It’s perhaps a tad surprising that the Argentines don’t seem to drink a lot of alcohol, particularly as compared with the Spanish.

We’ve been a bit goggle-eyed lately wandering around the supermarket to find.

1L of beer for AU$0.96

1L of gin or vodka for AU$3.41

Really good red wine for AU$4.00 / bottle.

Obviously AU dollar prices are largely irrelevant, but I’ve no doubt that on a purchasing power parity basis, the stuff is still rather a lot cheaper here.

I’ve never visited another country and not though “why is booze so expensive in Australia?”. Mind you, I’ve never been to Scandinavia. I hear they’re doing even better/worse.

We’ve caught a few, and have generally been only mildly concerned for our physical wellbeing.

However, strict attention must be paid to ensure that you don’t get fake bank notes back when you pay the bill. Thus far we’ve been fine, but have met numerous travelers that have fallen victim to the ol’ switch-er-roo scam. Be warned.

The seat belts are a wonderful - albeit purely aesthetic - accessory. What really amuses me is that the driver, once seated, actually bothers to grab the seatbelt, drape it over him, and leaves it dangling slightly above where you would expect to see the latch. The latch, of course, no está.

The same applies for passengers, naturally.

Describing the driving habits of BsAs residents (taxi drviers included) is not necessary. Needless to say, any infraction you can imagine is par for the course.

But could we complain for 10 pesos? I think not.

We have a home. Moving in tomorrow. We tried to arm ourselves with US dollars (dolares estadounidenses which I think sounds much cooler) but failed, likely due to some MasterCard policies. Odd that so many items are denominated in the US currency, particularly as it’s generally getting weaker, and the peso argentino is pretty stable right now.

Not a major problem, though, our new housemate Simone can deal with pesos. She’s a classic Northern England girl whose been here for 4 years. Lots of local connections might prove very useful.

We’ve made a few trips into food markets eyeing off the food and drooling, but leaving empty handed what with having no kitchen in which to stow/cook/chill it. That changes tomorrow and we’re awfully pleased.

As is commonly expressed, people in Buenos Aires (hereafter BsAs) eat far too much meat.

Well, perhaps it’s just the foolhardy tourists, of which we are most likely two. But it’s decidedly difficult to eat out and find a meal that consists mostly of green. And thus far we’ve found only sub-par salads.

Imagine, though, meat so rich that it needs no seasoning other than coal fired flames. Eating too much of this stuff gives you a strange, electric buzz.

Which is handy, because dinner is generally around 10pm.

That’s quite a word, so I’ll stick with i18n from now on.

Check it out, Countries of The World, Flags & Population in English y en español.

Anyone care to help with some more translations? The country names are all taken care of thanks to the nice Unicode people, which leaves just 10 or so phrases in the localisation file. Email me on jules!jules@com@au.

It is so nice of Jules to set me up a log-in for his blog, I guess I better act a bit more grateful and actually utilise it. We have had precious little time to actually upload photos and write anything but on holidays that is a good thing. So, from my perspective the following things are worth mentioning:

Barcelona

Gaudi of course lived up to my expectations and thoroughly delighted me. See pictures in the gallery. For those of you who don’t know the work of Gaudi, he designed the gingerbread looking houses that you can see in our photos.

Mardi in Barcelona. My effervescent friend Mardi came with us to Barcelona and it was wonderful to spend time with her there. The experience would have been completely different with out her. She befriended Oscar the local that Jules mentioned earlier and he spent a couple of days with us as our personal tour guide.

Valencia

Thank god for the Moto GP! I can’t believe that I am saying that but if it weren’t for the Motor Bike race in Valencia (Jules’ write up here) we would not have gone to Valencia or possibly even Spain! I loved Valencia it was so charming and a little more sophisticated than Barcelona. No tourists at all (except for Europeans on motor bikes). Definitely no annoying Brits or Americans milling around.

Gatos(say “gah toss”) is the Spanish word for “cats”. Incredibly the Botanical Gardens have dozens of resident gatos that are encouraged to stay there. In fact the entry fee of 0.60€ is donated entirely to the welfare of the cats. It was so much fun to keep an eye out for cats at every corner. They are so friendly and come running to rub up against your leg or sit on your lap if you are that way inclined.

London

I have left this to last which means that I won’t have enough energy to do it justice. Last night we went out for dinner with all of Jules’ family for his grandfather’s 88th birthday at Rules in Covent Garden. Rules is reputedly the oldest restarant in London and is full of amazing memorabilia from all the famous politicians, playwrights, artists etc that have frequented the place over 200 years. We had a private room with our own personal waiter for the 7 of us and it was just wonderful. The food was divine and very English.

Ok, I’ve had enough. I look forward to boring you all silly with a personal commentary on all our photos when we get back.

Adios,
Jess

Finally uploaded a small selection of photos from Barcelona & Valencia..
See them here.

Got my MotoGP tickets so it’s all on ;-)

Been in Barcelona for 4 days-ish and they’ve been the kind of ideal culture surprise that we look for when travelling.

I thoroughly love the fact that just about no-one we encounter speaks English. I mean, when I wander up to a tourist info desk or similar, I’m just wasting both their and my time by trying to struggle through various scenarios in Spanish given that they speak perfect English.

But when forced to do so, I constantly surprise myself with how much I’m capable of communicating in the language. The 6 months or so that I spent studying Spanish were absolutely worthwhile, I’m now so glad that I did. It’s a totally different experience.

This not-so-EasyInternetCafe won’t let me upload any photos unfortunately. Might have to wait till we get back to England. At the risk of talking about the weather, we’ve had sunny and 24 degrees every single day here. And it looks set to continue a little further south in Valencia with 24-26 every day. We’ll definitely go for a swim in the pond (er, Mediterreanean).

Food

Is so important here that it deserves its own subheading. My body clock is in all sorts of confusion on account of lunch at 4pm, dinner at 11pm, drinking until 3am schedule. But it’ll deal with it ;-) They do a coffee that agrees with me here, which is interestingly not the case in Italy.

The people are mostly great. We’ve spent time with a nice Catalan fellow (Catalonia is not Spain, so they keep saying!) and more recently with a couple of Mexicans living here. People are generally happy to help and are not nearly in as much of an eyes-down hurry as Londoners. Mind you, you need to keep your eyes down here what with all the piss/vomit/dogshit on the tiny streets.

The streets of Barcelona are W I D E. Strange for an old city. Traffic moves quite briskly and you don’t get easily lost because they’re dead straight. Lot like Melbourne. Did manage to get lost on the bicycle today, though.

Something I probably wouldn’t have noticed had I not studied the language is that most signs in Barcelona are in Catalan and not Spanish. However most conversations I (attempt to) eavesdrop on are in Spanish, not Catalan. They have a strange relationship with languages here. Catalan is closer to French than Spanish. I struggle to read it and cannot understand a spoken word of it.

Moving on from my language obsession…. Overall this is a briliant city and I could potentially live here, though I’m certain I could not keep up with the hectic, exuberant state these people live in. Very, very glad that we’re not here in summer; it’s plenty warm enough and still thoroughly teaming with tourists. Me gusta mucho!

Rain today, James tonight and Spain tomorrow.

Bit of London Eye and Thames cruise action on a sunny yester-day.

Interesting thing about the English (maybe just ye olde Londoners) is how literal they can be. When you come across a converted warehouse apartment block on Southbank that is called “Sea Container House” you can be damn sure than 100 years ago, it was indeed a house for, well, sea containers.

So last night did infact involve fireworks. Real fireworks, the kind you can’t buy in Australia - even in Canberra. Jules (ex-housemate-now-London-expat) Sanders had acquired some and thought it a good idea to set them off in a park on our way to the tube station.

This involved jumping a tall, wet, very slippery fence around the park that had obviously been erected to keep out undesirable firework-launching hoodlums. After a bit of a tumble and torn jeans it successfully kept me out, but alas not the erstwhile Mr Sanders. They exploded at ground level after a failed launch and were damn impressive and even louder than you’d expect. Nice work. A thick pall of smoke covered the block and we evacuated rapidly.

So London remains as it was - expensive windy and wet. The flight was challenging and, despite various sleep inducements and 4 seats to myself, didn’t result in much sleep. The jet lag is fading now, though, and there’s adventure on the cards.

A couple of photos are available in gate lounge B.