braatwursteilta tangojatkoille: The first weeks at home!

Yep "at home", I finally got a flat and left the hostel behind. :)

After couple months of frustration of Argentinean rental market, I got what I was looking for! I wanted a reasonable flat here in the dirscrit Alem and didn't want to live alone, the closer to the playa grande better and hopefully a one with sea view. (hehe you know me, I'm not easy to satisfy..) Anyway, I'm happy that I didn't throw in the towel.

I ended up renting a private flat with Charlie, a friend of mine from Buenos Aires. And we surely bet it right! Vital statistics: one block to the playa grande, one to McD, one to Alem L.n. (tons of nightlife) and a bus stop across the street, with colectivos carrying to the University every 10min!

The flat itself has 2 bedrooms and a living, 2 bedrooms, a kitchen and a dining room. I've the smaller bedroom; thought the dining is nice office. It is in the first floor and thus has not a much view, but with a rent and expenses less than 250€! (It's that cheap cause the contract is only till the end of year, in the summer they squeeze the every single penny out of tourist.) Anyway I won't miss the view, from the roof you can see almost whole city. In the morning I like to sip my mate up there. If the swell doesn't look so good, I can just sit down and enjoy the early sun. :)

AND the most important, it has a heating. It's not a certainty here! Combined to the poor isolation, I can only imagine how it's in the winter! I mean it's already getting cold here. Trees begin to drop the leaves and water feels colder every single time! Thought, it's still warm enough for t-shirt, in the evening you have to a hoodie or jacket.

Renting a flat differ a bit from Finland or Germany. The prices for the students should be more or less like in West Germany. However, they tend to swindle foreigners a lot! Take care, there's a lot of bullshit out there. If you are planning to come here, take a hostel and wait till you find a proper one. It is possible to find a flat online (for ex. wikiad or craigslist), but I wouldn’t recommend it. In many cases they just change the currency from pesos to dollars (4x). In addition, you have no idea of the neighborhood and logistics.

However, here they also they'll heard your foreign accent and try to get every penny out of you. Use the common sense and listen to your friends. In these couple months, I've seen tons of housing offices and private landlords. After a while, you will learn recognize the mosquitoes and the real prices.

My flatmate, homiest and hoods ;)

Behind there's playa grande and the skate park, Alem L.n. one block out of the pic

Living

Kitchen and my office

The master bedroom..

Another great progress is the studies. I promised not to write about it, but I’m just so happy of the first exam. I thought I would mess it up totally but I passed it! What's more, I got quite proper grade 7!:P The grades are between 1 and 10, you need 4 to pass the test (parcial) and 6 of all the tests to skip the final exam (final).

My Spanish is also getting better little by little.:) It's a slow process and you don't really notice it, but there's already a huge different compared to the past. In the first weeks it was quite horrible. I just copied the foils and hoped the prof not to ask anything. Now I can already focus on the lesson and don't mind the questions! (Although I wouldn’t begin a thread, it's not THAT sure yet..)

The first one done!

And the economics..

The last weeks have been horrible for surf. There hasn't been hardly any waves at all. When I came here, there was a good swell almost every day! I dunno what's wrong but the next week is still going to be pretty bad. Luckily there's a quite decent skatepark next to te beach. And the best thing, it's almost empty in the week. Here's some photos of last thuesday, another flat day. My friend Mati behind the camera.

Crook (a local nuthead did a fs rodeo in the same qp!)

Another

Fs rock

5-0

Feeble

A local hero

A 4-years-old?!

The hostel has been still like 2nd home. We don't have a internet yet in the flat, so I've been hangin out there almost every evening. I can warmly recommend the hostel, great staff and nice location! Anyway, these photos are of my last evening there. A truly Argentinien parilla, delicious! :)

Carne (beaf) and chorizos (sausages)

getto getto

Why you should visit Argentina? 1. the people 2. th efood :)

Fortunately, Windguru is wrong always once in a while. Last thursday we got finally some waves and decided to head out south (with a nice swell playa grande gets really crowded). Finally the best waves were at light house, next to the Waikiki. A beautiful, sunny day without lectures and decent waves, what else you can aks for?