Ridiculous

The other day I asked for tea with milk and was given a cup of hot creamy milk and a tea bag. Surely my Spanish can't be that bad?!

My body is a-mass of mosquito bites. I squeeze the ones on my face thinking they're spots and map out the constellations of the northern hemisphere on my body.

Actually my Spanish can't be that bad, I was half way through a sentence this morning when I decided it might be too complex, but carried on regardless and was understood, I think. But it is up and down still, and it really depends on who I'm talking to. I had real trouble understanding Victoria's three female friends, and they had real trouble understanding me, but when two of their male friends arrived we were chatting away like nobody's business. One of Victoria's female friends actually seemed a bit offended, I guess it was just some natural male simpatico, or maybe we were just communicating in grunts.

Fuck it's hot.

From The Sublime To The Ridiculous

After leaving BsAs we spent two weeks in hostels featured in the Lonely Planet, speaking English. Now that Kai has left and Victoria has arrived I've gone from speaking virtually no Spanish to speaking no English, in fact I think I've spoken more Spanish in the last two days than I have in the last two weeks.

This was compounded by Victoria taking me to meet some old friends of hers and their families, where the subject of the Falklands (or "las Islas Malvinas (Arg)" as they appear on every Argentine map) came up. The father of one of the families is a veteran and his daughter works in the veteran's association and his son has the islands tattooed on his arm in the Argentine colours. They couldn't believe how little the English know on the subject. I had to explain that it really wasn't that important to us, we've done far worse things. The lonely planet actually says that the war, or rather Argentina's losing of the war, played a major part in the down-fall of the military dictatorship, although the families we were with disagreed.

I really think that all the Mail readers in hysteria over girls binge drinking in the UK should come to visit Cordoba. Here the girls buy three litre plastic top hats called baldes, into which bar staff seem to just pour whatever is in front of them, starting with beer, through vodka, cider, melon spirit and God knows what else, finished up with granadin. All this costs about £5, including a £1 deposit on the hat. I saw various variations, one including a whole bottle of Champaign and another with 4 cans of the Argentine equivalent of Red Bull, Speed.

Thanks For All The Fish

Kai joked the other day that it is compulsory for Argentinean motorcyclists to wear helmets - either on their arm or on the top of their head. Yesterday I passed some police stopping motorcyclists not wearing helmets and putting their bikes on the back of a big truck.

We played football a couple of days ago. An Argentinean ask me if I wanted to play, and as ever I replied "por que no?" But I thought we were just going for A Kick-About In The Park, I didn't realise they were hiring a dirt pitch and were going to be totally serious about it. I think the good English guy on our side was more than a little disappointed in us, he was quite good, but two of the Argentines were ridiculously good.

So Kai and I have finally parted company, he's gone off to Salta, accompanied by our new friend Johanna, and I am staying in Cordoba for a while where Victoria will be meeting me tomorrow. Then...? I don't know, I think I might go north to Salta, east to Iguazu and then come back south to Buenos Aires. Kai - you missed the most amazing chorizo last night!

Lies and Damn Lies

Last night someone told us that the ratio of men to women in Cordoba is 9:1, which would explain some things, but he spoilt it by then saying that the ratio in Argentina as a whole is 7:1, which I just cannot believe. I have no idea where I could look this up.