Hola a todos!

Time for another update.

I´m getting the hang of how to live like a porteña (that´s how they call the inhibitants of Buenos Aires). It´s a very interesting city, however not very shocking on the matter of cultural differences.

I have done some sight seeing here and it´s an absolutely gorgeous place. I have a long while to go before I´ve covered the most interesting places but I have time, so no rush. The neighbourhoods, or barrios as the are called are very different and all have their own flair and places of interest. Mine is Palermo, which is one of the more beautiful and wealthy barrios. I´ve been told it was not always like that, but now it has beautiful streets, many really nice boutiques (have to hold myself back with shopping!!), loads of nice restaurants, bars and clubs and therefor also many tourists. It is one of the safer places, whereas for instance La Boca is one of the poorest and also most dangerous. During the day it´s fine to walk around, there are many tourists, you should just watch your bag because of many pickpockets. The barrio is known for the colourfull houses, however the only interesting part is also very overcrowded with tourist and the houses are overly colourfull just to attract people, so it might seem a bit fake. What annoyed me were the people in the restaurants trying to lure you in, just like they do in greece or turkey for instance. Other than that I did really like it, it´s a very lively place.

Recoletta is another very wealthy barrio, the highlight in there is the famous cemetary where Evita Perron is buried. It´s huge and has many many tombs with actual ´streets´ so you can get lost there for hours, being amazed by the enormous sculptures and decorations that are erupted around tombs of many famous people. Evita´s is actually quite boring compared to most of them. I still have to explore the barrio more, it has many nice museums and streets. Same goes for San Telmo, only visited the craft and antique market so far, so there´s lots to do!

Have to find some time in between my spanish classes, I go there every morning from 9 to 13 and in the 3 days that I went there I´ve already learned so much! So I might actually have a conversation with my doorman that´s more than just hi, how are you... I probably won´t do the full 5 weeks, right now I´m thinking of skipping the last week to go surfing in Uruguay before Catherine comes or go skydiving in Bariloche. Decisions decisions...

So I am well settled in here, met some awesome people, had the best steak EVER (and it was huge...) and am discovering new things every day. Way overspending, so I have to cut on the shopping and eating out, what a drag. As you can tell: a backpackers life is a hard one, especially with a gym like mine...

More pictures on facebook here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=362645&id=736800320&saved#/album.php?aid=362645&id=736800320&ref=mf

I´ve added new so you have to browse towards the last 34.

Hasta Luego!!