A purple couch next to a fake green brick fireplace has been our home for almost a week now. The Limehouse hostel feels almost like our own place: Victoria can walk (from the couch to the bedroom) in her underwear and I don't have to make a secret of taking maps to the toilet to read. The only drawback is that the cosy-funky attitude has caused much of the city to remain unexplored so far.

Our first real glimpse into BsAs life was our Tango lesson. Rule Number One is that the man ALWAYS leads...having Miss Barnes as my partner meant that Rule Number One was soon broken; my inability to glide like a summer's breeze over a baby's arse meant that Victoria's toenail was also soon broken. I kept the nail in my pocket just in case somebody found it and tried to sell it on Ebay. We did manage to get something coherent together resembling stumbling home drunk and WWF wrestling. Later that eveningwe bumped into a few guys from the hostel (we'd been bumping into people all night). Mark, Irish lady, Nick and Derrick (who loved to Tango more than breathing) were heading to a Tango dinner and show and invited us to join them. As if that wasn't enough culture for one night, after dinner we found ourselves in a cab with Mark and Irish Lady on our way to a 'milonga' - for which they both had special Tango shoes. In pink flip flops and a pair of Adidas with llama droppings still in the treads, we attempted to dance in what can only be described as a community centre filled with some of the biggest lovers of Tango in Argentina. It was all taken very seriously and alcohol was not available so we couldn't even pretend that our efforts were world beating. After 5 minutes we danced towards the door to make our escape.

The next day we tried unsucessfully to find the Federal Police Museum - should've asked a friendly policeman come to think of it - which was a shame as we were really looking forward to the antique truncheon gallery. Instead we decided to lie down in a park in Retiro next to the Falklands memorial and consider the fact that the Argentinian flag is the nicest in the world. I'd like a pair of pants like it.

On Thursday we booked oursleves on a poorly organised afternoon city tour, the highlight of which was a trip around the Bombonera - Boca Juniors Stadium - and the area of La Boca with it's colouful houses and curious statues of Evita, Maradona and Ken Barlow from Corrie.

BsAs is a fantastic place; busy and full of life without being angry or overwhelming. The only real disappointment so far is that we actually thought the Museum of Ham next door was a museum of all things pink and meaty...turns out it's a restaurant.

We'll look around more and get some photos up before we leave.

Got to go and find out how much it costs to ship a purple sofa back to England!!

Ciao!

Victoria and Tom xxx (minus one big toenail)