Puerto Madero con los companeros de piso, The Argentina Independent, Pidgeon of the Night and Ah Dios Mio...The Wax Budda!

The calm before the storm. Perfect metaphor. With all the insane upheavals, crazy changes and loco happenings in the past two weeks, the weekend just gone was lovely and calm and I am starting to really feel at home here with Ale and Pablo, my lovely Argentine flatmates. On Sunday, it was their day off and so we all went for a lovely brisk walk down through San Telmo to Puerto Madero, which is the newest of the barrios in Buenos Aires. It is similar to the London Docklands in its modern architecture, but in true Buenos Aires fashion, this neighbourhood was no exception to the rule here that the barrios keep the best of their European counterparts and get rid of the crap. For example, as aforementioned, San Telmo is like Paris without the Parisians. Puerto Madero is like Canary Wharf but without the filthy bankers and stock brokers selling their souls to the capitalist machine.

Puerto Madero

Puerto Madero is built on fake land and the government has also created an ecological reserve, where you can see all these brightly coloured birds flying over the marshland, hunting for their prey. Puerto Madero is full of great restaurants and riverside apartments as this is where Buenos Aires greets the Rio de la Plata, which flows into the South Atlantic. Across the River Plate by about an hour is Colonia, a beautiful town in Uruguay, which I'd like to visit soon. Three hours across the river is the Uruguayan capital Montevideo, which is meant to be a brilliant trip to do - as some of you may be aware, after ninety days of being in Argentina, my tourist visa shall be  null and void and I will quickly drift into the status of illegal immigrant that many of you have coined for me over the years. This will be solved by a quick journey to Uruguay. I imagine it to be a similar journey to Calais, France. But Calais is in France. Obviously Montevideo is a lot cooler.

Yo en Puerto Madero

Anyway...more about Puerto Madero. Across the bridge and away from the port that takes you to Uruguay, there is a lovely green space and the expensive, chic cafes and restaurants fade into something more Argentine. Asado stalls with cumbia flowing from speakers along the boarders of the nature reserve. Asado is amazing. I love it. It's basically BBQ, but it does warrant its own name and shouldn't be translated as such because this is meat cooked in quantities far more massive and to a better standard than can ever be sampled in Britain. I mean, let's be honest, and the Notts people will know what I mean when I mention this, do you really enjoy that burger you eat outside Rock City at 3am? I remember one such incident with one of those burgers that caused a lovely young man to vomit.You need to be drunk to buy from those kind of places. And drunker to not know what you're eating to prevent the CHUNDER.
Here in Argentina though, food from the stalls is absolutely amazing. I had Choripan, which (obviously for the linguists) is Chorizo in bread (pan) and my housemates had these huge steak sandwiches. Que rico!

Pablo and Alejandra, My flatmates :) 

Trust me to spend so much time talking about food. Needless to say I am going to return to Britain in February as a ball of fat. But it's okay. Fat people are happier.

Sunday night, I met two of the girls on the internship, Rachael and Sarah. Rachael has just graduated from UCL in anthropology and has spent 6 weeks brushing up on her Spanish in Guatemala, which sounds absolutely amazing - she really has got some interesting stories to tell. Sarah also went to Nottingham so was instantly a winner in my books. She's got a very infectious sense of humour, studied English and graduated in 2008. Since graduation she has done some Journalistic training in London and travelled to South America and so her Spanish is pretty awesome. We consumed two bottles of red wine and got to know each other a bit better which was lovely until the waiter had to ask us to leave as they were closing the bar. I promise we aren't disruptive drunks. I pray that my boss hasn't stumbled across this blog....

The following day at midday, I started work! All the interns met outside the office on Calle Chile like a united force before braving the fear of meeting our boss. Before meeting Kristie (my boss) I met Roz, who is a lovely girl from Illinois who has moved to BA permanently to be with her boyfriend who is Argentine and Helen who studied Literature and International Relations at Sussex and is in BA getting some journalistic experience.

We all made our way upstairs to this amazing space which is the home of The Argentina Independent and met Kristie who immediately made us feel at home and introduced us to some members of the permanent team that we'll be working with. The office is amazing - think barn conversion in the space of a flat. It has these amazing stained glass windows and beautiful balconies that let in so much light. It's a great work space. Kristie told us a lot more about the paper and how it works and what we are going to be doing the next few weeks. Over the first week, we're going to be learning more about Argentine politics, including the Military Dictatorship from 1976-83, under which many leftist activists, trade unionists and students were disappeared by the government, the economic crisis of 2001-2, when the Argentine markets collapsed and more current politics such as the current president, Kirchner who is waging war with newspapers Clarin and La Nacion at the moment. It's all very interesting!
The second week, Kristie explained is going to be spent training us in writing styles, getting used to the style guide of the newspaper and learning how to research effectively for new stories. She also told us about the opportunities of travel that we have - the newspaper has a calender of all these different festivals and fiestas across South America that need reviewing. From Oktoberfests in Salta to Gypsy fiestas in Neuquen, there is alot to sink our teeth into. Also, Apparently the newspaper belongs to a network of radio stations that transmit local, first hand news reports to each other. The newspaper offers its translation services to the network for the ability to use the information that the network transmits for its own coverage. So, once a week, I'll be doing a lot of translation practice, which is absolutely perfect for me in terms of getting some Spanish practice.

Plaza Dorrego in San Telmo

After our first meeting, the other interns and I went to Plaza Dorrego for some lunch. And I was the only one who really ended up eating. Bad times. And the fat boy comes out. After eating, drinking, chatting, being attacked by a swarm of pidgeons, we agreed to meet later for some dinner.

Hannah and I went to meet Sarah and Rachael in Palermo and we ate in Plaza Serrano and then went onto have desert and a bottle of vino in this Mexican Restaurant. Much fun was had, including Sarah asking me to wait a second because she wanted to buy a wax budda. Alas the shop was closed. They sell some crazy crap out here.

Today I ventured to Calle Florida to go and buy myself a dictaphone for my interviews after Sarah and Rachael both swore by them. Note to self. Google translate is the devil. I know I have Spanish to degree level but I didn't know the word for dictaphone. I went with 'dictafono' after using google translate and thought linguistically that this made sense. But no. Want to know the word for dictaphone in Spanish? Grabador Periodista. Which translates loosely back to English as Journalist's recorder. I mean COME ON! Why say it in two words when you can say it one? Difficult Argentines.

 I am destined to fail. I feel that my first article will be about obviously the lack of shower caps in Buenos Aires as mentioned previously. The second will be on a gringo's failings of Argentine Spanish. Rivetting reading.

If any of you want to keep up with the paper, the website is http://www.argentinaindependent.com/

Bueno chicos, nos vemos!

xxx

Si tuviera el corazon, el mismo que perdi, Cafe with the greats, Adios a Milhouse and Hello a la Vida

This week has been quite something. It has been the first time since arriving in Argentina that I have really felt like I wanted to go home. That makes it sound like I'm not loving my time here, but that's not what I mean. I have a heart divided with everything I've left behind and everything I have left to discover. I feel completely uprooted. And I have had my first moment where I wanted to make like a tree and leaf. But, I knew these feelings would come as soon as the initial sparkle of being in Buenos Aires wore off. I'm keeping positive and still enjoying every opportunity that is open to me here, of which there have been many this week, but this has stopped being   a euphoric dream and now Buenos Aires is my reality.

I left you all last a little shaken, definitely not stirred, after a boy in my hostel was mugged. Regardless of Buenos Aires showing its rugged teeth, my friends and I decided that we wouldn't let it bother us and the following night we set off to see a Tango show on 9 de Julio. It was breathtaking. For anyone interested in dance, theatre, modes of expression, music and passion, it is an absolute Argentine must if you are ever here. There were two options at our hostel, one for AR$180 which included a meal and unlimited drinks or another for AR$100, which was just the show. We decided to go for the AR$100 after hearing that the other wasn't as good or authentic and went for this amazing meal on 9 de Julio beforehand. It was pretty hilarious as the waiter was about as dim as a dead Christmas tree light. He kept bringing us mountains of bread and when we asked for beer, he didn't quite understand what we wanted. Bare in mind that out of the six of us, four of us spoke pretty decent Spanish. I am now doubting whether he was actually Argentine. As my friend Claudia put it, it was like getting blood out of a stone. Anyway, after having a lovely meal, we headed over to the tango show, which as I said before, was breathtaking.

Tango Show on 9 de Julio

Different couples got up and danced around the stage with such force, it really was amazing. There was a live band with accordions, violins, violas and cellos and a grand piano - the music was incredible as each couple got up and did a variety of sequences that shamed our new-found knowledge at the tango lesson. I thought it might be a bit monotonous with so many couples, but no dance was the same with different steps and it was all broken up by ballads, the band going alone, solo dancers (including one woman who got up and danced with a coat) - the whole thing was just incredible. Below I'm posting a link of one of the songs that I loved from the show, which was actually sung by a woman in the show. I could only find it sung by a man though on the net. It is still just as a beautiful and this site provides you all with a translation.

http://www.planet-tango.com/lyrics/uno.htm

After the tango show we went to another famous Milhouse party and then hopped across the road to a small club called Severino, which played all of these old favourites from the 80s - it was a completely different experience from Crobar.

Next to me, Leslie, opposite, Claudia and diagonally, Sven. Eating amazing Pizza on Avenida Corrientes.

During the week, I got very close to Sven, Claudia and Leslie and we did a lot of trips out of the hostel. We ate some amazing meals, including these mammoth pizzas on Avenida Corrientes - the food here is truly brilliant. We all got on so well and it was so sad to see them all leave one by one. However, I am so thankful for the whole hostel experience as I have made some amazing friends from all corners of the globe. Sven, Leslie, Claudia....get ready! I could show up in Germany, the USA or High Wycombe at any point!

Cafe Tortoni

Another amazing thing we did was go to Cafe Tortoni. Frequented by so many famous people from all over the world, including Frederico Garcia Lorca, Albert Einstein and Hillary Clinton, it is something of an Argentine institution and cafe culture here is so intrinsic to the Porteno experience that I think if you actually cut an Argentine, they might bleed caffeine. However, other than Sven, we all opted for the Submarino, a cup of hot milk that you drop a submarine shaped chocolate bar into to make the sweetest, warmest and yummiest drink in the world. As I said at the time to Claudia, it tastes like childhood. In the least disgusting way possible. I am not a paedophile. Claudia then went onto to say that it would be the perfect drink for Christmas Eve back home. Probably a better way of describing it.

Yours truly in Cafe Tortoni

On Wednesday, Claudia, Sven and Leslie took themselves off to Palermo and MALBA (Modern Art Museum), while I tied up the loose ends for moving into my new place. The stress of moving into a new place before my internship starts was becoming a massive weight on my shoulders and even now I am not completely free of the awkwardness of being in some random flat in San Telmo, Buenos Aires. Ideally, I wanted to live with other students, Spanish speakers with no one in the flat that could speak English, just so that I could fully immerse myself in the culture and language and improve my Spanish. Some of the houses I saw were a joke. One that I saw didn't have any furniture in the room, I'd be renting - not even a bed...oh but it did have a skateboard, the cornerstone of any comfortable casa! Another I saw, didn't have a roof. No joke. This crazy guy wanted like AR$1300 (roughly £200) a month for a place that was more outside than it was inside. One word. Allow.

Eventually, I met Pablo and his girlfriend Alejandra or Ale for short who own a lovely flat on the fringes of San Telmo, a stone's throw from where I'm working on Calle Chile for the newspaper. They're both in their late twenties; he is a software developer and she is a fashion designer. The flat is lovely and I have my own room and it is by far the nicest place I saw. However, they work a lot and are rarely in the flat, which isn't amazing for my Spanish, which has made me think twice about living here. I'm not going to lie, Hannah and I did concoct a plan of how I could get out of here sharpish and find somewhere else to stay if I don't feel comfortable within the next couple of weeks. Well, I say Hannah had some complicity, but really she just listened to my make-shift plans of desertion.

This whole experience has taught me a lot though. About compromise and about putting in is what you get out. It has also made me realise that no year abroad experience is the same for any of us. That living with Spanish speakers that are here 24/7 is not necessarily the only way to get my Spanish to a good level. That I need to be patient and that my Spanish will grow organically from being in this amazing city. That an opportunity like this is only what you decide to do with it.

I start work on Monday! So I am hoping that things will be different then, and that I will be able to immerse myself fully in the language. I have decided also to look into doing something else other than just my internship, perhaps volunteer with a local charity or school or something to make the most of my time out here, meet new people and saturate my brain with Spanish. Time will tell.

I miss you all so much, please drop me a facebook post, skype me, send me a carrier pidgeon with your updates of life back at home.

Hasta prontito chicos xxxx