Mental Hostel

OK, well ive been away for a week and a day so I think this is a good time to send my first report, with love, from Buenos Aires.

I arrived, knackered after a 14 hour flight, and checked into the most mental hostel in the world (ask owen about this), at about 11pm. In front of me sat something like 100 people, from most corners of the world, all getting absolutely hammered. I shat myself and went to bed.The next day I signed up for some activities organised by the hostel,and by day two I reckon I met about 60 of 70 people. At breakfast themost common question was ´have you slept yet´. Nobody eats before 12and nobody goes to bed before 7 in the morning. A vain attempt to tryand do something in the daytime as well meant that I wasnt getting much sleep, and, pretty soon, I started to feel that urge i often get to pretend to be ill. So I pretended for a couple of days, got lots of rest, took vitamins and water etc, until I i started to feel like I didnt want to pretend anymore, and then after that I was fine.

After 5 days, I got bored of having fun and decided to do some hard work. I´d arranged to stay with a local family, to take Spanish classes for a couple of weeks, and was pleasantly surprised when they turned out to live in a mansion with a swimming pool. Theres a few other students in the house, (including two Swedish girls) but we always speak in Spanish, and I reckon im getting pretty good. It´s all irrelevant, though, because nobody can understand anyone from Buenos Aires. That´s true even of native Spanish speakers, so when it comes to pulling it´s bump and grind all the way I´m afraid (Blasa, before you say it, I know nothing's new...)

As for school, so far a typical day goes something like this: I get upat 8 and have a swim in the pool, before heading to class. I get there late, because the first three buses were full, but it´s no problem because nobody arrives anywhere on time here. The bus is rammed, and you have to play an elaborate game of hang-tough with the rings that dangle from the ceiling, especially when the driver traverses the widest street in the world (18 lanes). More often than not, the he has the paper laid out on the dashboard and reads it through the steering wheel whilst driving. The lessons are essentially just a chat with the teacher (there´s two of us in the class) and we´ve spoken about Argentinian women, the falklands, the 78 world cup and Borges.Politically he is somewhere between Castro and Guevara, which is lucky, because it means we often agree.

I´d read about the Argentine obsession with life-coaching, and when I asked the teacher, he told me that everyone, almost without exception,sees a psychiatrist on a regular basis. Apparently it´s seen as arrogant if you think you can deal with life without one, and people are very open about it. He used to work in a bank, but ´burned out´so became a teacher; when he announced that he was off to see his shrink after my lesson today, I felt obliged to tell him about some of my 'darker´moments (although it was so unremarkable to him that he just shrugged and moved on...)

Some things ive done:Sat with 70,000 River fans in Estadio Monumental. Two people were shot before the game so their next 5 games are behind closed doors. They scored in the last minute and won 1-0. Ive never heard anything like it. Going to Boca on Sunday, its a sell out be because Riquelme is back and its his first game ...

Watched the sun rise as the roof of this plush waterfront nightclub opened at 6am.Witnessed the fitness of Argentinian women.

Been for a monster run all over the waterfront area of the city.

Signed up for a 3 day free pass at a local gym. That´s true.

Sat in a cafe in the worlds most amazing bookshop for like 6 hours, reading in spanish. When we tired of this, thoughts turned to what we were missing back home, and, in particular, the Sun´s response the the news Prince Harry is going to Iraq. Our original front runner´Prince Arming´was trumped at the last by ´We´re gonna Windsor war now´. Confirmation of whether either were used would be nice.