Anyway. The hostel is, well, a hostel. I've got a room to myself, but it overlooks the road and double glazing isn't one of the options available it seems. Fortunately the buses in Buenos Aires run from about 5am until 2am, so I can follow their progress from the comfort of my own bed without even having to open the door to hear them go past. Blissful.
The bathroom is also a wetroom for the shower, and conveniently the light switch is just by the shower taps for added excitement in the mornings.
My first couple days were spent trying to orientate myself and find somewhere to have some food. I hadn't realised what a handicap it is not speaking the language - it's really alienating and makes even the simplest of tasks like having a coffee very intimidating. Over the course of the weekend I ate a McDonald's cheeseburger and a cheese sandwich from a supermarket.
I did manage to find a cafe and have a beer and watch some tangoists(?) on Saturday afternoon in the sunshine in a district called San Telmo. Sadly, Emilio Estevez was nowhere to be seen. And Buenos Aires has the widest street in the world apparently. I don't know if that's true, but I can vouch for the fact that it's very wide indeed.
I met up with Fiorella on Saturday and we had a good chat about Violetta. It's difficult to really resolve anything such as who we should tell Violetta I am or what the relationship will be in the future because Violetta's is so young and, for now at least, my life is pretty up in the air. But we agreed I'd take her to the park next Sunday and our chat was 'friendly' and 'mature', which I guess is all we can expect.
Sunday was off to the Boca v River derby at the Monumental stadium which looks just how I imagine English stadiums were before health and safety was invented. Everyone moved seats, stood up, smoked, jumped up and down and threw stuff about - and no one died. A very different experience to watching football at sterile Wembley.
Oh, and that guy in the black suit on the touchline is Diego Simeone, the manager of River Plate and a long-term footballing favourite of everyone in England. River lost and he was spat at and abused quite astonishingly as he left the pitch. Which was a shame. Puta means bastard and apparently he is one [I'm wrong about this, it seems he's actually a whore]. It seems his wife is sleeping with everyone in the city as well. Poor chap.
Monday was the start of lessons at the Spanish school, and while I was nervous about trying to learn a language after being catastrophically bad at them at school (though that might have had more to do with the fact Gabe and I preferred to wear our pants outside our trousers in French lessons than an inate lack of linguistic ability) so far they seem to have gone OK.
One of the girls at the school took us for a walk round the city centre to see a famous tango cafe and the president's palace where Eva Peron used to make her speeches. And presumably Galtieri.
Seems weird being here when only 20 years ago memories of the Falklands and this country's dodgy military governments would have made it impossible. It feels more like Paris in the spring than the other side of the world at the moment.
A couple of Spanish lessons have improved my confidence about interacting with the locals and I'm beginning to settle into a bit of a routine with school, which is probably a good thing until I get used to this whole travelling malarky.
I know this is all a bit trivial, but it helps me to write it down, because although I'm just typing in my room and noone is here, it is a form of conversation in my head and it feels like I'm 'talking' to someone at home at least.
Best do my homework now. Bugger.
