Hola from Buenos Aires

Well, here I am in Buenos Aires. It's a gorgeous city, and the most European city we'll come across apparantly. We're heading out to Rosario next week, where Che Guevara was born. I guess things'll get a little more South American and less European the further we get from big cities. Which is a good thing - we didn't come here to be like home!

Our flight over was interesting...from Frankfurt myself and Alan were stuck in two seats with a baby either side of us. Fortunately, for the 12 hour journey, they were very good. Unfortunately, because they stuck little cot things onto the wall, we couldn't get out of our seats. So I went 10 hours without a wee! Not pleasant....

The other two low points were that the movie was 'Evan Almighty', which was almighty crap!! And also, there was an unscheduled stop at Sao Paulo airport on the way! Eeek! The shortest runway in the world, in what was the biggest plane any of us have ever been in! But it went Ok, and during the 1-hour stop over we moved up to business class and played around in their multi-functional chairs - experimenting with the lying down experience! Unfortunately, the flight was full, so we got kicked out when the rest of the passengers arrived!

The immigration procedure consisted of some guy commenting that I looked better now than in my passport photo, and he then stamped my passport for a 90 day stay. Happy days!! We found the bus service into town pretty easily, so it was good enough. The hostel is a fun place, and it's run by people who arrived here on in July on holidays, and the man who runs it asked them to stay on and run it for him. It's all very informal! We headed out to a famous cemetary this morning, where Eva Peron is buried, which was amazing looking. Huge streets of mausoleums (is that how you spell it?), with the most amazing statues and decorations. If you looked in the window of the 'houses', you could see coffins stacked one on top of the other, or else down in 'cellars', reached by winding stairs. Very weird! Yet strangely respectful....

Anyway, this is the trip so far. We're heading out to the country shortly to make our way up to Iguazu falls, and then back down the coast to Tierra del Fuego, so that should be exciting. I'm depressed by the level of my Spanish (bad), but I'm gonna work hard. My aim is to have excellent Spanish by the end of this eight months!

It's a goal! You've got to have a goal in life....