It´s been a pretty stormy few days - when it rains here, it REALLY rains! Undaunted, we´ve been to see lots of live music - some Argentine indie, Argentine rock, and intended to see some rabble-rousing, foot-stomping north-west Argentinian stuff at a local "peña" last night, but instead got lots of mournful Chilean ballads!! (Which, of course, was amazing...)

Also attempted to meet up with some locals, friends of friends, but failed dismally - despite me asking various bemused punters whether they were Lucas. None of them were. At least the bar (Le Cigale) was cool - within five minutes they´d played Bowie, the Cars and the heavily tattooed barman had complimented me on my Cheap Trick T shirt so it was definitely my kinda place!

Finally got to the rock bar, Salon Pueyrredon, last night (the key is turning up AFTER midnight!) which was great - amusingly I noticed they advertised themselves as being in "Palermo Bronx", to set themselves apart from "Palermo Soho", "Palermo Hollywood" and even the more recent, and controversial, "Palermo Queens" (which is basically our own neighbourhood, Villa Crespo). But only tossers and estate agents call it that, apparently. Dunno if I approve of "Palermo Bronx" either, really...

Will miss Villa Crespo - even managed to vaguely get the hang of the local bus system! - but looking forward to heading over to Cordoba tomorrow for a coupla nights!

PS I went for Chacarita in the end, for those who are interested - they are the most local to us, after all! Though they also look to be in relegation trouble, argh!!

conoces el fenomeno Susan Boyle?

A bit quieter these last couple of days, mainly due to Becka getting a bad tummy, not sure if it was the keppe crudo (raw meat with onion) we ate at Sarkis, the legendary local Armenian restaurant, though I had it too and have suffered no ill effects... In the meantime, I kept myself busy trying to decide which Argentinian team to support, I´m going for either Velez Sarsfield or Chacarita. Any suggestions?? I´m also considering getting some blonde highlights, I´ve seen this on several of the guys round here and it looks really cool. Or a semi mullet maybe. (this is Mauro by the way)

The good news is that Becka´s better now - we managed to head out for our "anniversary" dinner last night at Gran Bar Danzon, which was all very swanky (they certainly do swank here with the best of em), but a few too many business types in suits flashing the cash to make me feel entirely comfortable. Becka had to keep reassuring me that there were others in jeans there too. Anyway, it made me realise that really, I´m more of a Guerrin (Maradona´s favourite pizza bar) kinda guy at heart...

Had a try of Fernet, the national Argentine spirit - it got better after the first few sips, very herby, but basically it´s not a patch on pisco!

Saw the Plaza de Mayo mothers, some of which must be over 80, making their slow and sombre trek around the Plaza, which they´ve been doing every Thursday afternoon for over 30 years, holding up pictures of their lost family members, a very moving and sobering reminder of the grim, and not too distant, history of this country... This kind of trip would have been pretty much impossible a couple of decades ago.

Also visited the MALBA (Latin American art) museum, which featured an Andy Warhol exhibition, slightly incongruously, and this:

(this was a surreptitious snap Becka managed to take before being publicly humiliated by a member of staff there for daring to take a picture - expressly forbidden, apparently!)

So we are squeezing some culture in between mealtimes!! xx

noisy neighbours

Got out of town today, took a day trip to Tigre (about an hour on the train) then a boat trip to Tres Bocas, where we had a taste of life on the river delta, and imagined being in "True Blood". all very peaceful and relaxing...

Tango is very much all around in this city, it´s no cliche - you can´t go anywhere without a picture of the old legend Carlos Gardel smiling down at you - we´re gonna go check out a "milonga", where the locals do their business, later on tonight, hopefully stay out of the way otherwise we´ll be obliged to strut our stuff too! lots of entertaining tube journeys, either featuring buskers playing heartrending violin or live comedy shows... probably wouldn´t get so far doing that in rush hour in London, but the locals seem quite amenable to it all.

Must say, much as we´re loving our flat - we´re not loving our neighbours in our apartment tho - this dreadlocked and probably highly stoned Argentinian with a penchant for blaring out reggae at 2am so loudly you´d think he was actually in the room with you, holding his speakers over your head. have been downstairs to ring the buzzer a coupla times and he fortunately seems to take the hint, but God help me (or him?!) if he does it again tonight... Had our meal out with the Brazilian couple last night, to be fair the steak wasn´t quite up to the standard of previous ones we´d had (and this was in swanky Puerto Madero - which is a bit of a tourist trap perhaps), but we now have offers of somewhere to stay in Sao Paulo (well, Americana, about an hour away, to be exact) if we can make time in our busy Brazilian schedule. But that´s a coupla months away yet...!

lots of love to you all - say hi so we know you´re out there!! xx

moved into our apartment now!

Here´s a few photos from the last couple of days. We´ve moved into our flat now. It´s lovely and ramshackle with muy autentico old-skool furniture and a slight musty smell. We were greeted by a lovely lady called Alicia and a massive dead cockroach but I realised we´re gonna have to get used to the old exotic insects.

Last night we went to Maradona´s fave pizza joint (allegedly), Guerrin, in the centre of town. It was brilliant and cheap as chips (or pizza). We had a few slices washed down with sweet moscato wine and chatted to the waiters (conversation largely consisting of me saying "que es esto? y eso?"). On the way to get some churros in a fab 50s style cafe, we stumbled across a Socialist Party demonstration on one of the main streets. Loads of youngsters at midnight on a Saturday waving banners and chanting rousing slogans - so young and so politically engaged! Makes you proud to be British...hmm..

And to prove that eating is not all we´re doing... Today we wandered into La Boca (see photo of Caminito balcony). It turned out Boca Juniors were at home so there were hordes of slighly intimidating fans all over the place. Much as Palermo Viejo is leafy and stylish, it was good to get a different perspective of the city... and then get the hell out of there before it got dark!!

We also had a fab lunch (ha ha ha) in San Telmo - sweetbreads and meat from the parrilla. We met a nice couple from Sao Paulo and somehow arranged to meet for dinner again tomorrow night, despite the fact that our Portuguese is very poor and their English and Spanish much the same! So hopefully they´re nice but who knows...

The Cocina Discreta turned out to be just the two of us, so it was about as as "discreta" as you can get, but it was a great evening, and we´re looking forward to checking out some more of these "behind closed doors" joints. We´re settling nicely into our local barrio, have found a few less chi-chi bars (one of them played Devo until Becka started singing along loudly, at which point the barman promptly replaced it with some latin jazz), where they either give you free pizza, popcorn or monkey nuts (see photo of cool bar and Becka).

(PS have just heard that Spurs scored nine goals today. NINE GOALS!!! i think celebration may be in order...!!)

love to you all xx

Got out of Palermo properly for the first time today... visited the Plaza de Mayo, Casa Rosada and wandered over to San Telmo which looks very promising - looking forward to staying there for a few days soon! As it is, will be sad to leave "Chelulu Trendy Hotel" as they've been unfailingly helpful and polite, and our room is lovely, but it's an exciting step to move into our rented flat tomorrow, even if I have a certain amount of trepidation about negotiating the stairs (apparently you ring the bell and wait five minutes till someone gets down them to let you in, so that'll be fun with our rucksacks!!)

By the way, forgot to mention the ice-cream we had the other night at Scannapieco (I think it's called) which was incredible - dulce de leche and pistachio flavours - certainly the best I can remember having! (Becka agrees)

Here's some photos to give you a flavour of things... including yesterday's legendary steak, me getting well into a book about Russia under the Czars in this 200-year old bookshop often frequented by leftist intellectuals, and us in the rose garden in the Parque 3 de Febrero... Becka has taken about 3,000 photos of street art/graffiti/stencilling, here's just one to be getting on with!

On our way out now to 'la cocina discreta', one of those supper clubs in someone's house that we read about in the Guardian travel section about a year ago. Mmm, spontaneous. It's breaking the budget but we're looking forward to it. (Becka: As long as there's no olives, sun-dried tomatoes or raisins on the menu. it'll be all good.)

bye xxxx

PS wore my Spurs top out today, but any fantasies I had about people slapping me on the back and talking to me about Ossie and Ricky Villa disappeared sharpish - in fact pretty much the first thing that happened was I walked right past an Argentine in an old Spurs top, I pointed at his shirt and mine in an attempt to bond but he seemed to have no idea whatsoever what the hell I was doing...

had our first steak today... worth waiting for!! (At La Cabrera, in case anyone's taking notes) A massive rib-eye, it was actually too much for the two of us, what with the numerous (16) condiments and extras plonked onto the table as well! All that plus a very fine glass of red indeed and we were pretty much knocked out after lunch, Becka proceeding to knock the complimentary glass of fizzy wine over onto the next table. Had a wander in the Parque Tres de Febrero, Becka slept it off by the pond, then staggerered back to the hotel room to try and get some energy for the evening's activities - still don't know how the Portenos do this staying up till 7am all the time business! Probably not by tramping all over town first, I guess. Going to check out Ocho Siete Ocho in Villa Crespo tonight... and looking forward to a session soon at Salon Pueyrredon, the local punk rock bar ("for those who don't actually enjoy being spat on") - Mazliah's map is getting very well-thumbed indeed, I hope he doesn't want it back, hehe!

Just sinking in today that it is actually going to be SIX MONTHS. Freaked me out very slightly, but didn't take long to get over it, haha!

Oh yeah, did see some of the Uruguay-Costa Rica match, no one seemed remotely arsed anywhere we went, in fact they mostly didn't seem to know it was on. I see Ireland got cheated, very sad for them. And no Russia either, well at least Pav can relax now and get back to warming the bench without harassing everyone. See you all later!! xxx

dull first post

Just to let those of you who care know, we've arrived safe and sound at Chelulu Trendy Hotel. It's not especially trendy but it's really nice. Journey went surprisingly smoothly. Off now to explore Palermo, and if I can get away with it, watch the Uruguay-Costa Rica game hehehe (this is the first Becka has heard of this). The weather is very nice - we will write again soon when we're less jetlagged and have more to say! xx

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