Hola!

We are still in Buenos Aires and are starting to feel like this great city is home. We can now find our way around relatively easy and have tried nearly everything there is on offer; tango, football, steak (or three), clubbing, art and more.

Since my last blog I have made another trip to A and E (at 4am with Chloe as her throat infection had gone to her tongue piercing and was causing her tongue to swell), a trip to the police station, (to report Chloe´s purse stolen), spent a few days completely knocked out (by the infection we all have had), saved our appartment from major flooding (because an idiot a couple of floors above us left his tap on when he went away for a long weekend), spent two nights living by candle light (there was no electricity as a result of the flooding) and somehow managed to fall out of the bath (whist having a shower, ouch!) So, luck hasn´t exactly been on our side the last week or so!

On the brighter side. We moved into our own charming appartment with our OWN kitchen and our OWN bathroom and even our OWN tv (at least it was lovely until the water and power thing kind of made it less so!) It has been so nice (apart from you no what) to have been able to unpack our stuff and get a bit of peace and cook our own meals!

We have done lots in the past week or so. La Boca was nice but a little bit touristy. Max- you would have loved the Boca Juniors stadium (their shirts are, of course sponsored by Nike!) We went to see one of the main Tango shows called Tango Porteno which is quite Vegas like but good fun and the costumes and theatre were cool. We have been on some free walking tours of the city and a couple of galleries, one of which displayed a mixture of works all from Latin American artists which was really interesting. Our guide for the walk was the lively Macca who made fun out of Porteno life (only something that can be done if you are a Porteno yourself!) and amused us all when she declared her 3 reasons for despising the current Argentinian president, Cristina Kirchner- one being that her eyebrows are on the top of her head due to the considerable amount of cosmetic surgery she has had and her lips are far too big, second being that in the 7 years she has done the tours and walked past her official office, the president has only been there 4 times (which is indicated by a flag) and lastly that she doesn´t live inside the city but instead lives 45 minutes away in a large mansion which she flies to by helicopter. You can see where Macca´s coming from I guess!

We met up with Luz last Friday who is our friend from Bolivia- Sofia´s sister and went to a club called INK for supper and clubbing. She has also taken us to Hummer and tonight we are going to go out with her to a place called Club 69. A club famous for its transvestite shows (Chloe´s choice not mine!!) No it´s supposed to be cool so we are all happy to be going! Chloe has got the riding bug. She tried Polo for the first time last week and is now hooked! She also went on a days riding with some expats which she loved. She is trying to persuade me to ride when we get to the ranch next week in Uruguay. I am sure I will do it a bit there. We have also been shopping and walking around the parks in Palermo and today we went to see the mothers of the men who disappeared during the Dirty War march around the Plaza de Mayo. They walk around the square at 3.30pm every Thursday to keep their stories alive and keep pressure on the government to investigate further into the disappearances.

Katie leaves us this Sunday and Chloe and I get a boat to Montevideo, Uruguay early on Monday morning where we meet Chloe´s friend Helen who is travelling with us for a few weeks. I can´t wait to go to Iguassu Falls! First we are going to be staying on a ranch in Uruguay for a few days which also sounds great- very peaceful with electricity for only an hour a day! I have now got a USB reader for my camera but unfortunately the computers here are far too slow to load up that many at one time. I have added a few but they are still from our time in Bolivia. I think you will have to wait until I get back for the complete set!

Love to everyone and I will do another entry soon! Hope everyone is well.

One special mention. Cecilia- hope the birth of your baby (my little step brother!) goes really smoothly and I will try to get internet access as much as possible so I can hear the news! I hope it doesn´t happen when I am staying on the ranch next Thurs-Sat!

xxx