Back to school

So I arrived back in Buenos Aires for a `super-intensive` week of learning the lingo. The school I had opted for was Ele Baires, mainly due to the good reviews I`d seen on a comparison website, and I wasn`t disappointed. The school was located on the third floor of a grand old building on the Avenida de Mayo in the heart of the city. And just a 20 minute walk from my hostel. Super-intensive meant four hours of groups classes in the morning followed by two hours of one-on-one tuition in the afternoon, and as tiring as it was, I enjoyed every minute of it. This was down partly to the Profesor and Profesora (Pablo and Soledad) and partly due to having great classmates in Duncan, Rena and Erin. I also have to admit, I enjoyed being `at school` again and having homework to do.

My first weekend back in Buenos Aires I hooked up with some fellow Brits in the hostel, Dave, Andy and Marianne and we went to El Monumental to see (the pride of Buenos Aires, we spit on Boca) River Plate take on and humiliate Arsenal de Sarandi (well, I say humiliate, they knicked a scrappy late goal to win 1-0). The atmosphere was fantastic, flags, banners, constant noise, bouncing and the funny hand waving thing they do over here, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The game itself wasn´t great, I´ll be honest, but there was a scrap at the end and two red cards so that was good.

On Thursday night I went out for a few drinks and a meal in Palermo (the posh neighbourhood with lots of fancy bars and restaurants, to the North of the city) with Duncan, Rena and Erin. I attempted to display some of the language skills I´d learnt that week by asking the waiter for another bottle of wine. It kind of summed up my progress when he came back with a basket of bread. A good night was had by all though which was evidenced by the fact that Erin ´slept through her alarm´ and missed class the following day.

At the weekend I took a train to Tigre, a suburb some 20-30km out of central Buenos Aires to meet up with BA resident Vanesa, who I had met a few weeks earlier in Rio, and her friend Miriam. Tigre is a pretty town on a river and we took a boat trip to an island where there are no roads or cars and everyone gets about by boat. The weather was fantastic too and it was a great day. Vanesa and Miriam were trying to improve their English and I was trying to improve my Spanish so we started with them speaking in English and me (trying to) speak in Spanish. It soon became apparent however that their English was far better than my Spanish and by the end of the day, we were pretty much just speaking English. After a mooch around the Puerto de Frutas (market) and some delicious sweets I got the train back to central Buenos Aires and met up with Erin and Eleanor (who was taking the intermediate class at Spanish school) for a really good Thai meal.

Sunday was spent wandering the market at San Telmo, having lunch with classmates and then going to La Boca for the afternoon. The plan was to go to the Boca game in the evening but unfortunately it was sold out so we had to give it a miss. Erin and I caught the bus back from La Boca which I thought was going to go back to San Telmo where we boarded it earlier in the day. In actual fact it kept going further and further away. Erin jumped ship when it got into Centro, relatively close to her place, but I stuck with it, expecting it would take a left at every block and loop back. It never did and I eventually cut my losses and got off in Palermo, miles away from my hostel. It was lucky actually, because I could have ended up anywhere really.

By the end of Tuesday I´d decided I was going to change my flight to Lima and stay on at school in BA for another week so Monday was the beginning of week 2. Surely by Friday I would be fluent?