It's getting chilly now but not cold. It's wierd having winter in May and having to put the heater on. Still there's always a trip to the bar to get me warmed up.

Teaching's a trip here. The people seem to value education much more than they did in Spain. I teach a class of 3 stewardess's from Aerolineas Argentinas. Man o man did I ever strike it lucky. They are babes.

I'm now getting quite good at understanding Argentinian Spanish. It's not like Spanish Spanish at all. They speak fast and mumble their words.

I'm trying to get the balls to ask one of the AA babes to go up to Tigre with me in a couple of weeks. Tigre's a cool place on the Rio de la Plata delta. They do slow delta cruises. Wish me luck. If it blows up I may get sacked but what the hell - you only live once.

Finally made it. Needed a job. Went to my alma mater EBC TEFL and they helped me get started - again.

What a great bunch of guys. www.ebc-tefl-course.com if anyone is interested. I'd recommend it to anyone. Anyway thanks to them, I can now live, breathe, eat and drink once again.

Enough of that.

Came over to meet the girlfriend but alas we were apart too long and so now I'm all alone. Yahoo cos the women over here are seriously attractive.

BA is a great place. You read all this gloomy stuff about it in the papers but it's crap as usual. BA is a great place, really lively and loads of stuff going on.

Beers to recommend: numero uno - has got to be Imperial followed by Quilmes Cristal and Brahma. BA is seriously civilised, you can buy beer in 1 litre bottles and in the supermarket it costs about 2 Pesos and then you get 58 cents back when you return the empties. So in reality it costs about 50 US cents a litre.

Other stuff. It's a real culture shock for me to come to a Spanish speaking city and kind of feel at home. BA is wierd in this respect. It's like being in Europe except you're not. Half the buildings look like they belong in Paris, the rest look like they belong in London.

The people are really friendly as well but their Spanish is a bit odd at first. It took me a while to get used to it.

It's a bit more difficult to find a flat over here but by no means impossible. One thing though that I was worried about was earning enough. This was quickly put to rest when I found out I could earn getting on for 2,000 Pesos a month. I share a flat and it costs me 350 Pesos a month. The rest is pure spending and it's so cheap out here the spending money goes a long way.

Now I've got the job sorted, I've got to get the rest of my "social agenda" fixed up too.

More news as I delve more into the local culture and wildlife.

OK, the job. Interviewing is usually done by someone who speaks English, we got prepped on the course that if they can't interview you in English - watch out. They'll ask what you did on the course, when you can work, are you going on vacation soon. They sometimes throw in the odd teaching question as well like what would you do if ... Keep flexible on your schedule. Also make sure you know where they are sending you to teach. Long trips to teach a one hour class should be avoided.

Class - depends who you get to teach. Some are great some are not. If you prepare you should be OK, BUT preparation doesn't stop people being a pain in the class. I got one like this and told the school I was with. They must've said something good because the problem went away.

Money - depends who you work for but anything under 10 Euros an hour is low. I earn a tad over 1000 Euros a month and manage to get out about 5 times a week.

Nightlife - You can't go wrong. It's an outrageous city for going out. There's so many places to go to it'd take years to get bored.

Daylife - Good public transport and it's cheap. You're more likely to find a policeman in a bar than on the street. Don't drive unless you get lessons from Steve McQueen (Bullitt). Lots of outdoor pools and bars in the summer. You can Ski in the mountains in winter - about an hour's drive from the city.

Anyway, I've been here for getting on for 6 months. Been north and south. What a great place, but alas my time has come and the feet are itching once more. I met a really cute Argentinean woman and so I'm off to south america.

Life's been a blast so far. The English teaching thing and the training I got have really helped out. One day my wandering days will stop and I'll go back to a real job, but while there's still blood in my veins, I 'll keep on traveling.

Back with more soon after Christmas when I check in to Hotel Argentina.

Barajas - touchdown - si señor. Anyway, off the plane (late) into the queue to get past immigration, 38 centigrade (don't ask me to translate I only know it was hot). Thank God for air conditioning in the terminal. I show my passport to the immigration guy and he just waves me through, looked at the photo and that was that. Never stamped it or anything. I later found out that it's about 50/50 getting your passport stamped when you come in. So here I am, an unregistered alien in Spain ready to take Madrid by storm.

I make myself busy exploring. The first thing I find is ignore traffic lights. If you see the walk sign, DON'T, you've got to wait until the traffic stops about 30 seconds AFTER the lights gone red. If you don't, you're road pizza. The second thing I find out is that just about noone speaks any English at all. Big plus for me - there must be plenty of room for getting work as an English teacher. The third thing I find out is that the Madrilenos never go to sleep. I've never seen such a party town in my life. These guys have bars set up in the middle of the main boulevard - Paseo de la Castellana - that open at midnight and close about 9 in the morning. Not that I ever went to one, honest.

Where to start is my main problem.

I suppose at the beginning as the old song goes.

I started off from home with the idea of having a short tour round Europe. My main problem was that I really wanted to go there but had seriously limited funding. So part-time jobs here I come and I managed to save up about 3,000 Canadian to get myself going.

Next problem, when the money runs out, how do I feed myself and avoid being arrested for vagrancy. Hey, I'll have to get a job over there, but where and doing what.

I had a talk with some ex-university pals who told me that there are a few options. Bar work and teaching English were the ones that struck me so I hit the net. Near to zip on bar work but loads of stuff on teaching English so that seemed to be the way to go.

Being from probably the coldest country in the world, the idea of Northern Europe was number 2 on the list so I decided on Spain. Not least cos my mum's English and used to go there on holidays when she was a kid and told me it was a greate place for hanging out and generally having a good time.

I surfed for a while and finally decided I'd give Madrid a go and the school I thought would be best was one called EBC. They seemed to have the things that were most important for me - a TEFL teaching certificate and leads to jobs.

So with that out of the way, it was down to packing the suitcase and booking the flight. Now follows a boring part, mainly me waiting around, earning a bit more cash and dying for the flight day to arrive.

Anyway, flight day arrives, my folks drove me to the airport, teary farewells, 3 hankerchiefs at least the usual. The flight was long but it was OK, usual crappy food but at least it was served with a smile. Free bar too which helped things along.

My ongoing experiences of latin living. Sometimes hot sometimes not, but what the heck, I'm still breathing.