From the end of the world to a humming metropolis, we felt somewhat like country bumkins in the 'big smoke'. Needless to say we shopped, saw sights, went out and drank (and yes, I think we spent most of our time doing the last of those...)

Art
We visited a couple of modern art galleries and found them to be very well displayed with some fantastic and inspiring work. The most interesting art we found though was on our first jaunt into the city. We were browsing round some enormous metal sculptures which were on the pavement by a warehouse and a man came past insisting that we go inside to look at more. The place turned out to be the home/workshop of a french man called Carlos Regazzoni who makes creations out of scrap metal. His materials are delivered by some mystery person (we couldn't work out who due to our poor spanish skills) and piled outside to a height of about a two stories and as we looked we realised that there was a trail of scrapyard ants carrying bits away and up a hoarding pole. My favourite piece was a 9 ft high christmas tree created from typewriters with a face on top. It was called papa noel.

The Tango
The city of Tango is keen to get you involved in it's traditional dance and offers classes and shows on every corner and lampost. In Borrego square in San Telmo there is a flea market and tango extravaganza with members of the older generation wearing inappropriately sexy clothes and enjoying the closeness of other old people. Jon bought some hairy cows testicles on leather rope which are apparently gaucho lassos (bola) for throwing round the legs of errant cows. I can't see why Jon needs a thing like that....?

While I watched a man dancing with people chosen from the crowd, it didn't occur to me that I could be next until he pointed at me and and dragged me out onto the thin board which was the dance floor. From the little that I had seen, I knew that I should look him in the face and not fall over - both of which I managed regardless of the fact that I wore flip flops and he smelled somewhat of last nights booze...

The economic crash
All around the country we have been aware that people can no longer travel because of the dramatic decline in the value of the Argentinian peso. Other than that, we have not really seen any other evidence of the crisis - until now. Walking around the financial district you see banks with graffiti smeared all over the front pillars and hoardings where people have expressed their hatred of the institutions. Most are only just beginning to have glass fronts put in again, and all seem to have a good quota of guards at their entrances. LLoyds bank is still very secure with it's corrugated iron frontage and armed guards who will lead you to the counter you require. I wondered a little why the graffiti had not been cleaned off of most of the currently active banks and then one day I saw that there was in fact some graffiti cleaning in process which meant that people are still creating it. 5 years is not such a long time when it comes to remembering who has screwed you over.

The Boca
I don't know anything about football, but for all those who do, you may be impressed that I went to see a match played at the famous Boca ground (home of hand-of-god-Maradonna). We were advised that we should take a tour there because the fans were very dangerous and the ground was dangerous and the tour would make us safe. We ignored this due to the cost and found that the entry into the ground was very well organised and safe and the fans did nothing more than sing and jump throughout the match. Also, the tour group was only sat three rows in front of us...
There was a goal at the beginning and one at the end, one by Banfield, one by Boca. To be honest I was kind of bored by the football but watching the crowd was fun. They waved flags throughout and there was constant singing. I tried to make out what they were singing about but my spanish is bad and football fans don't have the clearest of voices. I have since been (probably unreliably) informed that they are all about how crap River Plate are (their rival team) even though they weren't even there!