For everyone still living on the northern hemisphere and complaining about the cold winter arriving: I have to warn you that this post may cause some serious depression, because we had more than 25 degrees Celsius almost every day during this week. I have made use of those sunny days to take some photos while going out for running (much training since the “Tandilia” race is on Sunday 18th) and uploaded some of them at the end of this post. I hope you can at least get a small impression of how beautiful Tandil really is ….

This is true at least as long as there are no protests against the (in my point of view very arrogant, now that I understand Spanish much better) president Christina Kirchner and her government, for instance like yesterday. The so-called “8N” (the “N” stands for November) demonstration didn’t only fill Buenos Aires’ streets with up to one million persons, also here in Tandil the whole central place was incredibly full of people! Concerning the different political reasons for these protests I’ll just refer to some articles from British newspapers:

The Telegraph: Hundreds of thousands protest against Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner
The Guardian: Argentina protests: up to half a million rally against Fernández de Kirchner
Mirror News: Argentines take to the streets in biggest anti-government protest in a decade

Continue reading →

Since this week is “la semana de la primavera y del estudiante”, we almost don’t have any courses in the university, so a few other exchange students and I have taken the opportunity to go to Buenos Aires for an extended weekend. Unlike the first time, we have not gone to a hostel but were living in a very well-located apartment with really nice guys found through the couch-surfing network (Sebastian, if you read this, thanks again for your hospitality ). Unfortunately we have missed last week’s big demonstrations and protests against Christina Kirchner and her government, but anyway you can see some impressions of this trip at the end of this post …. I really like this lively and beautiful city, but I couldn’t stay there forever, as it is too big and chaotic for me!

Apart from that, there is not so much to tell. Everything is going on very fine and living here now feels quite common and normal to me. Of course, my visa application continues its never ending story because I was told that all the expensive English translations and apostilles done in Germany are still not enough and that they additionally want everything to be translated in Spanish by a registered office (probably the one from the father-in-law of the cousin of the secretary of the international relations coordinator ).

But this is luckily just a side note, since I can enjoy the important things of life. You can really feel that spring is coming and the weather gets sunnier and warmer. I continue going out for running and also to a cheap fitness center just in front of my pension. Continue reading →