Spanish lessons and drums

Today I started my Spanish lessons. Kind of intimidating as it was basically a conversation class and my knowledge of vocabulary is limited. The teacher would ask us in turn an open question and we would monologue for a bit. Very different from my lessons in Leeds.

The other three people in my class are two Portuguese speakers from Brazil and a girl from Denmark who has moved here to work for 6m. She is freaking out as she has two weeks to relearn Spanish.

Safe to say my monologues were a little shorter than those of the people from Brazil! All my accounts centered round one of the only verbs I could remember, 'pasear' or to walk. I have come to Argentina to walk. After class I will walk to the hostel. I like Leeds because it has countryside in which I can walk. (I have since found out that I used this wrongly at least twice)

Afterwards I devoured my pasta at the hostel then ran in melty heat to the second free walking tour that BA offers, meeting Andy (who actually lives in Leeds, small world) and Australian James(?) who just arrived today. The tour was a bit manic and centered mainly around the Argentinian economy which tbf was interesting but the tour guide was speaking so fast it looked like he might have some kind of seizure.

Things I learned (not fact checked): in the last year the Argentinian peso has suffered 40% inflation. In recent history the government told banks not to let people take out their savings. The government also forbid Argentinians from exchanging their money for US dollars which they used to do to save their money as the peso was such a disaster, leading to a huge love of the dollar and a large black market (for some reason called a blue market).

Followed by another sweaty walk back and a local Argentinian delicacy called 'Subway Sandwich'. Then we all headed off to our entertainment for the evening, La Bomba Tiempo. This is a super cool outside drum show slash fiesta, with around 15 drummers improvising in an amazing way following a drum conductor who uses hand symbols to direct the music. It was so good! Much insane dancing was had, my insane dancing accentuated by the two tallest of our group next to me merely head bobbing. Afterwards the party continued on the street (also with drumming and random men selling beer) and a parade to a club where we decided pizza was a preferable option. We discovered that we had two doctors, a medical student and a nurse in our gang! The hostel is in safe hands.

I finished this post the day after the bomba tiempo sitting on the hostel sofa in the afternoon having just successfully booked my Torres Del Paine trek (I hope... complicated booking system) YAYYYY

Turns out it was possible!

...as someone plays Avicii's 'Wake me up' on the guitar. Who knew that was even possible!Read more