Holanda, Colombia en México

CASA CHOLOMBIA

Its finally begun. The slow but sure process of decline from promising young Dutchman abroad that buys drinks all night to penniless European looking outcast who begs for drinks all day. After living the high life in Buenos Aires' affluent Palermo Hollywood, I've been relegated to downtown life in working class Congreso, the barrio just west of the centre. The main reason: to save on rent.

Juan Diego, Victor, Esteban - the three Colombians I lived with in het hotel on Av. Santa Fe - and myself chose to pool our resources and rent an apartment. They shopped around for a few weekends and came up with our new place on México street, nr. 2245. It's big, it's got everything and best of all it's cheap.

Actually, it's a lot better looking as well than where we were living before. Granted, myceilingg isn't nearly as high, but apart from that it's excellent. Big ol' kitchen with everything there in more or less working condition. A bathroom that goes on for miles. A spacious living room with a wooden floor, no doubt from the days when Argentina imported half of Canada's hardwood forests to pave its floors.

Just across the road there's an immense supermarket, which is convenient seeing as I want to cut down on my eating out budget. But then on the corner there's a restaurant that serves a hot meal for 6 pesos or 1,7 euros, so maybe I'll still get to eat lunch out a few days.

No sooner had we moved into our first real Argentine home than the four of us, inspired by our newfound collection of paintings of typical pampa and gaucho scenes, signed up to some age old Argentine traditions, such as drinking mate and apologizing for our country. We also discovered that the old lady who lived in the apartment before us had left just about everything she owned behind. The whole place is filled with all sorts of knicknacks, tiny porcelaine statues and china tea sets.

To inaugurate our new home we obviously threw a party - hence the photos.