The McDonalds 5k Run

I head down to the Bosques at 9am for the McDonalds 5k run. The atmosphere is fantastic - a sea of pink-clad women raring to go, with a backdrop of perfect blue sky and hot morning sunshine. 

The run is great fun and I complete it in 25 minutes. It would've been much more fun if I'd had a friend, but hey ho, I enjoy the atmosphere and relax with a few stretches in the park afterwards.

After the run. Note, none of these lovely pink ladies is me.

Snapped on the grass - my medal

Coca Cola truck in the park

The lake - an urban paradise

After the run, I meet my neighbour and her English friend for lunch at an organic café called Artemisia near our place on Gorriti with Cabrera. We go for a salmon wok and share this dessert:

Dessert at Artemisia

As the sun goes down, we walk my neighbour's dog around Dorrego and I snap a load more graffiti:

Scary

Freaky...

Cool

Lula Has Cancer

Today is my second weekend shift. It starts off quiet and then suddenly we get a press release from one of the hospitals in São Paulo saying that Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been diagnosed with cancer. Jeez, what is it with Latin American presidents and cancer? Brazil's Dilma, Paraguay's Lugo, Venezuela's Chavez, and now Lula? Of course, Chavez comes straight out and accuses the U.S. of a conspiracy to cause cancer in LatAm's leaders, however they might manage to do that...

So I spend the day frantically editing copy and getting behind on other stuff. At lunch, though, I decide to go to McDonalds because the 5k run pack came with a couple of vouchers for a free McDonalds salad, so who am I to dismiss it?! The McDonalds free chicken salad is pretty average but I'm a sucker for a freebie so I'm quietly content.

I had planned on running home from work but the day has been so busy that I'm exhausted by the end of it and I idle off to the subte once again. At least it's quiet on a Saturday.

The 5k Debacle

I'm running the McDonalds 5k run in the Bosques de Palermo on Sunday - crazy, I know, for McDonalds to sponsor a run, but hey, I guess they have to do something good to offset all the burgers. Anyway, as usual, they can't just send out t-shirts and race packs in the post so I received an email explaining I must go to Alto Palermo shopping centre between certain hours of the evening to pick up the pack.

I head there straight after work as it's on my way home (sort of) and I go straight to the kiosk on the ground floor that says McDonalds 5k Run in big letters. After I've queued for ten minutes, a lady comes around with a clipboard, I find my name and she tells me I need to go to the first floor to collect my t-shirt. I head up to the first floor and queue for another five minutes before finding my name on the list and being told I need to go back to the ground floor to pick up my t-shirt. I refuse to do so, since I don't want to spend my entire Friday evening on this wild goose chase, so the heavily pierced young lady walkie-talkies down to try and sort it out for me. I wait and I wait and I wait.

Fifteen minutes later, I finally get my bright pink race pack. Nothing's easy in this place...

I spend the next half hour or so wandering around Alto Palermo. This is a hugely upmarket shopping centre - much more so than, say, The Trafford Centre or any UK shopping centre and I wonder where the rich Argentines get their money from. There are shops that are way more expensive than any high-street store in the UK and a leather jacket made in Argentina can easily set you back £500.

I buy a couple of pairs of earrings from a nice little kiosk and head home.

More Funky Street Art

Here are a few new ones I snapped this morning:

Cute little bobble man on Fitz Roy

Looks like a Banksy - probably ain't

Funky fighters on Fitz Roy

This one scares me

Cristina's Big Clampdown

I don't want this blog to be about my work, but today was a huge day in terms of Argentine politics and the oil and mining industries. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who won reelection on Sunday, might I add, chose today to order all gas, oil and mining companies to repatriate any future revenue to Argentina to stem capital flight from the country, causing a huge slump in energy and commodity industry shares.

It seems I came to Buenos Aires just in time for it all to kick off with the commodities and energy industry I'm covering. Either way, it was a very busy day at work and now I'm ready to relax.

Here's a fun video of Cristina's celebratory dance after the reelection victory on Sunday: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1417419-la-presidenta-al-ritmo-de-la-mancha-de-rolando#v_video_63903

The Argentine Curryhouse

I have not been a fan of curry ever since I projectile vomited into the holy Ganges in the Indian city of Varanasi after a not-exactly-delicious meal in April this year so when my neighbour asked if I wanted to join her at one of Buenos Aires's only Indian restaurants last night, it wasn't exactly the first thing on my list.

But, since I don't exactly have a huge amount of friends and need as many as I can get, I went along and joined them all at Tandoor, on Laprida with Charcas. I didn't imagine Argentine curry to be genuine, but the place turns out to be owned and run by a real Indian guy who quit his investment banking job in New York and moved South to set up the restaurant. There was a huge table of us - all ex-pats - and we dined on freshly cooked naans, fish curry and all sorts of dishes.

I'm pleased to say I enjoyed every mouthful and my faith in Indian food is restored. It was great to catch up with some fellow ex-pats too. 

The Joys of Opening a Bank Account

After a pretty quiet weekend, Monday morning comes back around and it's time to go and open my bank account.

I had to wait for a temporary document, hence waiting a couple of weeks before going to open my account. Fortunately, my company has an agreement with one of the major banks, making it easier to open an account as a foreigner, because apparently President Fernandez de Kirchner makes it pretty tough for us to do so otherwise.

I head out during the working day as the bank manager wants me to come in between 10am and noon. I wait in the reception area and immediately take out my Crackberry, hooked as I am. After all of 30 seconds, I hear a loud throat-clearing noise and look up to see the security guard shaking his head at me.

"No mobile phones," he says. 

Christ! What is with this country and their insistence that I don't use my mobile phone anywhere I go? I'm in a bank, for heaven's sake, what's the problem?! Later, my colleague explains to me that often bank robberies are coordinated by phone in Argentina - one person inside the bank is communicating with someone outside the bank, who mugs and robs customers as they exit the building with huge wads of cash. There was a famous case a year or so ago with a pregnant lady who was shot and killed. I make a mental note to take a book to the bank with me next time.

Opening an account takes me two and a half whole hours of my life. My bank manager is the most arrogant Argentine I have met so far. He gets the job done eventually but he might as well be down at the beach, so relaxed is he about his work. He drums his fingernails incessantly on his shiny, polished wooden desk as he leans right back in his bouncy office chair, practically horizontal. 

Mr Arrogant says I will need to open both a peso account and a dollar account, something I've never heard of before and which seems a bit absurd. I know that transferring money out of Argentina is practically impossible and that having a dollar account can help with this, but he doesn't seem to realise that I'm British and would still have to change the dollars into pounds anyway. I know there's a logic somewhere, but no amount of questioning him leads to an explanation. Either he doesn't know the reason himself or - more likely - he is simply too lazy and arrogant to bother to explain it to me. 

My queries about how I can transfer money back to the UK are met with similar reluctance and nonchalance. Mr Arrogant says he has to go photocopy something and returns about 40 minutes later with a couple of sheets of paper. I'm pretty sure he's been out for his lunch or something while I sit there twiddling my thumbs, unable to check my Crackberry lest the security police clamp down on me again.

Two and a half hours later I exit the bank, exhausted. At least I finally have a local bank account now.

Pizza and Mad Men

Pizza and Mad Men... ahh, the perfect combination.

Friday night I was supposed to meet up with Steel Drama Queen and her friend who was over from England, but the pair of them drunk one too many glasses of wine as they caught up on the goss and consequently stood me up. I didn't mind a jot - I was exhausted from a week of commuting and working while trying to stay in touch with my boyfriend and family in another timezone. I was happy to chill by myself.

After a pretty quiet weekend of the usual exploring and a 10k run around the Bosques de Palermo on Sunday, I was ready for another quiet night in on Sunday so I ordered a pizza from Bakano, the place just opposite Miranda on the same junction with Trastevere. (Fitz Roy with Costa Rica). Actually, I thought I deserved a treat so not only did I order a savoury pizza but I also went for a sweet one with dulce de leche! Maybe not to everyone's tastes, but I loved it!

Dulce de leche and banana pizza

Bakano is my new favourite pizza place. They even have a Facebook page that gives you 20% discount if you order from it. Ace.

As for Mad Men, I bought the box set of seasons 1-3 more than a year ago and brought it out here to watch and am now completely hooked. A night with Mad Men and Bakano Pizza equals bliss!

Buenos Aires Street Art

Quite probably the most fascinating thing about Buenos Aires so far is the street art. It's everywhere. Big, bold and in your face. The advantage of my new walk to work up Fitz Roy to the tube station is that it seems to be Buenos Aires graffiti-central. I've been taking photos as I go along and these are a few of my faves:

Approx Honduras with Juan B. Justo

Big Brother is watching you on Juan B. Justo

Fitz Roy and Villaroel in the early-morning sunlight

Fitz Roy and Honduras - wish I'd taken the pic the day I saw a cool motorcycle parked in front of this mural

Scary wolf-bears... on Fitz Roy

Friendlier bears on the corner of Fitz Roy

Funky pink blob with cat on its head - also Fitz Roy

Catching the graffiti being done... underneath a rather enormous lingerie ad...

The Closed-Door Restaurant

I needed a few cocktails to help me get over the images of Qaddafi's severed head, so last night I went with my American neighbour and her Argentine friend to one of Buenos Aires's many closed-door restaurants. Believe it or not, I hadn't heard of this concept before, but individuals or families open restaurants, often in their houses, with a limited number of tables and certain opening hours. They have set menus and you usually have to book in advance.

My neighbour and I took the bus to Cocina Sunae, located on a very quiet, dark residential street in Colegiales district. I wouldn't have wanted to have walked here from the bus stop alone but, that said, had I been by myself, I would have got a taxi. 

The door to the house was unmarked and we rang the doorbell before being let in through a normal, white residential gate. We were greeted by the husband of Christina, an Asian-American woman from New York who owns the restaurant. We met my neighbour's friend and the three of us girls sat at a large table in the middle of the restaurant - a cosy, converted living room with a big kitchen off the side of it. 

We paid 110 pesos (£15) upfront for the four-course menu that included mineral water and hot tea, and ordered delicious, mouthwatering cocktails for a little extra. Soon, Christina came out to greet us and stopped for a friendly chat before rushing back into the kitchen as the restaurant was pretty packed with fellow tourists and locals alike.

The first course was Chinese pork and beef wantons with a Thai sweet chilli sauce - my favourite. After that followed a Thai Shrimp Salad - a bed of lettuce filled with prawns, red grapefruit, mint, coriander, red onions, lemon-soy dressing and crushed roasted rice. I am sad to say that I simply despise coriander, but despite the strong taste, the second course was absolutely delicious. The crunchy texture of the roasted rice combined with the zing of the grapefruit juice and the kick of the mint made it one of the best things that has touched my lips since arriving in BA.

For the main course, there was a choice of either a Thai Yellow Curry or a whole, fried market fish served with Thai sweet spicy sauce and steamed rice. I went for the fish, of course. A huge oval-plate-sized fish appeared in front of me, bones, head and all, and I savoured every last bite. My only complaint was that the flavour was similar to the wanton starter, making the meal a bit sweet and samey, but I could happily eat it all again.

I'm not sure the photo really does it justice

Dessert was a Filipino Cassava cake with green tea and taro ice creams and a mango and sweet coconut milk reduction. All pretty original!
 

First Taste of Buenos Aires Nightlife

Last night it was time for my first real taste of Buenos Aires nightlife. 

It was a school night, of course, so we couldn't go too crazy, but I arranged to meet my new British BFF, Steel Drama Queen, across the traintracks in Palermo Soho. Well, not quite Palermo Soho actually - just south of the tracks in what felt like a very dodgy area along Godoy Cruz street. We met on the corner of Godoy Cruz and Paraguay, outside a restaurant/cocktail bar called Restaurant Godoy.

It turned out, however, that the restaurant didn't open for another hour or so, so we wandered around the neighbourhood (which turned out to be very dark and dodgy indeed, though we survived). We ended up at a little café with fresh bread and cheeses. Steel Drama Queen, it turns out, likes to order champagne by the glass, so we had one of those each and then walked back to Restaurant Godoy.

The place was pretty chic. Outside was a wooden varanda with trendy lights and places to sit, and inside was a long bar with oodles of bottles of liquor, and a large seating area with round booths and high tables. Although the place was empty at 9:30pm, we were told it was booked out and we could only be seated at the bar, so we did as we were told and took our place on some bar stools.

Within the next hour, the place filled up with a bizarre mix of people my parents' age, dressed in people my age's clothing. We felt a bit out of place, to be honest.

The food was pretty standard and the service a little below standard but we kept ourselves amused by people-watching the clientele. The party atmosphere was just starting to kick in at about midnight and, had it not been a school night, I'm sure we'd have stayed for a dance, but we ordered a taxi and went on our way. 

Steel Drama Queen has a crazy, and I mean crazy Argentine boyfriend.  She tells me all Argentine men are like this. He calls her every half hour, asking where she is. He is not happy that she has come out with me but he "let her come" anyway. He doesn't let her even speak to other guys. He is insanely jealous. They have raging rows every day. But he is hot. So she stays with him.

Ah, thank god I have the Irishman...

In other news, my boiler has broken. I stupidly turned it off because of a problem with my tap, and now it won't switch back on again for love nor money, so I can't have a hot shower. I am loathe to stick my hand into a naked flame with a giant match, like I have to do with the oven, so I think I'll wait until my neighbour can come around.

The Day Qaddafi Died

It's a historic day - Colonel Qaddafi is dead.

Working in a newsroom in Argentina, I get to watch news on several different TV channels all day long to keep an eye on local coverage while writing my own energy and financial news for a big international multimedia company. Today was an unforgettable day in terms of news coverage. Let's just say the Argentine media doesn't censor violent and gruesome images quite as much as we do in England, so all day long I watched as images of the Libyan dictator's severed, bloody head popped repeatedly onto my TV screens. It didn't make it easy to concentrate on my meager commodities stories...

I don't think I'll forget this one easily.

The Tube

After my horrendous "I hate Buenos Aires" tube experience last week, I heard there was a different route I could be taking to and from work, and have been taking it ever since. 

It involves a 20-minute walk for 10 blocks all the way up Fitz Roy to Dorrego station, and then it's a really simple straight tube journey for another 20 minutes or so to Florida station, which is a 2-minute walk from my office. I don't get a seat until I'm almost home, but on the way into work at 6:45am I can get a seat maybe 3 or 4 days out of 5, which is better than nothing.

The other thing about walking to the tube at 6:45am is that everyone is still out from the night before, particularly on Friday mornings after a Thursday night out. There are beer bottles in the street and students spilling out onto the pavements from bars. It all makes me feel very old and boring...

Riding the tube here is a bit like being in 80s Britain. Every single office worker wears grey, black or brown clothing, often seemingly corduroy or similarly bland outfits, and the hair dos range from 80s perms to mullets. Whereas I thought the tube in London was an antisocial place, in Buenos Aires it's a bit like a mortuary. Everyone just sits still with their head down, ignoring everyone else. They don't read books. At all. They just sit there. Well, it's a long journey so I take a book with me every day, sometimes a magazine, always in English, and people stare. They seem to think it's really odd. It's quite uncomfortable, really. God forbid one day I read a tourist guide or something...

On the way home it's just a game of sardines, rocking from side to side and bashing into each other while trying to keep hold of the flexi-handle things. And trying to keep my bag safe from pick pockets.

And I thought the London Underground was bad... Honestly, I take it all back. 

Nob Hill - one of the residential buildings I pass on my new route to work. Looks pretty nice actually!

Getting My Documents

Today it was time to get my documents in line to become an official Argentine (temporary) resident. Fortunately, my work hires a visa company to organise these things, and I just have to get a taxi to the Registro Nacional de Las Personas at 9am. A rather handsome and confident young man from the visa company immediately spots me as the stand-out Brit on arrival and greets me at the entrance to the government building. He begins speaking to me in very broken English and I have to wonder why he assumes I don't speak Spanish. Fair enough, I've only just moved to the country, but it's fairly safe to assume I will be able to at least get by in the local language, given that I'm working as a journalist here.

Mr Handsome escorts me to another entrance, where he isn't allowed to pass. He tells me to put my passport in a box at the front of the waiting room and then proceed to wait for up to two hours for my name to be called. He will wait outside. I wonder how incompetent my employer and the visa company must think we are if they think I can't do this myself without Mr Handsome waiting outside for me. I mean, not to be cocky, but it was more than 11 years ago that I moved to Brazil alone and managed to get myself a visa at the Federal Police station in back-of-beyond Palmas, Tocantins. If I could do that at the tender age of 18 with only three months of Portuguese then I think I can just about manage this one at age 29 years old, with 14 years of Spanish under my belt...

Nevertheless, Mr Handsome waits outside and I take a seat, immediately pulling out my Blackberry. After a few minutes, I start to hear some background noise and I look up to see that the security guard is trying to get my attention. What have I done now?! Mr Gruff Security Guard points at a sign behind me and I crook my neck around to see what he's pointing at.

"No Mobile Phones," reads the sign. Oh Jesus, no mobile phones in a waiting room?! Whatever next?

I look at my number tag. I'm number 104. The little ticker machine is on number 54. This is going to be quite a wait. And I have nothing to read.

I study my surroundings. The waiting room is packed full with hundreds of people, but they are almost all Hispanic-looking, with most of them speaking Spanish amongst themselves. At first, I think they are Argentines, but eventually I decide this place is definitely just a registry office for foreigners and therefore they must be from all over Latin America. I spy a few passports and realise they are Peruvians, Bolivians, Colombians mostly. I'm the only Brit I can see, though there appears to be one American.

A man comes around with a big silver tin of coffee and I jump at the chance of refreshment, since there is no shop or drinks stand in the building. I pay a few pesos for the coffee and take a sip. Uggh. It's full of sugar - there's actually sugar in the massive vat of coffee he's carrying. Gross. Why do South Americans automatically sweeten their coffee? 

Finally, after about two hours, my name is called and I get my photo taken and sign some forms. Now I just have to wait a couple of months and I'll be all official with my Argentine national ID card, the DNI! Yay!
 

My First Weekend Shift

Today is my first weekend shift at work - something I'm entirely used to, as a journalist, so I head towards Palermo station at 7am for a nice early start. The streets are deserted and the only people I see are drunken revelers heading back from their Saturday night out. After the ten-minute walk, I arrive at the subte station to find the entrance firmly gated shut. As I start to walk down the steps to see if there's a sign, I hear a man's voice from a few metres away.

"It opens at 8am," he says, looking at me as if I am an absolute lunatic for trying to get the tube to work at such a ridiculous hour on a Sunday morning. 

Jeez. This would never happen in London. I'm so surprised they don't open the underground network until 8am but I guess the guy is right, I'm the crazy one. Nobody goes to work at 7am on a Sunday morning - just me. Everyone else in the city is busy sleeping. 

I walk across the huge main road and check out the signs at the bus stop, but it's like trying to read Braille. I have no idea where all those stops are, and the map might as well be in Japanese. In any case, it doesn't look like any of the buses go from here to the Microcentro. (And who would want to go to the business centre on a Sunday morning anyway?!)

I begin to see people in matching "10k" t-shirts walking in the direction of the Bosques and I realise there's a coordinated race on this morning. Ah, that's the kind of thing I should be doing, instead of going to work! 

I decide to get a taxi, and end up back on the other side of the road near the man who thinks I'm crazy. He shakes his head in bemusement at me again as I finally manage to flag down a taxi. I begrudgingly pay the 8 pounds or so it costs to get to the centre.

On arrival at work, I find the main entrance thoroughly bolted with massive chains around the handles on the big glass double doors. What the...?  

I panic - was I suppose to let the security guards know I'm working today? Who do I call to let me in? I don't think I have a number... 

Eventually I notice there's a buzzer with a grate to the right of the door so I buzz the reception. A very sleepy-looking security guard who I've never seen before eventually ambles slowly to the glass doors and, after a thorough questioning, he lets me in. I explain that I work upstairs and he phones up to my office security guard before giving me the all-clear. Then he bolts the chains behind me, explaining that they have to keep the building locked up on evenings and weekends because of crime in the area. Wow.

The area is, of course, completely dead on weekends, and I know I have little chance of getting lunch near the office. It's a decent day, despite being overcast, so after a few hours' work, I walk down to Puerto Madero and cross the bridge to a very touristy deli restaurant called Market Place. I had been to this restaurant when I came to Buenos Aires with my parents in 2008 and was impressed with the freshly cooked food, but this time I find it overpriced, overcrowded and badly run. It takes ages to be served, and eventually I get a very dry and disappointing salad and sit outside to people-watch and enjoy the view before heading back to the office. 

Sunbathing on the roof

Back home in the evening, I decide to venture up onto the roof of my apartment building to watch the sun go down. I have to go up a narrow staircase and open a big, hot metal door with a key. I shut the door behind me and watch the beautiful sunset. The door is constantly banging behind me in the wind. 

When I descend to the second floor an hour later, I'm greeted by a rather riled-looking old lady who steps out of her apartment door to tell me off. She gives me a real talking to for allowing the door to keep banging while I was up on the roof. Apparently there's stone I was meant to put in front of the door to stop it banging, and she's really mad at me. Good way to make an impression with the new neighbours!

Back in my flat, I tuck into some of the salad and fresh quiche I bought at the organic market yesterday. Mmm, bliss. Maybe I can get used to Buenos Aires after all. 

The One Where I Try the Miranda Chicken Salad

My first weekend post-marathon is all about exploring and relaxing, safe in the knowledge that I don't have to run anywhere if I don't want to. So of course, after last night's party, I began the weekend with a long lie-in.

My neighbour has told me about a great indoor organic market so I head there to buy farm-fresh organic eggs, mushrooms, tomato sauce and wine. I store the lot in my fridge because there's somewhere else I want to be.

I go back to Miranda, a restaurant one block from my place, on Costa Rica and Fitz Roy. It's a beautiful day so I take a seat outside in one of the comfy director's chairs with a little wooden table. We're on the street corner so it's a little noisy with traffic, but perfect for people-watching. 

People-watching at Miranda is people-watching the rich. The type of people who come here are American and British ex-pats, Brazilian tourists and fairly rich locals with beautiful clothes, high heels and designer sunglasses. But the atmosphere is so friendly and I feel relaxed even sitting by myself.

Although the restaurant is a parrilla, famous for steak and other meat, I have my eye on the chicken salad, which my British landlord has told me is to die for. I can't imagine what can be so amazing about a chicken salad, but I order the Ensalada Jacinta anyway. And when it comes, I understand perfectly. 

The Ensalada Jacinta

At the risk of sounding like a Marks & Spencers advert, the Miranda chicken salad is not just any chicken salad. Theirs is a veritable mouthwatering feast fit for a family of four. It includes an enormous bed of lettuce topped with grilled chicken breasts, red peppers, two large grilled wheels of pumpkin, parmesan cheese, sundried tomatoes, sunflower seeds and an incredibly sumptuous mustard vinaigrette. I am literally salivating just looking at this picture. Miranda, I will be coming back often. 

The I.T. Crowd

My neighbour took me last night to a party at one of her friends' houses in San Telmo, a cool neighbourhood the other side of the Microcentro from Palermo. We picked up a British friend of hers, a fellow former journalist, on the way. 

Immediately on arrival at the party, I was asked to take my boots off to spare the Norwegian host's wooden floors. As I did so, I revealed my bright pink Percy Pig socks, ensuring any cool image I may have mistakenly portrayed up to that point went straight out the window.

The party was a bit of an eye-opener. There were about 20 people, at least 15 of them non-Argentine, and almost all of them have their own start-up companies. Most of the guys were programmers and they work from their own apartments, so once a week they all get together in one of their apartments and work together, sharing lunch and conversation to create an office-like atmosphere. I thought this was really cool as there are so many ex-pats in Buenos Aires but they get rather lonely working alone. I don't have that problem, working in a decent-sized office, but I love the idea of working from my flat on my laptop (if only it had air conditioning).

The British guy told me all about the sailing course he'd done in Buenos Aires and said I should get involved, and I spent some time talking to an Italian guy with a translation business. It's great to meet a few new people.

Some of the party-goers headed on to a nightclub at about 2am but I chose to hit the hay and got a taxi back with a couple of people. Seeing the city at night was pretty cool.

The One Where The Bank Blocks My Card

Arrrgh! Is anything going to go right for me in this city?!

I get an e-mail from my Mum in the morning to tell me the fraud protection service at my bank left a message on her answerphone - one of the numbers I have listed in my contacts with the bank. Last Monday, I tried my card at an ATM in Palermo and had it denied. I even tried it at my own bank and it still didn't work. There are hardly any ATMs in the whole of Palermo and when I asked in the shops, they told me to go to the Microcentro, which is a whole half an hour away. How can a major shopping district for rich people do without cash machines? Especially when the supermarkets don't even take cards...

Anyway, I try calling the bank's 0845 number from the office but it doesn't work from outside the UK and there's some problem with the phones at work. My Mum tries calling and is told they can only speak to me personally. Eventually, after several attempts, my boss tells me it's ok to use my work mobile and I call from there. My card has been blocked because I didn't tell them I was moving to Argentina. Grrr! Anyway, no major harm done, and after a few security questions, my card eventually gets reactivated. 

At lunch, I find a cool place called Picnic, a vegan café/restaurant on Florida, right by Catedral subte station. They do great salads and interesting sandwiches, and the first floor eating area is perfect for people-watching. Argentina, unlike the UK, doesn't have many sandwich shops like Pret a Manger and Marks & Spencers, as there's no real lunchtime sandwich culture, so it's nice to find somewhere that reminds me of home a little.

Today's people-watching from the first floor of Picnic included this rather odd grey rectangular giant chasing an innocent pedestrian down Florida... 
 

The One Where I HATE Buenos Aires

I leave work at 6pm at usual and walk the ten minutes to Catedral station before descending the steps to the subte. To my surprise, there's a thick wall of people on the platform, about six deep until it reaches the platform edge. What the...? I'm used to this in London at rush hour, but it's the first time it's been like this here in a whole week so I know it's not normal. 

I could walk back up to street level and get a taxi, but I don't really want to spend money to get a taxi home from work when I can get the tube - I'm just going to have to get used to this. I wait and after five minutes or so, the train arrives. It's empty because  this is the first stop on the line, so the entire thick wall of sweaty bodies piles in and we stand like sardines, waiting for the doors to close. Unfortunately, because I was at the back of the human wall, I find myself crushed in the doorway between an enormous sweaty fat man and a couple of tall, skinny, long, greasy-haired men.

There seems to be a struggle for the doors to close and I hear a throat-clearing over the loud speaker, followed by a very short announcement from the driver. Unfortunately, I don't understand a word that he says as he speaks so quickly, except I know it's bad because it leads to a collective groan from the mass of sweaty passengers.

We stop at the next stop and dozens more people squeeze in, squashing me even tighter into my smelly human sandwich. Then, at the next station, we stop, but the doors don't open.  After a while, I hear the driver's voice again and this time I understand, "There is a problem with the doors. They won't open. We will continue to the end of the line, Congreso de Tucuman." 

Congreso de Tucuman?! That's 15 stops away! He gives us absolutely no opportunity to get off the now-moving train and we're forced to stand like sardines all the way to the very end of the green line. I can barely stand as the amount of floor space beneath me is not equivalent to the amount of space my feet take up and I'm practically on tiptoes, half crouching, one leg bent out to the side in excruciating fashion while I simultaneously try to keep hold of my two heavy bags. 

Finally, after about 15 minutes of slowly moving through stations without stopping, the train stops and I hear another muffled announcement. I don't quite catch all of it but, as the doors open, I realise I have an opportunity to alight and I seize it. I step off and follow the mass of people as they confusedly move up the escalator. This is Pueyreddón station. I know it's not too far from Palermo - five stops - and I can just get a taxi. The rest of the tube line seems to be broken anyway.

But the moment I step out of the station, I realise the sky is black and it is literally bucketing down with torrential rain. A hundred or more passengers have just got off at the same station and there are various buses letting people off too. There isn't a taxi in sight. I walk across the road and try to fathom the signs at the bus stops, but they make no sense. 

I wander further. Surely I'll find a bus at some point that's heading towards Palermo - it really isn't far, but it's too far to walk in this rain. I stand in a shop doorway and Blackberry my colleague back at work for advice and he tells me which buses to look out for, but there are none. 

I walk around in the rain, searching for a taxi. Several go past me with their lights on without stopping. More than one drives past and splashes me dirty black puddle water. As I get more and more saturated with the rain, I get more and more exasperated and allow myself to think, for the first time, I HATE Buenos Aires. How can there be no taxis in the rain? 

I walk for 30 minutes in the rain. It's coming down harder and the taxis seem to be more and more scarce. There's only one thing for it - I have to go back to the tube.

I've walked aimlessly and I have no idea where I am, so I have to just retrace my steps until I finally get back to Pueyrredón. I descend the steps and see that finally the platform has emptied out. A train eventually comes along and I get off ten minutes later at Palermo and walk the remaining ten minutes down the cold, dark, rainy streets to home, where I jump straight into a hot shower.

It's taken me 1 hour and 50 minutes to get home. In London it used to take me 25 minutes. This is insane! I've missed my usual Skype slot with home and I'm so exhausted I'm not going to be able to do anything tonight. It's getting late. At this rate, my life is going to be working and commuting and nothing else.

Ugggh.

There's only one thing for it - I'm going to have to start running home.


 

My First Conference and My First Real Steak

I may not have had a full five-day week in Buenos Aires yet, but the real work begins today regardless. An annual oil and gas conference is happening at La Rural, a conference centre in the capital, so I head there with my trusty colleague to mingle with some industry types and make a few contacts. My colleague is relocating to Rio de Janeiro and I'm making the most of our crossover period while he's still in Buenos Aires so I can learn the ropes. 

The conference is dull as dishwater but I make a few contacts and meet some other journalists. I'm quite surprised to meet at least three other British reporters and several other foreigners. Working in São Paulo, all my colleagues were Brazilian, but it seems in Argentina the foreign media companies use foreign correspondents instead of locals. I guess more foreigners want to live in beautiful Buenos Aires than in smoggy Sampa.

The silver lining at the boring conference is meeting a fellow young British journalist with whom I immediately hit it off. Let's just call her the Steel Drama Queen. We swap numbers and arrange to meet up soon.

In the evening, I go for dinner at nearby restaurant Miranda with a girl from work who I know from the São Paulo office - she's visiting Buenos Aires. Miranda is a really popular restaurant one block from my flat in Palermo Hollywood. I say popular because every time I walk or drive past, whether it's 11am on a Sunday morning on 1am on a week night, the place is heaving with people.

Miranda during the daytime

The Argentines like to eat out late though. I'm used to a 6pm dinner and I arrange to meet my colleague at 8:30pm, but she has a traffic-related disaster and arrives an hour late. At 9:30pm, the place is still just filling up, and when we leave after 11:30pm, it's absolutely rammed, with some people only just arriving.

I order the bife de chorizo with grilled vegetables - an enormous stack of roasted pumpkin and other veg - and mashed potatoes. My first proper steak (let's not count the one I had on Monday) is perfect. We finish off with waffles and ice cream and I head home exhausted but finally satisfied.

Buenos Aires Woes

Why is everything so difficult here?

Woe #1 - The sardine-effect on the subte. Whereas in London I would at least get a seat after a couple of stops of being squashed in a hot, sweaty, human sandwich, here I have to stand for my entire 10-stop journey, while I get jolted from left to right, hitting my fellow passengers with my enormous bag as I go.

Woe #2 - The oven in my flat is from about 1853. There is no button to light the stove or the oven. After two days of vain attempts, my neighbour finally came around last night and showed me how to light it manually with a super-long match. I have a massive fear of fire. This is not good.

Woe #3 - The supermarkets don't take cards. What is all that about?!


Yesterday, on my way home from the Palermo Soho experience, I decided to stop at one of the small local supermarkets in Palermo Hollywood to pick up a few bits and pieces.

I fill my shopping basket with a ton of essentials - shampoo, conditioner, bread, toilet roll. I am shocked to find a loaf of bread that's 16 pesos. That's about £2! A small bottle of non-main-branded ketchup is also about £3 and practically everything is more expensive than it would be in England. I can barely believe it. No wonder the restaurants are so full here - it's cheaper to eat out than in!

Finally I get to the counter and the Chinese dude behind the till puts all my items through. I go to pay with my credit card and he shakes his head at me.

"No credit cards," he says in heavily accented Spanish.

"Why?" I say, thinking the machine is simply broken.

"No credit cards in supermarket," he says. This is a permanent thing, it's not just for today. 

I have racked up more than 100 pesos of goods and I only have 60 pesos in change, so I have to put most of it back. The shop assistant looks at me as if I am stupid.

Bear in mind this is a decent-sized supermarket, larger than, say, a Tesco Metro or Sainsburys Local in the UK. And they don't take credit or debit cards. Unbelievable!

Exploring Palermo Soho

Thank God today is a bank holiday. I can barely walk, for all the post-marathon stiffness, so getting to work might be a bit problematic. 

After a long and well-deserved lie-in, I decide a walk around the area to ease a bit of that lactic acid would be a good idea, while getting to know my neighbourhood, so I set off for a wander.

I head towards Palermo Soho, which is on the other side of the train tracks. It turns out the area sometimes known as Palermo Viejo is divided into two zones - Palermo Soho and Palermo Hollywood. Palermo Soho is the bit south (hence Soho) of the tracks, and Hollywood is north of the tracks, where I live. Hollywood has a huge concentration of incredible restaurants and lots of tiny supermarkets, while Soho is home to all the trendy, expensive clothes shops, cute little cafés and chic bars and nightclubs. 

A few years ago, when I first visited Buenos Aires, I found a great little roundabout surrounded by market stalls, restaurants and bars, but I don't remember exactly where it is or what it's called, so I set off walking, map in hand. It turns out you can cut across the train tracks on Honduras, which is just a couple of blocks from my flat - meaning I could have saved myself a bit of a walk when I was lost in the rain the other day. Doh!

It takes me about fifteen minutes walking along Honduras before I hit Plaza Serrano (also known as Plaza Cortázar) - the roundabout with all the cool restaurants and bars. The stalls are all still there and I spend the afternoon perusing and doing a little shopping. This place is a shopping paradise. The only bad thing is it is so expensive compared with four years ago when I first came. Brazil isn't the only place that's been hit with inflation!

I go for lunch at a place called Maleva, where I went with my friend Michelle in early 2008, almost four years ago. I seem to recall we popped in on the off chance and ended up paying £5 each for an amazing three-course meal complete with wine. So when I walk in today, I'm expecting similar. I'm dying for my first steak after four days in Argentina and I order the Ojo de Bife Maleva - a rib eye steak in barbecue sauce. Barbecue sauce is by no means my favourite way to enjoy steak, but after wandering past better-looking restaurants and feeling reluctant to sit in a posh place all by myself, I settle on Maleva, where I think I'll feel more comfortable.

Sadly, the Maleva experience just doesn't compare with what I had in 2008. The steak is average and is smothered in thick, gloopy, sickly barbecue sauce. And it sets me back much more than it would've done four years ago. I walk out feeling greasy, over-full, yet still unsatisfied. I won't be going back there.

I head home via the supermarket and settle down to rest my legs for the rest of the day. Bank holidays rock!

Lost in Buenos Aires Part III: Marathon Day

Well, I sure am an idiot. 

A friend of a work colleague has very kindly offered to pick me up at 6:30am to drive me to the start line of the marathon, which kicks off at 7:30am. So I set my alarm for 5:45am and bound out of bed to make my banana sandwich - essential ingredients for a good run. So far, so good.

I'm ready and waiting at 6:30am with my personalised yellow Adidas vest and jogging bottoms, my trainers laced up with my marathon chip, banana sandwich down the hatch. It gets to 6:35am and there's no sign of Gastón. 6:40am... the clock is ticking, but I don't want to call him - I don't even know the guy and he's volunteered to pick me up at the crack of dawn, so he deserves the benefit of the doubt.

I check my Blackberry. Hmm. That's funny. Why does my Blackberry say it's 5:40am? My English mobile says it's 6:40am... Shit, have I got up an hour early? Have I got up an hour late? But my phones were completely in sync last night. How am I going to find out what time it really is?! 

I fire up my laptop. Sure enough, it's only 5:40am. I got up at 4:45am, an hour too early. Oh, jeez. Well, at least it wasn't an hour too late, but I'm sure going to be tired for this run.

I send a few emails and while away the next hour. Gastón arrives a few minutes after the real 6:30am and we set off towards the marathon starting point. Unfortunately, neither of us have paid any attention to the road signs that have been up for the past few days, indicating that all roads around the marathon starting point will be closed after 6:30am. We miss the turning for the starting point and try to turn right at the next turning, only the road is closed to traffic. And the one after that is closed. And the one after that...

We stop the car to ask a policeman how we can get back to the starting point, and he tells us we'll have to loop around the city. Fifteen minutes later, we're completely lost around the back of an industrial estate. Gastón asks another innocent bystander for help, but we're so far from our destination now, the guy just shakes his head. And of course, I can't contribute any wisdom whatsoever, having lived in this city a mere three days.

Another fifteen minutes later, we're still circling the city, and panic has set in. I'm resigned to the fact that I'm going to miss my first marathon. My reason for coming to Buenos Aires, my only chance at this city's 42k race. What's more, I still need to check my bags into the cloakroom and I still have to pee. And it's already 7:30am - the starting horn has already sounded.

We arrive just after 7:30am but we can't drive up to the start line, so we sprint through a couple of car parks and I go for my toilet stop and down my essential Imodium tablets with some water. (You can't be needing to go during a five-hour run!) Gastón agrees to look after my bag, though I have no idea how I'll find him when I'm finished.

We finally cross the line at 7:37am. Every single runner has already crossed the line and I'm right at the back. Gastón isn't running, but he decides to jog the first 5 kilometres with me to keep me company. We have been running fast for a couple of minutes by the time I realise this is a marathon, not a 100 metre sprint - we need to slow down. At the same time, I realise I haven't cailbrated my Garmin, and I need it for the race. But it only works when you're standing still, so I stop for about five minutes and wait for it to calibrate. Finally, it registers where I am, and we set off running again.

Gastón leaves me just as we reach Avenida del Libertador, the beautiful, wide avenue that runs alongside the Bosques de Palermo, about 25 minutes into the race. From then on, I'm on my own, though I've caught up with one or two slow-coaches, and I'm pleased to see a few people running in the opposite direction, trying to get to the start line because they, too, messed up with the road closures. So I'm at the back, but I'm least I'm not last.

The next five hours are incredible. The marathon route takes me through leafy Palermo, upmarket Recoleta, the financial and commercial centre known as el Microcentro, historic, hip San Telmo, dodgy, rundown, derelict dockland La Boca, fashionable, touristy Puerto Madero, and finally back to Palermo. It is basically the ideal way to see the entire city in five hours. (Or two or three, if you're superhuman). 

The weather conditions are perfect. After hearing scare stories yesterday about the marathon runner who died because of humid conditions, I was pleased to see the weather forecast was for only 16 degrees C, 18 mph wind and 69% humidity - significantly lower than in the past few days. In reality, this translates to cloudy sky, the occasional bit of light drizzle, and relatively cool temperatures. Basically just like a British autumn day, and perfect for running a marathon. When I run past the cooling stations, where volunteers stand with huge yellow sponges to cool the runners down, I notice barely anyone is bothering because it isn't hot in the first place.

On the advice of my marathon-running friends back in England, I take the water and isotonic drinks at every single refreshment station so as not to get dehydrated. I also take my energy gel sachets after 10km and 20km. They taste like sickly, super-sweet syrup and the consistency is thick and gloopy like tar, but I know I need the energy. I have never run further than 21km and I need to double it.

Around the 25km mark, I'm just starting to feel like I need a boost, when I see the ladies holding out baskets for the runners. I have no idea what's in the baskets until I get closer. Fresh fruit! They have quartered oranges, halved bananas, and handfuls of raisins and dates. I feel like it's a mirage - this is exactly what I need! I run along with a quartered orange sticking out of mouth, juice dripping down my chin and making my face all sticky. 

Around kilometre 35, we actually run around the back of the local airport, known as Jorge Newbery. I am amused to see passengers wheeling their huge suitcases for hundreds of metres because the marathon organisers have been allowed to close off one of the taxi routes into the airport. This would never happen in England!

I manage to run the entire way without stopping or walking, and I finish the marathon in 5 hours, 7 minutes and 37 seconds. However, if you discount my two toilet stops and my stop at the beginning to calibrate my Garmin, I definitely did it in under five hours. Never mind the fact that I would never be able to run a marathon without a toilet stop...

I did it! The feeling as I cross the finish line is indescribable. I've pounded 42 kilometres worth of pavements and I enjoyed every minute of it. It kind of brings me closer to the city - I've seen it in ways I never would have experienced if I'd just wandered around as a tourist for a few days. 

Gastón and my work colleague are waiting for me at the finish line as I cross, tears in my eyes, white as a sheet and feeling like I'm about to faint. I slurp down a For Goodness Shake to replenish lost energy and get back in Gastón's car. The boys drop me off at my flat and I groan like an arthritic granny as I prize my stiff legs out of the back seat. 

It started off badly, gave me one of the toughest physical challenges of my life and rendered me unable to walk, but it was a day I will never, ever forget.