Semana 3 - La Bomba a la bombanera!

The entrance to my room in my hostel!
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Hola!

How time flies when your having fun!  I have now finished my language course and am now fluent... yeah right!  I can speak in the present tense (ish) and that´s about it, but it´s probably enough to get by!  So now I have moved out of my nice apartment and into a hostel - a bit of a change!  I arrived at the Tango Backpackers Hostel on Saturday, which has a nice bar downstairs with happy hour and interenet access.  Unfortunately that´s about as good as it gets!  Upon checking in I was told I was in dorm 5, but when I went upstairs to find my room, I could find rooms 1-4 and 6, but 5 was nowhere to be seen!  Until I saw the smallest metal spiral staircase in the world...  I couldn´t walk up the stairs with my rucksack on so I had to unpack downstairs and take things up seperately!  My room is also right next to the communal lounge, which means it is noisy pretty much all day, and all night.  In fact, on Saturday night a very thoughtful American bloke thought it would be a good idea to play his guitar until 7:30 in the morning and sing the same verse over and over again (and he had a really bad singing voice too!).  Well, it wasn´t a good idea!

I have now finished my language course and am now fluent...

Boca Juniors fan for the day
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What made that worse was that I had only had 2 hours sleep the night before!  Friday was the last day at school for a lot of people, so we all went out for a night out.  The club was pretty shocking so most of us ended up going to another bar instead, and then another bar where we stayed until 7 in the morning... I think thats probably the first time I´ve gone home after the  sun has come out!  Obviously not including that mamoth pro session at Si´s a couple of months ago!

Crazy Boca fans
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So after two nights of not a lot of sleep I decided it would be a good idea to get up early Sunday morning to get to the football in La Boca at La Bombanera - I think football is the only thing I could have got up for!  I headed to Boca at 11 expecting to meet a friend to get tickets, and also expecting a mad rush to get tickets from the ticket office.  Well Dorien didn´t turn up until 1:30 and there is no ticket office for foreigners to buy tickets from!  We ended up getting standing tickets about an hour before kick off for about 80 pesos (even though the face value was only 24 pesos, this was still a lot cheaper than most people who went paid!).  The match was against Rosario, who were awful, and Boca won 2-1 but in truth it could have been about 10-1!  The atmosphere was brilliant, you have to go if you´re in BA!  Apart from Riquelme, however, the players are pretty crap!  The quality wasn´t so good, but the experience was great - it was nice to be able to stand up for the whole game like the old days at Fratton!  One sour note from the afternoon was that I was standing in the blazing sun all afternoon without any sun cream on (it was raining in the morning!) so I am now a lobster...

Japanese gardens
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Today I have been having a nice chilled day, I got up late and went to the MALBA, which is a modern art gallery.  Some of the pieces were quite cool, but it was just modern art if you know what I mean so I´m not going to write much about it, apart from that if you say you are a student at the entrance you get in for free (I didn´t even have to show them my expired student card!).  I also went to the Japanese gardens in Palermo, again not a lot to write about - lots of nice plants, trees, fish etc. - but definitely worth going if you have some time.  I wanted to go to the zoo as well, but it´s closed on Mondays (typical!).

Me drinking a huge beer
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Something that is only open on a Monday (hope you like the link there) is La Bomba!  This is a precussion show that is very popular with local students, and it was really cool!  There are about 15 people on stage in an outside courtyard all with different drums and they create a brilliant atmosphere.  The locals go nuts too, loads of dancing and drinking!  The best thing though for me was that they only serve beer in litre glasses!  Seriously, anyone who is going to be in BA should definitely check this out, it´s cheap too.

Precussion show at La Bomba
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I think that´s pretty much all I have done this week, aside from the usual visit to the Museum club and a couple of meals out.  I am staying in my lovely hostel until Thursday, and then I am travelling up to Iguazú for a few days before going to Rio.  I´m not sure when I will next be able to update the blog, probably not until I get to Rio, but I will do it when I can!

Hope everyone is having fun in the cold,

James x