Settling into a Buenos Aires life of leisure

Well it wasn´t too hard settling into the lifestyle during the first week here, because after a mammoth 46hr journey from Brisbane (via NZ, USA and Chile) my body clock was well and truly upside down and partying all night and sleeping all day was easy! Throw in a bout of the flu and some rainy weather and i hardly saw much daylight for the first week. But now i´m acclimatised, flu-less (for now) and in a somewhat normal routine of sleeping at night and keeping busy during the day. Come weekends it´s still astounding to me how late everyone eats dinner (you can´t get a table after 10pm), meets for drinks at friends´ houses (between 10 and 12), goes out (between 12 and 3) and comes home (anytime in the morning!!!), so it takes a while to adjust back during the week (thank god i´m not working a full time job - i don´t know how they do it here!).

I´m living in a great spot quite central to everything and best of all it´s a breeze to get to Uni via a short subway ride or a 20min walk downtown. Here is the street i live on - I´m right opposite this nice old church and school, and right next to a 24hr kiosk that sells great empanadas (tasty little pastry snacks filled with beef or chicken or ham/cheese or vegetables) and of course the 1L bottles of cervezas for about $AU1.50 ($AU1 at the supermarket!!). I´m living with Marcela who i met when i was here last time in a small 2brm apartment and have a few friends who live nearby as well.

Living on the cheap in the middle of a big city means you can´t have the best of everything though, so unfortunately this is the view from the tiny tiny balcony - at least there is some greenery courtesy of this massive palm tree that is somehow thriving amongst the peeling concrete.

I´ve had one week of the 8 week spanish course at the University of Buenos Aires - so far it´s been really basic stuff so i hope it picks up pace soon as i still can hardly understand a word of a standard conversation between Argentineans (although i can now say my name, age and where i come from!!). It is good that the teachers speak only in Spanish, and there is about 13 students from all over the world but i hope it gets more challenging soon. I guess I have to be patient and learn all the theory first I suppose...

The enrolment for the course was interesting, as paperwork/bureaucracy are not the south american´s specialty. It was enrolment day for the whole language department of the university - and with limited places on offer for all their courses (university education is free for native Argentines), it was extremely busy. After finding the building (it was the one with the line spilling out onto the road), I lined up for 1/2 hour only to be told to come back in 2 hours. Came back and finally found where to join the course (funnily enough even though it was a language department hardly anyone spoke English so I was using my Spanglish to varying effectiveness) - then joined it, lined up again to get a student number, then lined up to pay but had to find an ATM first to get the 832pesos in order to pay (cash only, no cards), as this was the only way to guarantee a place. Then with just one cashier accepting the money, the line to pay snaked its way all around the whole building - it was about 2 hours for that last line but i got it all done and am officially a student of la UBA.

Seems there´s always a lineup for anything here - at the supermarket, at the subway - yet nobody gets agitated at all. It´s like they can´t get enough of queues. It´s lucky i don´t have too many pressing engagements here because my patience wouldn´t last!!! Once I was standing on the edge of the road trying to work out where i was, and a queue starting forming behind me (admittedly i was at a bus stop)!!

Otherwise, i´ve had a couple of great asados (Argentinean bbq) where each cut of beef is simply superb (though i´ve refrained from eating anything that´s not a traditional cut, ie neck gland or blood sausage - the argies love to cook and eat the whole animal!!). Last night at a birthday party the host showed me his bbq where he had been roasting the beef since 4pm (it was 10pm) and there was literally half a cow on there - ribs and all!!! Come serving time you were given a rib about 40cm long that dangled over each end of your wooden chopping board plate. Tasted sensational! I´ve also been to see some local bands play at a bar not far from here, been backstage of Gran Hermano (Argentinean Big Brother) - Marcela is working a 2nd job as a psychologist on the show, and been to a few bars and saw some St Patrick´s day festivities in amongst the Irish pubs.

Since i have only 2 hrs a day of classes, I´ve bought an acoustic guitar and a football to keep myself busy and have plenty planned for my time outside class. Here are some snaps from around the town as i go about my daily stuff - I haven´t done too much "sightseeing" as I saw most of that stuff last time i was here.



Walking home from Uni I have to cross this avenue - the widest in the world at 140m - it takes about 3 changes of lights to make it across!




lucky there is about 3 median strips for pedestrians to stop at - here i´m about halfway across...














...and here i am on the other side looking back while traffic and pedestrians continue to fight.

Here´s a better view of Av 9 de Julio (named after their day of Independence) - I didn´t take this pic!! (I know i´m tall, but not that tall!)

Here is an example of the beauty and chaos of BsAs, just a few blocks from where i live - pedestrians, cyclists, cars and taxis all fight tooth and nail for their part of the asphalt often within inches of each other at top pace.



Another thing Argentineans love is a good monument in honor of some hero of a bygone era (there´s hundreds throughout the city). This one is sporting a fetching red bikini top.


All pics - click to enlarge.

Chau!