The 16 peso steak and chips / Obama's "Asunción" / Feria de Mataderos

These steaks cost 16 Pesos in a Sports Club in Palermo (the rich area of town). That's just over 3 pounds. Beautiful. And a great excuse to use the 'plate of food' setting on the Lumix:




Later that day Obama was crowned:





Feria de Mataderos is a festival held in the South East of Buenos Aires. There are stalls selling everything from Kiwi fruit jam to leather belts and maté paraphenalia, and for smaller people even a ride on a tiny horse. There is music and dancing till late and plenty of excellent food and drink - the fresh piccante empanadas are excellent.



A good man-on-horse statue, for a change not of the European military type. Not as overblown as the classic one of San Martin.









Jess was loving the llama. It looked less impressed.





Those empanadas:






A Shetland?!

The BA Feel

The European feel to Buenos Aires stems both from its population and its architecture. There are plenty of buildings like these around (most not so colourful) with a colonial flavour. These are mixed in with more modern apartments and shops, like this internet cafe which I used yesterday (not a great photo, but it's pretty typical).



To the east of the city, towards the Río de la Plata, is Puerto Madero, which is a kind of combo of London's Docklands and Dubai. Lots of construction of new towers, and a cleansed, commercial atmosphere. Overpriced restaurant chains are in abundance (e.g. Hooters), although it seems that (perhaps since the area is so safe at night) it's where the wealthy Porteños bring their families, and there are plenty of people pushing prams about and kids running around. There is a famous bridge across 'Dique No. 3', the Puente de la Mujer, which some say looks like a woman doing the Tango. Perhaps.

Buenos Aires bears its scars, for well or ill. In similar way to other cities that mark victims of unjust regimes, the streets of BA include memorials to those who disappeared or were killed by the government during the Guerra Sucia.




These plaques are reasonably common.

Florida Suites

Have now moved hostel to the 'Florida Suites' on Calle Florida, not far from where I was. It's a bit more expensive (50 pesos a night), but you don't get woken up by pumping music from the bar every 2 hours, and it's air conditioned (heavenly compared to an open window and a fan).

I'm here for a couple of nights then moving to Calle Piedras, towards the San Telmo area, and am going to stay with a woman called Graciela and her nephew Claudio. She doesn't speak a word of English, which is a stroke of luck, and is allegedly a good cook (she's guaranteed to be better than me - I gave myself mild food poisoning on Thursday after failing to cook sausages properly).

Finally, never eat Morcipan. It's disgusting.

Spanish school

So I´ve been going to Spanish lessons (Ibero Spanish School) for nearly a week now, and have my first test tomorrow. It´s all pretty simple at the moment (mostly going over stuff I had learnt by myself) but there are a few things that I occasionally trip up on, and pronunciation is still quite hard. For the first few days I kept lisping my Cs, and the J sound for LL is a little weird, but at least it´s all reasonably consistent, which is much more than we can say for English.

Today I went on a little trip with some of the others in the classes to a museum in Recoleta - here we are on a street with the 'Obelisco' in the background:

La Boca

Yesterday we (a Kiwi called Juan and I) ventured down to the area of Buenos Aires known as La Boca, most famous to the rest of the world as the home of Boca Juniors - the stadium is massive.



La Boca is also known for its colourful buildings. This has turned the main street, Caminito, into an important tourist spot. As we arrived we found a restaurant with a tango show on outside:








We had been told by locals and tourists that La Boca could be quite dangerous. Only a few streets away from Caminito we found ourselves in a really deprived area, and when Juan and I went to buy some meat from a butcher (it seemed like a good idea at the time), the proprietor had to rescue us from going down the wrong street when we went to leave. He told us that it was the wrong time of day (it was getting late), and that there were thieves and robbers out then. It seemed safe enough to us (it was still very light), but he was insistent and we left by another street.

Today I tried the local tea - Yerba-Mate. Quite nice, although nothing like tea in the UK. You have it from a gourd...

Recoleta Cemetery / San Telmo

Recoleta cemetery is the Père Lachaise of Buenos Aires. It's very crowded, and has little streets and passages between the tombs.



Evita is buried here:


Apparently her body was stolen when Peron was overthrown and only returned in 1971, after an extended stay in Milan courtesy of the Argentine military.

On the way to the cemetery we went through San Martin plaza - here is a photo of the famous 'Libertador', atop a horse:



Later in the day we headed south to San Telmo, where there is a famous street market on Sundays. There were old couples doing the tango, some guy enthusiatically painting rockstars (here Elvis) by throwing paint at big black canvases, and lots of other people dancing away.

Arrived

So, now arrived. The weather is fantastic - shorts and flip-flops are on. Costs so far: (in ARS$ - approx 5= 1 pound) $100 - taxi; $108 - 3 nights' accommodation; $100 - for 2 coffees, a chicken salad, various bandages for my elbow and a toothbrush. As yet no idea how much getting out the stitches will cost.

The hostel is pretty standard (Downtown BA Hostel - www.downtownbahostel.com). Friendly staff, more Brazilians than anyone else, but I suppose that's down to the time of year - most are leaving to go back home tonight. Beer is $12 for a litre - apparently you can only buy litre bottles in Buenos Aires, which is a bit odd(/excellent), but it makes for a more social drinking (everyone gets little cups and shares it round), and the local brew, Quilmes, isn't too bad.



The hostel is opposite the Argentine National Radio station. Good font.



Had a general walk around today. Amusingly there is a Harrods - now defunct.