the folks at Manchester airport, I once again began my journey into the unknown. I had never been south of the Equator before and had no idea what life in South America was going to be like.
My initial destination was Buenos Aires, flying with Iberia, via London and Madrid. The flight arrived into Buenos Aires Ezeiza International Airport at around 8am Buenos Aires time. I spent some time chatting to a French teaching assistant who was sitting next to me on the plane, which was good for my French, but didn´t help my Spanish, which I had hurriedly been revising on the plane. At passport control, I heard a couple of people speaking English behind me. One was Jane from up-north, and the other was Pablo, a wood sculpter from Spain. We decided to get a coach together into the city, where Pablo would continue onwards and Jane was to meet her friend at a hostel. Hostel Inn Tango City was one of the hostels I had shortlisted so shared a taxi there with her.
On arrival at my dorm room, there was already a guy in there, named Jesse from Alaska. After I freshened up, we went out for some lunch. Jesse had been to Buenos Aires earlier in his trip and had been there for some weeks this time around. His Spanish was good, as was his knowledge of the city. So, he suggested a nice place to have lunch and as we walked he told me some info about the city, which was very helpful. Even though I ordered what was essentially a ham and lettuce sandwich, it still came with steak inside the pitta bread, immediately upholding the reputation I had heard about Buenos Aires; steak is the staple diet of this city. My kind of city.
After Jesse left to go to his language class, I walked around the city by myself, getting to know it a bit. I met Jesse after his class and we sat outside at one of the many cafes, drinking some coffee and putting the world to rights. Buenos Aires does have a European feel to it, and I am under no illusion this is what South America is all about.
Getting back to the hostel, I met James, a guy from Sheffield and Dan, from Norway. We played a few games of pool, and met some more people. We arranged to go out that night to a club, which was good fun. It´s normal here for clubs to get busy around 2 or 3am, and people to go home around 6am, whch is what happened. So, after a long first day in Buenos Aires, I went to bed in my 6 bed dorm room.
At some point during my second night´s sleep, I was bitten on my foot whilst sleeping by an insect. I went to the pharmacist with Jesse who explained my condition. On showing the bite, which had now grown the a sizeable mass, the pharmacist got the guy from the back to have a look. I overheard him say either ´naranja´ or ´araña´, so I´m guessing I was either bitten by an orange or a spider.
I stayed at Tango City hostel until Sunday when I moved to my apartment, arranged by the language school. My time at the hostel was spent getting to know the city, practicing my limited Spanish and going out partying. One night, we went to a steak restaurant, which had possibly the largest waiter you´ll meet. He reminded me a bit of Andre the Giant, and although was very scary, he was actually a rather likeable chap once you got to know him.
At the same restaurant while eating my food, I glanced to my right and saw a guy at a table I was sure I recognised. The cogs in my head began turning as I tried to place him. Then, it hit me, I had met him on a booze cruise off the Nha-Trang coast in Vietnam. We´d had a good laugh whilst having a few beers, chatting about different bands. So, I went over to his table at an appropriate moment, tapped him on the shoulder and introduced myself. He had noticed me as well, as did his mate who I hadn´t seen initially. We found it funny to see each other again, so had a quick chat and spoke about a possible meet-up in Peru, perhaps Lima, as I may well be there at the same time. Small world, eh?
On Friday, we went out to Club Museo, which had a range of music, from salsa to 80s electronic pop. There was a Mexican girl in our group, Narjellina (I think that´s how you spell it!) who could dance salsa, so we danced for some time. The night was really good fun.
On Saturday, I went to the Boca Juniors vs Huelva Chicago game, which finished 2-0 Boca. Juan Roman Riquelme and Martin Palermo were the only two players I recognised, but the main spectacle was the fans, who continued to sing and jump right the way through the game! I mean non-stop. I could understand some of the things the Boca fans were shouting to the Chicago fans above us, but should not be repeated!!
When moving into my apartment on Sunday, I found my room mate was a Swedish girl called Gabrielle. We didn´t see too much of each other for the first few days as we were both at classes and doing other things. We walk to class together in the morning, setting off at 8:30 to make the 9am start.
The school arrange various activities for the people there, so Monday we went for a tour of La Boca, Tuesday we went for a meal and Wednesday was a salsa night. We went to a club that had an arrangement similar to home, so I went into the intermediate class, just in case advanced was too difficult! It was New York salsa, which is slightly different than Cuban, so although the class was fun, I enjoyed far more the time after class dancing how I knew. I got a number of compliments from various people! Including from the portenos of Buenos Aires, which was cool.
There´s a large Italian influence in Buenos Aires, and you can see it from their looks, and their gestures. It also makes for a very fashionable city, certainly a city for the beautiful people.
Tonight we go to the theatre to see an acrobatic show. I´ve heard good things about it, particularly from Tre, an American guy from the language school. We were able to practice our Spanish with some of the senoritas in the club last night, and I was told my Spanish was actually good! It´s when they speak back to me I have difficulty with. I usually reply, "Si, si..".
Update:
I didn´t get to see the acrobatics show last night as we were misinformed of the time the show started! I turned up at the usual meeting place but only one other guy turned up. We checked the internet for any messages and John, the other guy, had received one from the organiser saying the show had been moved forward a couple of hours, so by that time we had missed it. Also, the group email saying this hadn´t been sent to me! So, we had a look in some bars for them but after a while walking around the city centre, decided to head to San Telmo, where´s there´s always fun to be had.
So, after the taxi ride there, it wasn´t long before I spotted some guys I knew from my old hostel, who I´d randomly seen in the club the night before. So, John and I joined them in going to a tango music show. We got there near the end but the music was great and the beers were beginning to flow. After, we moved onto one the nearby plazas, heard some live music so checked it out. The place was packed and again, the music was good. It was a couple of guys singing mostly Argentinian cover songs but it was a good sound. After much drinking and chatting, we headed home about 4am. They were still playing at this point by the way!
So, today I decided to move out of my apartment and check back into my old hostel, Hostel Inn Tango City. As soon as I got in there, I saw Dan and Alex, the two guys I´d been drinking with the night before. Before coming to the internet cafe to do this update, I went for a nice fish dinner at a simple cafe, as it´s Good Friday. Turns out the hostel are having a fish and chips dinner night later tonight, so looks like it´s the same again for me!
Update (9th April):
Buenos Aires is a really cool city to be in, I´ve been practicing my Spanish some more and been going out a fair bit. Friday night we went to Sunset club in the Palermo area, which was really cool. I met a Dutch guy called Gijs, and we went with a few people from our hostel. There was an Austrian guy called Roman, some Dutch girls, some crazy Danish guys (one of whom is a big Liverpool fan - his attempt at a Scouse accent was pretty good!) and a Swiss girl called Faby. She was French-Swiss so we chatted a bit in English, French and Spanish, and we had a good night.
Saturday day was recovery time as we got in around 7 or 8am. Gijs and I went for a steak for dinner, then got a quick power nap before heading out with the hostel again to another club called Opera Bay at around 2am. It´s a big club in the Puerto Madero area of Buenos Aires, on the river front, and played plenty of different types of music. We were still quite drained from the night before, but had a laugh, chatting to a couple of Brazilian guys from our hostel dorm room.
Yesterday (Sunday), we went to see River Plate play Belgrano, it finished up 1-1, although the quality of football wasn´t great. It was a good stadium, but for the most part, the River fans lacked the passion I´d seen from the Boca fans, or indeed the Belgrano fans who seemed to be out-shouting them.
Today is the birthday of one of the English lads in the hostel, Dan, so we´ll be heading out for a few beers to celebrate tonight. I´m going to buy a ticket today for a flight to Santiago in Chile, for either tomorrow or Wednesday. I´ll need to move on quite quickly to go overland from Chile to Cusco by 3rd May. I´m going to go for a walk to the river front now and chill out in the parks, get a bit of a tan and read up on some Spanish.
Until next time...
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