Hola Bloggers,

How was your weekend? My first full weekend here in Buenos Aires went very well. Saturday morning was spent shopping (still can´t stop buying more clothes!). Then the afternoon was spent in Tigre which is known as the Venice of Beunos Aires. You have to get the train there from the city and then you can take boat rides along the river and look at all the big houses backing on to the river with little canals leading off and acting as kind of drives to the houses. There´s a big market at the point where you get the boat from and lots of restaurants and bars.

I wouldn´t exactly call Tigre Venice myself but I don´t suppose many of the locals have actually been to Venice! The river is not the most appealing river to swim in because its a kind of greeny brown colour. This doesn´t stop the locals though!

The funniest thing I saw all day was a man and his dog whizz by on a jet ski. The dog had its two front paws up on the handle bars and looked like it did this every day.

Saturday night we all went over to one of the city parks where there was a free concert of some famous Argentian band. Don´t ask me the name as I didn´t take much notice in the first place so I haven´t forgotten the name, its more like I never even knew it. It was your average guitar and emotional song type band - trying to be Santana but not quite making it. Good though, if you like that sort of thing.

After the concert we went over to one of the students houses for his leaving party. He lives with Argentians so it was more of an Argentian house party than an international one .......which means the guitars were out again and everyone sat round singing old folk songs and listening to the odd solo from the one who seemed to be "the main man". I couldn´t help thinking that this would never happen in England as he would get laughed off and everyone would think it was really geeky .......but then we love slagging things off and taking the piss out of each other in England don´t we!

On Sunday a few of us met up and went over to San Telmo which is an old residential area where they have an antiques market every Sunday and also where people are known to Tango in the town square. There was a free Tango show where we ate lunch and a few of my companions got up to Tango with the maestros on stage. Very impressive.

It was quite nice in San Telmo because we kept running into other students we know from the language school. Its a nice feeling to bump into people you know in a strange city - it makes it more like home. By the time the market was closing we had a gang of about 12 to sit around and drink wine and eat ice creams.

Well, its Monday morning now and I am about to start my classes in the next level up. Onwards and upwards ....over and out.

S xx