so a few days passed since my last blog entry. somehow time passes so fast in Buenos Aires that it's very difficult for me to take the time to write about my journey.

I decided to describe more "the feeling" instead of describing my activities.

About Buenos Aires:
BA would have the potential to be a very beautiful city. Indeed, it is almost a beautiful city. Imagine if BA were a Tango dancer, it would be a woman, which on the first sight looks beautiful. However, if you take a closer look you notice that e.g. her nails are dirty. Her skirt is torn. Her teeth are yellowish. Her hair is frizzy and you smell her sweat. What I want to say is that although it could be a very beautiful city the "porteños" (people living in BA) don't care much about their city, throwing away their waste wherever they want and not taking up responsibility where it would be necessary.

Furthermore I got the feeling (and many porteños told me about that) that BA is a rather dangerous place. Of course there are disctricts ("barrios") which are safe (e.g. beautiful San Telmo, Puerto Madero, Parque Costanera del Sur, Microcentro...), but it is not advisable for a tourist to visit about 80% of the city. You can feel Argentina's difficult economic situation "in the air".

Despite all this, I'm everyday surprised how friendly, helpful and communicative people are in BA. It's amazing!

Even more amazing is the couchsurfer community. During the last few days I surfed the couch of Daniel, a marvellous guy (hanging around in Columbia at the moment). He organised my stay at his neighbour, Cristian from Peru, another magnificent guy with whom I practise my spanish, walk through the city, share my meal and talk about serious issues.
Not only that: I took part in a Couchsurfer Meeting where I met some really interesting people. Katie, a teacher in Bolivia from the USA (very energetic), Matthew, a student in BA from Minnesota (USA), Mikel, from the Basque
region currently working in the Argentine branch office of a Spanish enterprise and two other guys I don´t remember exactly.
Even better than that (there's always seem to be a superlative) was the TANGO LESSON organised by someone by the couchsurfing commuity (in one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever been)! Imagine: I, wearing outdoor gear (including my rough trekking shoes), in the middle of extremely elegant men and women who were dancing a breathtaking tango. I learned some basic steps and was stunned by the beauty of the moving dancers and the live (!) music of an orchestra.
Beside this I met one of the Tango couchsurfers by chance (a journalist from Brasil) with whom I decided to enjoy Argentine ice cream spontaneously together with Cristian. Should you ever come to Argentine: TRY DULCE DE LECHE of all kinds!!!!!!
Finally my last comment on couchsurfing: Today I got to my third host, Luciana. She lives in Porteño, one of the safest districts. Resembling the cartoon character Mafalda, she and her housemate Arda are funny, know a lot of languages and are generous vegetarians. We ate very good pasta in the evening and talked about food, languages and different cuisine.

Apart from discovering the City of Buenos Aires and meeting a "montón" (=many) of couchsurfers I also went to Tigre, a nearby holiday area located in the delta of Paraná. Although I expected to see more "natural nature". What I got was a bit of "natural nature" and more "artificial nature" with a great variety of houses built only a few metres away from the water. Given this I also encountered the typical mixture of restaurants, souvenir markets, amusement park and stressed out parents with their children as well as smooching lovers. Initially I wanted to go there accompanied by Katie, the couchsurfer, but she changed her plans a few hours before I started off to Tigre. So I ended up between the stressed out parents and smooching lovers and felt a touch of loneliness. I guess that will not be the last time that this happens to me since I'm travelling alone.

So this is it (whithout the details)

I hope to succeed in writing my blog more often.

Saludos from Buenos Aires!

Julia