We arrived in San Telmo, Buenos Aires just after lunch on Monday, and we went straight to our language school, having nowhere to stay anyway. I went straight into my lessons while Lawrence had the job of sorting out our accommodation. It turned out great. We had previously arranged a home stay but the person we were staying with broke their leg a few days ago. So the school helped us find Susana, who lived in the same building as the school.

The building was amazing- about 100 years old with marble floors and stairways and one of those old wrought iron lifts. And our apartment was beautiful – high ceilings and parquet floors, lots of light and tastefully decorated. We had a balcony overlooking the street and everything we could possibly want.

The lessons were great, there were just three of us in my lessons and I learnt a lot, not just Spanish but a bit about Argentina as well. It was really good to have a structure to the day again, and to use my brain a bit more than usual. It felt productive, although having lessons 10-12 and 1-3 meant that the typical portenos' lifestyle of not eating 'til 10pm and going out 'til dawn was not realistic for us, even with our afternoon siestas! Maybe our brains were working too hard for a change. Our lessons lasted 2 weeks Monday to Friday, but we did manage to fit a few other things in too.

We went to Recoleta, a barrio of BA, and met an English girl called Cornelia on the bus on the way there. We went to the cemetery where Evita is buried, although people aren't really 'buried' as they are in massive mausoleums. Its weird seeing how much people pay to be remembered like this. It was a pretty impressive and interesting cemetery though. We wandered about and went to the Cultural Centre where we saw some excellent photos and art before catching the (very cool looking) bus back to San Telmo. Lawrence is also developing a worrying obsession with all the old cars out here, his favourite being the classic cortina, which by the way means 'curtain' in Spanish. Those lessons really coming in handy.

We also went briefly to an Argentine house party (we found out about this through some people at Cornelia's hostel) which was interesting but we felt a bit old... the main purpose of the party seemed to be smoking, drinking and pulling. As usual I was the first to start the dancing but we left pretty quickly, as it was 3am and way past our usual bedtime, plus we had to get up early the next day to get tickets for the football. So on Sunday we went to La Boca to queue for 45 minutes to get the tickets and afterwards we had a wander round the Caminito – where there are pretty coloured houses, cafes with tango outside and lots of 'art' for sale. It was pretty but also quite touristy and by now we have no extras money so nothing could really appeal to us except a bag of sugared nuts. La Boca itself is a working-class neighbourhood where it is possible to get mugged, and a friend of ours did, but in the day it was OK. It was totally worth the effort to get the tickets (which was actually hardly any effort at all). Boca Juniors were playing Argentinos, and I have never seen or heard anything like it. During the entire match the fans were singing (and very tunefully) and whole stands were jumping up and down in time. Boca won 3-0 and the atmosphere was great. It did take ages to get out – there were no seats in our stands and people were just packed in on the concrete rows. We were fairly high up on the middle stand, but the rivers of piss down the stairs went all the way to the bottom.

We met Grant and Yeumee again (who we met in Salvador, Brazil) on St Patrick's Day and heard their mugging stories (they'd both been mugged, separately, in BA) and had far too many drinks for when you have lessons the next day....We went home before them but we later found out that the police helped them home...and then pulled a girl from their hostel!

Susana, our 'landlady', was a legend. Not only did she take us out to a beautiful fish restaurant that we never could have afforded, but she also took us on a couple of tours in her car. We saw Puerto Madero, which is composed of lots of very expensive buildings and some parks; Avenida Corrientes which was full of theatres, bookshops, confiterias, pizzerias etc.; and the site of an old factory where many were tortured and killed during the 'Dirty War' of the military government. Around 30,000 people were 'disappeared' during this time, and now 24th March (my birthday) is a national holiday to remember this- Nunca Mas, which means never again. Somewhat ironically, we later saw a march for 'Justice Y Securidad', campaigning to bring back the death penalty and send young offenders to prison instead of a juvenile detention centre. We also had lots of dinners at home with Suzana and we took the opportunity of a real kitchen to have roast chicken. We met her sons, and had dinner with Emiliano who worked at HSBC but really wanted to be a photographer. Same s***, different country. One day she took us to Tigre, which is a favourite weekend destination for portenos. We went round the market and a picnic but didn't have time or money to go on a boat round the delta.

We met Cornelia and her friend one evening and went to a tango class (after having the best steak of my life) which was fun, especially as there were only 5 of us in total. However both of us was blaming the other for every mistake and we nearly came to blows. Still, we had a laugh and even came home after a few drinks and danced round Susana's living room, not knowing that she could see our silhouettes through her bedroom window!

The botanical gardens in Palermo were gorgeous, not only due to the plants and sculptures, but the many cats wandering about, and the general atmosphere of tranquillity and happiness amongst the people relaxing there. Then we went to our new favourite supermarket called 'Disco' and bought some disco biscuits ha ha. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking round Palermo, seeing lots of parks and the planetarium. We also saw a photography shoot, a protest about water pollution, some belly dancers and lots of people chilling out. It also seems very liberal compared to Asia, in fact often we didn´t know where to look as people were displaying their affection so very publicly.

One Sunday evening we went to Plaza Dorrega and watched lots of people dancing – lots of styles, lots of different ages and people. Previously we had also wandered round San Telmo looking at all the antiques and wishing we had money to ship all this stuff back to England. But on Monday we were due to leave and we were genuinely sad to leave Susana and our beautiful apartment.

However, we were also looking forward to meet Paul and Mariana, our next couchsurfing hosts. Unfortunately for Paul, and us, we spent most of Monday afternoon helping Lawrence buy a birthday present for me. But we had an excellent meal and they were interesting and intelligent people. We found out from them about the reason why change is so scarce (buses only accept coins and it is a daily problem trying to get change for the bus. Shopkeepers sometimes refuse to serve you unless you have the exact money. Coins are precious) – apparently the bus company stores them (it`s a mafia thing) and sells them back to the Chinese supermarkets, or something like that. In fact, it is almost an obsession amongst people to hang on to their change and hide what they may have. Paul was telling us about the time that he got frisked by a shop assistant who did not believe his plea of not having change. Having said this, when we first got on a bus with only a 2 peso note a woman gave us change. We did not realise at the time what a sacrifice this was!

My birthday was spent sunbathing and learning Spanish in a park (that's a first!) before a siesta and then on to an excellent Colombian restaurant. Then we went to a tango club which was in a brilliant old building. It all felt very authentic and Argentine although we spent perhaps 2 minutes on the dancefloor before deciding for the sake of our relationship to stop. Luckily a 4 piece saxophone band came on and then we just sat back and watched the professionals.

The following day we went to 'Disco' to buy our bus tickets (great to buy tickets in a supermarket) and went to a nice market to buy food. Over dinner we sat and chatted (like every night) about politics, Argentina, travels, and the world. Paul had cycled round parts of the Middle East and Africa, which makes our trip seem very lame in comparison! It was lovely to hear their stories and get more of a feel of Argentina.

So we headed off to Salta, in the northwest, but we were sorry to leave Buenos Aires. It has great food, architecture and people and it is somewhere I wouldn't mind living.

By the way we are now in Paraguay, after having been to some of Bolivia...that will be updated soon!