Birthdays, Parties and Birthday Parties

Buenos Aires was always calling, as previously mentioned Rosario was amazing, but the plan was always to hit the quarter century mark in style in what is touted to be one of the best cities, if not the best, on the South American continent. We arrived tired and bedraggled at THE reputed party hostel in Buenos Aires and were not disappointed! Every night was hard party night and we could do nothing but oblige. The first night was a disco with 2-4-1 on cocktails: messy; bedtime: 7am. The second night was an excursion to a drum and bass night: messy; bedtime: unknown.

Then we came to Liam's big special birthday day. Not exactly the best way to start a birthday, however, I awoke at 2pm with the irhythmic beats of the previous night's drum and bass banging in my head. What was worse was the fact that my washbag was missing and I had no recollection of how, where or why it was missing. It was time for action. Almost instantaneously I transformed myself from hungover shell of a human being to investigative detective extraordinaire. The clues were all there, it was just a matter of piecing them together. For one my hair was puffy and smelled of lime, so it was time to pay a visit to the showers in search of clues. This, sadly, was to no avail and my only choice was to return to the scene of the crime. After much pondering, it came like an epiphany: the bin had been emptied; I must have staggered in drunk, had a shower and then dropped my wash bag in the bin. This theory was proven when, after a humble "did anyone find my toiletries in the bin?", the highly amused reception staff made quite a show of letting everyone know what I had done. A great start to my birthday.

During the day I actually felt pretty homesick for the first time. Not a feeling of wanting to go home, but just of wanting to be home on that day. I got shed loads of messages from home, including a few big ups for the blog (thanks!), but I think that just made me feel a bit further from home. This was somewhat alleviated by losts of beer, banter and renditions of happy birthday from my fellow travellers in the hostel. Still, to say that I have spent a birthday here is no less than pretty cool in my book. So, the partying continued until daylight and another very late awakening the next day was inevitable.

Since then I have moved into a new hostel for a month, so that I am able to get down and study spanish. I know that moving on is generally the basis for travelling, but since the rest of my travels will be in spanish speaking countries, I think that without a good grasp of the language i'd miss out on a lot of opportunities and experiences. Plus, Buenos Aires seems like such a large exciting city that it would be great to really get to know it well.

The hostel I'm in also has great computers so I can finally upload some pictures from my trip.