Decisions, Delusions and Diversions

The time has come, and decision made, to leave Buenos Aires. A somewhat complicated decision, but a necessary on nonetheless. After over a month in Buenos Aires I have managed to get to grips with the fundamentals of spanish, visit countless clubs bars and restaurants, and get to know the city at a pace that even your average geriatric would find comfortable. In spite of now feeling ready leaving anywhere you have settled is always a little difficult, especially when Barclays bank have blocked your card yet again.

However, after stupidly buying a camera on ebay, I have left myself with the necessity of returning again from 'the frozen south' (and by frozen south I mean frozen south) to retrieve it from my helpful hostel owner. This will only be for a couple of days though, before I start my long and relentless journey north to Cuba.

The last month has flown by in a blur of reading, studying and sporadic fiestas, which has been rather unexciting but exactly what I needed to get my head around Spanish, which is not a necessirly complex language but one that has required a clear head and a decent night's sleep (which we will return to shortly). As luck had it I couldn't have asked for a better teacher than Majo, a young, cool and barking mad Argentine, who has not just taught me how to speak the language but taken me out to parties with her friends and lunch with her family. She has also boosted my confidence (ego) by telling everyone who will listen that I am her pride and the best student she has ever had (which anyone who knows me well will know is exactly what I intended to be from the starting blocks). As I write this I am sitting in my favourite cheap local restaurant that I visited with Matt about a month ago. Upon arrival we managed enough Spanish between us to get a table and menu before thumbing cluelessly through the indecipherable lists of foodstuffs. One month later I am welcomed like a long lost son by the staff, stopping to discuss how my spanish is coming along, my travel plans and the reason for having this ridiculously large phone (in Spanish of course). Hopefully with the foundations now laid I can practice and improve as I travel, and return fluent.

The only downside of late has been the fact that for some reason I have lost the ability to sleep. Unless inebriated I have been staring at my ceiling on a nightly basis for hour after hour. Admitedly my room has been very cold, my bed stupidly hard and next door being a gentlemen's liason establishment with, lets say, rather noisey staff. Still, the amount of sleep that I have been having has been little more than 4 hours and it's been leaving me pretty scatty. However, I've always been somewhat of a light sleeper and perhaps this is something I will either get used to or sort out in due course.

For now, however, my mind returns to the frozen lands of the south and the icy adventures to be had there.