This was a tour I did a couple of weeks ago in Buenos Aires. I’d heard and read a lot of good reviews about it, and it appealed to me as it was cultural without being inside and walking round a museum which I’ve not quite got myself to do as yet! Sorry mum and dad…

We met in area called Palermo Hollywood and started off on foot, and then from time time we jumped in a minibus to move to other locations. Without going into too much detail, it was pretty interesting to hear how the graffiti or street art movement began here, and how it has progressed. We saw quite a few works by the same artists, and now if I see other pieces I can tell which are done by some artists. What’s appealing to me about street art is that it’s not forever, it’s for the here and now to be seen by anyone and in a few months or years it will be painted over by some new street art. In that sense it becomes more precious as its not permanent. And the scale of some of the pieces was immense! I’m not pretending to be any type of expert in the area, but it certainly a sparked an interest in me.
Graffitimundo

I spent last weekend at the coast with a few of my housemates and a group of uni students. In theory it would have been a wonderful weekend…but for a very boring visit of the common cold and cough which pretty much destroyed me! Anyone that has ever had the pleasure of living or working with me knows when I get a cold I get it way worse then everyone else and it lingers!! The biggest problem was being unwell I was seemingly unable to speak much Spanish all weekend which was frustrating as hell. Most of the group were French students who speak really good Spanish. I’ve met most of them before and managed to communicate well (with bad Spanish), but this weekend I felt like everything I was trying to say came out like Russian.., not helped by a croaky voice and sore throat! Coupled with the fact everyone else was enjoying a good drink, I wasn’t and in general was a bit boring and slightly miserable. And I hate being like that!

On the plus side it was a lovely location, great to get out of the city for some fresh air and space, very rustic, basic and charming. We had an Asado (BBQ) everyday, and sat round the fire to keep warm drinking (everyone else) and chatting. All though I was a little bit dour everyone was really lovely, and I met some unusual sorts. Including Ricardo who lives there all year, slightly eccentric genius painter who lives in an group of huts in the wood. He was the Asado maestro and cooked all our meat. How he assembled various bits of metal and wire to support and hold the meat was like watching the A-team in action. On the Saturday we went over to where he lived with the food for fajitas. I was slightly dubious how this was all going to work but out of nowhere a full stove was assembled over the open fire and we had a great meal. The Saturday night we had whole suckling pig which took seven hours to cook, and we didn’t eat till one in the morning, but the meat was SWEET! On the Sunday we headed up the beach twenty kilometres with two quad bikes and a 4×4. Massive expansive beach and sand dunes, a lot of fun! My flatmate Matias who was driving nine of us in the 4×4 along the beach found it amusing to drive through the sea….with the sun roof open…..just a tad wet after that!

All in all it was a good weekend, just gutted I wasn’t on form to enjoy myself more. Spent the following Monday and Tuesday in bed coughing and spluttering and still not entirely back to full health but getting there!