RTW: Exchange in Chile

Resting in Buenos Aires

..is just about impossible to do if you are there to see the sights, experience the culture, shop, eat well and party. And why wouldn't you be, as there is just so much of all that in the city, and to do it is all relatively cheap. Definately one of the greatest cities on Earth and a number one backpacker's choice forever. I'm joining the long list of travellers that can highly recommend Buenos Aires. Even if the weather is not that good, it kicks ass!

The city itself is big and even all the sights/places to go are thrown around the city so that they are hardly in walking distance. Luckily the taxis are dirt cheap there. :) There are some 13 million people, again depending on how you count, in Buenos Aires. The place has strong Italian influences, but overall it is a real melting pot of cultures and you can find almost anything you can imagine -or at the very least that is how it felt. Bic Mac index shows that a single burger is 7,50 pesos (1,9 euros) and a meal 10,50 pesos (2,7 euros).

At this point I would like to express my gratitude to the Germans to have eliminated Argentina. Thanks a lot, we missed a good party and I spent 11 euros on an Argentina shirt almost for nothing. "Saksa on paska maa." At least we got to see the game in the airport and drink several glasses of champagne on our first class flight to honour the German victory.

We met up with Simo upon arrival and to everyone's surprise this led us to a night out. After hard-core travelling just the thing to do is to stay out drinking and partying until morning, and in the Argentinian case that actually is the morning. We left a bit after 5AM thinking about the next day and seeing the sights, but the "locals" kept on going.. And still we were not able to get up to see everything we wanted. The rest of the time we decided to keep less on the party and more on the take-it-easy mode as we were already a little exhausted of the speed of travelling and with lots to see. Here are (in order): Plaza 25 de Mayo; the biggest street in the world, 9 de Julio; some buildings in the centre; me with local fallos symbol; and a U.S. copy-paste senate building.











I had tried my skating skills out with Johanna in El Calafate on a big frozen bay, and as faith would have it, we got to do it in a rather korny (and small) ice-skating rink in Buenos Aires as well. I was definately getting the hang of it, as this professional move demonstrates:



After some short negotiations we also decided to go on to take a tango lesson. I was a little intimidated by the couple swirling away in the sunday antique fair (first pic below), but we went anyway and it turned out to be loads of fun in the two-hour session of Tango Milonga. Simo, who got to change partner after every song (note: I chose to stick with the imported Finnish one, just so that none of you get any ideas..), got even more out of it as he was doing some moves on about everyone between 15 and 60 years of age. After tango we enjoyed a good dinner at a local Vietnamese restaurant to honour Philip's (Simo's roommate) last night in Buenos Aires (last pic).







Oh, and here's a career move:

posted by Kassu @ 2:55 PM