More of Buenos Aires

Kara here. Martin is where he should be - cooking our dinner in the kitchen!

We're in a hostel now, so our back packer stripes are being earnt! It's a friendly, clean place in a great part of Buenos Aires called San Telmo. Kind of like the Gloucester Road area of Bristol. Loads of cafes, interesting shops, loads of artists and great buildings that are a bit run down. Really enjoyed chilling out today, drinking tea in cafes (alas, no milk, I keep getting given lemon instead) and chatting.

We also went to the National History Museum - all displays in Spanish so a chance to learn the word for strike (golpe) and socialism (socialismo - not that hard really).

We saw the Russian Orthodox church - awesome, a touch of Russia in the middle of BA, and a very narrow house. Unfortunately "we" (it was Martin really but he claims "we stand as a team we die as a team so it was both of us") left the camera in our room, so no photos of this great barrio (neighbourhood).

Yesterday evening luck (suerte) was on our side. When taxi drivers drop you off they say "suerte". Last night, after ours dropped us off in the area we wanted to eat in, we went to a very popular restaurant. Which was fully booked. Even though we got there early (8.30). But the waiter said "go next door, have a beer, and maybe someone will cancel". So we did (black beer - very nice). He then knocked on the window to get our name. 20 minutes later, the maitre d´ walked into the bar and said "Are you Stanford? Your table is ready". Loads of luck! There were queues for this place!!

Vegetarians turn away now. We had an awesome piece of rump steak, served on a platter, with a wicked looking knife. You cut slices off yourself. The meat was great, the accompaniments awesome. In small ramekins (see Ben, I do listen to you when you talk about cooking), there were: mashed potato with mustard; mashed pumpkin; sweetcorn with some sauce; pepper corn sauce; pears; apple sauce and some more we couldn{t identify but also great. Really lovely meal.

Tomorrow we have the 20 hour bus ride to Iguazu...in the extra large seats. Think of us. It's a hard life!

Weather report: torrential rain this morning but then cleared up. Cloudy then spitting. Quite chilly. But hey. We're on a year out. Who cares?!