Hola,

So after a 5 hour plane journey we arrived very early on friday morning in Buenos Aires...the start of a new adventure :-)

We could hardly keep our eyes open so went straight to bed when we got to the hostel, to wake up around lunchtime and go off to explore the city. The sky was dull, the streets were busy and it was COLD...we wanted sunny bolivia and peru back. but that really did not last long. Because we were still rather tired we decided to go and see the new harry potter and were in bed before 12.

The next day 2 of the girls from our tour, pippa and harri, also arrived in buenos aires which was very exciting. What was even better was that their friend from home Amy, who had been in BA for 2 weeks already took it upon herself to show us the best bits of the city. It was a beautiful day, we were rested and the sun was shining and instantly I felt myself loving BA more and more. On tour around we visited the casa rasado- the red building from which Evita made her famous speech. Here we learned that the building is red is because they used cow blood to make the stone. The city is ALOT more western that what we had experienced previously, with the main road having 5/6 lanes either side and if you want to cross it all in one go of the green man flashing, you have to basically run for it- which you often see people doing. We also visited little markets where they sold alot of lovely jewelery and alot of leather and this is where I bought myself a gorgeous pair of leather red rose earrings.

That evening, Amy took us to an INCREDIBLE buffet restaurant where it was all you can eat (as the word buffet suggests) for 20 pesos which is the equivalent of about 3 pounds. And it wasnt just any old buffet...it had a grill at the back where you could get all sorts of meat: chicken, sausage, ribs and massive pieces of delicious beef. They also had a massive freezer of ice cream with about 20 different flavours and there was even a guy who was making crepes and you could request how you would like it tobe cooked. Miranda and Soph went slightly mad and I think had about 5 plates of main course plus about 3 plates of desert!! No suprise we all felt slightly ill after this eating experience, but having not finished the food till 1am went straight back to the hostel to fall into deep food comas.

The next morning, Soph Miranda and I wanted to make the most of being here so got up early and went on a 3 hour bike tour. We shared this bike tour with a group of Dutch people so no suprise I got to chat ALOT of dutch, which sometimes got a little bit annoying because I just wanted to see the city...but hey they were very friendly. We cycled past the port, through a beautiful park where lots of people were walking their dogs and jogging on this beautiful sunday morning and we stopped in a district called la boca. Here most of the building are multi coloured which made you instanly feel alot happier when walking around. Here we also learned a bit of the history. It was here that many of the immigrants that were coming to BA from France, Spain, Italy etc in the 30s (i think) to find a better wasy of life or start a new life. With many of them only just being able to afford a one way ticket many of them had no money and so didnt have anywhere to live. So they used wood and metal to bulid houses and used ships paint to paint them. However because they never had enough of just the one colour they eneded up painting their houses multi coloured. Lovely district ot be in and a very interesting history.

That afternoon we explored an extensive market, alot of it 2nd hand, leather items, scarves, jewelery and the usual. Here Sophie bought a lovely vintage handbag for a tenner and miranda treated herself to a gorgeous navy blue dior trench coat which looks amazing on her!! That night us 3 girls had booked a tango show, the traditional dance of BA, which involved a free dance lesson, a gorgeous 3 course meal and unlimited free wine and of course the show. The lesson was hilarious because there weren't enough men so we often ended up just doing the moves by ourself, but when we were lucky enough to be dancing with a man, it was intimidating to having a stranger staring intensely into your eyes while you are trying to remember the steps so you dont step on their toes. And then to see the show where they danced so fast with so many different steps and legs flying all over the place, included inbetween their legs, I was just waiting for one of the guys to get in a kick where it hurst....but no of course not....these were professionals. There was a live band playing fantastic music above the stage and some beautful spanish singing...all in all a great night. After this we ended up joining the other girls in some underground hall where many locals were dancing the tango and rock and roll and they were all amazing!! We attempted to do the same but must have stood out like sore thumbs because they really did know what they were doing. We all wished that there was somewhere to dance like that in england and that there were boys out there who would dance with us.

Yesterday we ventured to explore another are of BA, where I found an amazing black dress in the sale, I bought my very first leather handbag, we had THE most amazing creamy ice cream made with dolce deleche (a caramel like substance they LOVE over here and put on bread etc!) and we sat having lunch in the sunshine on a lovely little plaza while listening to some live singing. all in all (yet again) a GREAT day!! and it was only to get EVEN better. we were going out for steak. and not just any steak but THE best steak restaurant in BA. Words cant even begin to describe how incredible this place was but for a tenner we god a steak about the size of small loaf of bread which was beautifully tender served with a massive array of condoments including apple sauce, mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, poached pears, mini warm pickeled onions and many many more. Miranda managed to finish one of these steak all by herself, Soph nearly did and I chickened out and shared with Harri but still felt like a stuffed turkey by the end of the night...the food was just tooooo good to leave. We actually managed to spend a total of 5 hours there and were the last table to leave. Possibly safe to say that it was THE best restaurant I have ever been to. Great atmosphere, fantastic food, fantastic value, beautiful wine and of course also the best company.
Today we met up with someone from school who spent 4 months in Brazil- where we are off to next so got lots of advice as to which are the best beaches to hit!! Then a lovely French meal and now we are waiting to go get a VIP CAMA BUS to the iguazu falls. We are talking a BED, great food, champagne and we hope lots more. we are very excited and very very happy girls :-) adios xx