Roughly translated as the City of Good Airs by its founding forefathers, Buenos Aires is certainly a good place. For food, wine, things to do and people to meet. But after leaving Sydney at 10h30 on a Wednesday and arriving in Buenos Aires at 10h30 on the SAME Wednesday morning after a 13hr flight (we couldn't work out what happened to the extra hour because we were so tired. Even now, we can't be bothered), all we wanted to do was sleep and let the jet lag pass! All the good things could wait!

BA has been labelled the "Paris of the South" but there is far more than just French influence here. Like any city, looking up from the street renders a history lesson constructed out of stone, mortar, steel, concrete and glass. Right in the centre of town on Plaza de Mayo, are buildings dating back from when the Spanish were in charge and BA was a sleepy smugglers' backwater to the present day.

Neighbourhoods like La Boca and San Temlo, Palermo and places like the Recolata Cemetery, Plaza de Mayo and the Casa Rosada all tell their story. If you know a little European and South American history, BA is a place where you can feel the wings of history gliding the thermals of current events.

What is surprising about BA is the size of the city and the population it holds. Argentina has a population of approximately 40million people of which 1/3 live in BA! Since BA has no natural barriers like mountains to prevent its expansion, it now sprawls inland and down the coast.

But BA is not Argentina despite it being almost as large as London! Where once places like the Tigre delta and La Plata were separate cities of their own, they are now slowly swallowed up by BA's slow spread!

But those from BA are distinct from their brethren in other parts of Argentina and are regarded as porteños, or those from "the Port". So distinctive is their Spanish, that the rest of Spanish speaking South America considers their language more Italian than Spanish, and it immediately marks the speaker as being only from BA and all that it entails!

But the contrasts in BA are tremendous. The well to do hang out in very fashionable Palermo with its upmarket flash, chic and swagger. Or newly developed waterside development of Puerto Madero. The beautiful people live and "work" here.

But at the other end of the social spectrum are places like La Boca, home to the famous stadium nicknamed, in Spanish of course, as the Chocolate Box. Here Argentina's most famous son, Diego Maradona, hailed from these impoverished and poverty stricken streets. To many now still, his story from rags to riches, is an inspiration to every street footballer.

With three weeks in the city, we saw much of it! An interesting journey to take is the 25p (bargain!) local bus to the international airport to pick up Amanda. School was out and every good teacher needs a break. For a week at least! And why not BA in the summer? It sure beats the cold and dark of the UK and we could do with the company (Ed: noted!)!

Christmas Eve and day was spent with my sister-in-law's family in the neighbourhood of San Isidro. Midnight is brought in with a firestorm of firecrackers and fireworks! We were told that it sounded like the whole of BA was under attack! But it was usually taken as a barometer of financial wealth. We waited for the neighbourhood to explode in a blaze of noise and light, wondering if the recession had actually taken effect here yet. Once the fireworks had ended, the locals seemed to think that the recession hadn't taken effect yet!

Thank you to Le Grand mama, Martin, Ana and Simon and all of Ana's family for making us feel some very welcome! It will be a memory to treasure in times ahead!

Everybody who eats meat knows that Argentinean meat is some of the best in the world and we decided that since Christmas Day always needs a lunch, then a thick big juicy steak, complete with red wine would do the trick! But no festive meal would be complete with a trip to the heladoria. The Argentineans have a very sweet tooth and one that is satisfied by the numerous Italian ice-cream parlours scattered everywhere! Their Italian heritage ensures that there is fantastic coffees, pastries and ice-creams everywhere!

The Argentineans love the good things in life. And Christmas Day lunch needs to have all the good things....red wine, steak, ice-cream and coffee....and plenty of pressie opening! Thanks to Amanda and Sarah J, we had our own little Christmas tree and pressie session! Fantastic!

And our time in BA was one great sight after another; interspersed with one great meal after another in one great place after another. In BA, you practically just stumble over one fantastic little place after another! Decor may be rustic and homely and nothing like The Ritz, but their food almost always beats it hands down! If you enjoy your food and wine, you will not go wrong in BA!

Saturday was the Recoleta Cemetery and Palmero. The cemetery is where all the great and good and influential families of Argentina and Buenos Aires are buried. Apparently the waiting list for a plot is long and exhaustive and money will not buy you in. The cemetery is nothing like you have seen before. Here the plots have small buildings, grandly designed, that extend downwards into the Earth. You can look in and see the coffins of long laid to rest family members.

This city of the dead is BA's answer to Rome's catacombs. Except that the occupants are housed in fabulous places of rest and people can wonder the streets of this city of the dead; and all the old politics are still played out. Eva Peron, and her family are buried here, but rumour has it that "her kind" might be removed at some point because they don't belong in such company. Go figure.....

Sunday was the market in San Telmo. Stalls, street performance artists, cobbled streets and fine stately architecture now housing everything from shops, studios and restos and the evening was in the local plaza watching those locals dancing the tango under a setting sun. Not to be outdone where the small bands of street side student-style musicians complete with trombones, trumpets, double basses and even pianos! Come New Year's Eve, a week later, we found ourselves, three sheets to the wind and loving BA all the more here, barhopping (but not the next morning with those beer hangovers!)!

Monday was breakfast at famous Cafe Tortoni (www.cafetortoni.com.ar) for cafe con leche y tres medialunas (coffee with milk and three croissants) and then up to the Tigre Delta for a riverside lunch and a spot of cruising the numerous waterways marvelling at the difference between crowded central BA and this natural haven almost a million miles away!

Having Amanda back with us, even only for a short time (unlike Thailand and Hong Kong) was great and we were sad to see her go. With her leaving for distant UK shores, it meant that we had only 10 weeks before we were doing the same thing! The end was in sight, but there was still a whole lot of South America to see first!