I think first of all it's recommended that if you look like me, it's not a great idea to get a ticket in the stand of La Bombonera where Boca's barra brava congregate (the cheap seats basically). And then, as the two bar workers afterwards pointed out to me, there are stadia here where you can get away with taking stuff in, and stadia where you can't.

The kick in the teeth was that standing almost next to me during the match was a local who was texting his mate on his BlackBerry at half time. I mean a fucking BlackBerry, and mine was a £30 Samsung piece of shit that I bought a year or two ago because I just wanted a cheapo phone that would do the job.

The good news is that a cheapo phone that will just do the job will apparently set me back around AR$40 or AR$50 here - the upper limit of that price bracket is about £8.50. So it's hardly a job for my insurance company (which is good, because to report the crime and get a reference number for them I've got to go back to the police station at La Bombonera, can't do it in a more central one).

The stupid thing is I keep telling myself this could have happened anywhere, and blah blah blah, but the fact is in 26 years living in England it didn't happen to me once, and after 10 days in BA it did. Of course, it happened plenty to people I knew in England, but that's not how it feels right now. I just hope I'm learning from this not to be such a naïve idiot in future.

It is a good cheap way to learn a valuable lesson. I got mugged 100 yards from my house in London, and learned to be way more careful than I ever used to feel I had to be. Gets you out of plenty potentially worse situations down the line.

So what do you do if you need to use your phone?

Being punched sounds nasty, the phone incident is just one of those things which could happen anywhere Sam, don't dwell on it.

I've always been very lucky in Lisbon, and coming from London I think I was fairly streetwise. But I remember going to see Belenenses v Leiria in my first week after moving here, I just had no idea that the gardens around the Belenenses stadium could be a bit dodgy at night. It was only a bit of quick thinking that got me out of a good kicking on the way home that night. A bunch of kids were walking behind me, were obviously about to mug me, but I hailed a passing taxi and jumped in it. I also got ripped off on the way into the game - I've never had a night like that since, although I was ripped off going to see Estoril last year and Benfica the year before (c*nts!).

Going in head first to a different culture, no matter how much you think you know it, is a crazy thing and its so obvious when you see someone in the street who is alien to that culture. I remember thinking I looked different to everyone when I arrived and it's still the same. What's different is my familiarity with the way people do things here, which parts of the city and suburbs are okay and not okay and the way I carry myself when I go to those parts of the city which aren't okay.

I hope the weekend was an isolated incident for you.

Bruno, that's the question isn't it. I actually only had my phone on me so that if anything happened at the game or if I got stranded afterwards (buses are always absolutely packed obviously, and again I'm aware that on packed public transport if one person's going to have their pocket picked it'll be me) I can call for a taxi or something. Ironic, hey.

Steve, thanks for that. I'm calmer about it now and in future I won't be taking my phone to any matches, and will only take my camera to games I know I won't be going into the popular for. I'm also never going in the popular at Boca again ever. I was only there last night because the match was sold out and the touts only had those tickets. The atmosphere was absolutely out of this world (I'm talking several orders more intensity than you and I saw at Oriental, if you can possibly imagine), but it was incredibly uncomfortable - I watched the whole game standing on the stairwell, as did a good many others.

Anyway I've consoled myself with a quiet day of sleep and phone searching, and am now going to console myself further by eating the other half of a really fucking gorgeous pizza I've got in the fridge. You've all heard about the steak but the pizza here takes some beating as well.

Not to forget the empanadas and the dipping sauce they serve them with. Deelish.
Going from the country to any big city is a culture shock, never mind a city that's in a foreign country. Your street smarts will get better as you come to know the place more.

What part of the city are you living in?

I believe the sauce you're recalling is chimichurri, BM. At the moment I'm in San Telmo - I actually walked back from La Bombonera last night when it became apparent the buses were all packed out, and it only took about 5 minutes before I was in my own barrio again, so I was glad I hadn't hailed a taxi in the end.

I'm in the current place until the 15th May then can either have another month here at a 15% discount, or move out. Later this week (once I've got a phone again) I'll be checking out a couple of potential flatshares in Palermo and Belgrano, one of which is AR$800 a month including all bills for (apparently) a large room in a flat shared with two other people. If they're not utter tossers that's a very good deal indeed.

This is probably something you already know, but it's something I wish someone had told me when I came to Lisbon. When you're looking for a flatshare, go to the universities in the city and they'll have loads of notices on the walls for flatshares. I spent my first year living on my own in horrible flats or sharing with other English speakers, it was such a stupid thing to do. It was only after 18 months that I did the above, which led to a great social life, meeting loads of people and meeting my girlfriend.

Thanks for that Steve. Unfortunately it's not quite so simple because one has to deal with Argentine bureaucracy if one's going into a student flat - and student landlords make clear they're only renting for students (and expect you to be able to show papers to prove you are one).

Fortunately the places I'm checking out this week have both made clear they don't need to see any bits of paper, just one month's rent as a deposit. That suits me much better...

So, seven months on, and two weeks before I head back to England to spend Christmas and new year with family and friends...

I'm still living in the same place, without windows but in a location I've really come to love and feel at home in.

The girlfriend I left behind in England eventually ended things, which really became basically a mutual decision, because she didn't trust that I was being faithful to her (even though it never occurred to me to stray).

I watched Uruguay's World Cup semi-final in the streets of Montevideo, joining in some of the partying afterwards and thinking, 'I really have got the best job in the world!', and got half-heartedly threatened by a couple of drunk cunts who saw my blond hair and assumed I must be German (what other country could I possibly be from, right?) on the day Argentina got knocked out of the tournament, but previous experiences (see up page) had given me the smarts to avoid anything scary.

I've not left Buenos Aires, apart from hopping over to Uruguay to get a new passport stamp from time to time. I plan on getting out of the city next year, but it's sucked me in so far and I've stayed the entire time.

I've improved quite a lot at pool.

Most importantly, I've made a load of really, really good friends, two of whom (one English, one Argentine) I'm going to be getting a flat with next year in the same neighbourhood I've been living in this year. Some are other journalists/bloggers, some including the two I'll be living with are just mates I've made in the pub.

One of my best mates from England is living here until February, and when he arrived last month he met up with a bunch of us one evening in one of our flats, and at one point turned to me and said, 'this is such a strange atmosphere... it's great. It reminds me of our first year at uni!' and I realised that's why I've had such a great time. I've been thinking back to that feeling for such a long time.

Also, in the last couple of weeks I've started going out with a friend of one of my friends, and things are going really pleasantly.

If you had told me as I was nervously boarding that plane in April, 'Sam, by the time you get back to the UK you'll have been to a bunch of football matches with Jonathan Wilson, and that won't even be one of the handful of best things to have happened to you this year', I would have been highly dubious. But such is life, right now at least.

I'm earning piss-all money - enough to pay the rent and for food, and some socialising, thanks to the strength of the pound vs the peso - but bloody hell, this really has been one of the best years of my life. I wanted to bump this thread because I've remembered it the whole time and wanted to say thanks to everyone for your comments and support back then, and just maybe give anyone else who might be considering something similar some encouragement. You won't regret it.

Well done Sam. Pity the poor stick in the mud types who never sample life in another country. The UK will probably feel wierd and unfriendly now. I've spent 2 years in Australia and no hurry to get back. None at all.

I'm glad things are working out Sam. As Max says, I'm in no hurry to go back to the UK. The three times I've been back on holiday since I came here, I've found it progressively more odd being back there.

My own situation is a bit more uncertain: my current career path means moving from one fixed-term contract to another, but I've grown very tired of it and finally found somewhere I'd like to put roots down.

But, deep down, I think that I might end up back in the UK next August. My permanent residence application here will not - at current rates of processing - be anywhere near complete by then (when I started out on it, the processing time was given as 5-6 months, it's ballooning since my application got in the system). My work permit expires at the end of February, and I have a visitor permit extension submitted for 6 months after that. I'm currently deliberating about whether to extend it further next summer, or return to the UK in the short term.

We’ve been here 6 years now and haven’t managed to get back to Scotland for a visit yet.

We went to Vietnam this week for our first overseas trip as Australians. It was a bit odd when people asked us where we were from given that the accents don’t tie in with the answer and that, as far as Australians are concerned, we’re Scottish. Anyway, we just went with “we live in Australia but we’re originally from Scotland.”

Max Payne wrote:
The UK will probably feel wierd and unfriendly now.

In fairness, I very much doubt it. I never had even a smidgen of racist abuse during the 26 years I lived in the UK, and people there at least have some basic fucking manners when it comes to things like saying 'thank you' if a door is held open for them, or moving out the way when taking up the entire width of a pavement when walking the other way down the street.

But yeah. Given everything I've already mentioned above, I'm very much looking forward to getting back to Buenos Aires perhaps more so than I am anticipating my return to England. It's not perfect here, but it already feels like home.

Glad you are having fun abroad, leaving the UK 13 years ago to move to teach in Turkey is not something I regret.

Max Payne wrote:
The UK will probably feel wierd and unfriendly now.

It does for me. I find the UK to be more irritating the more times I go back to visit.

Stumpy Pepys wrote:
Max Payne wrote:
The UK will probably feel wierd and unfriendly now.

It does for me. I find the UK to be more irritating the more times I go back to visit.

I find it less so than when I first came back but I am still reticent about coming back, being the foreigner abroad still has more advantages than drawbacks.

I'm back to the UK in a month's time and I'm dreading it. I'll be crossing off the days till I can return. I'm sure you'll be the same.

A year on from when this thread was started. I'm bumping it because I'm in a similar position. I'm moving to Korea, Republic of, in ten days and a lot of the advice here has really helped calm some of my nerves.

I'm in no doubt that there will be more of them to come, but the consensus of positive opinion here reassures me that this won't be something I regret. Unless there's a war.

Good luck, D.S. I'm sure it'll go fantastically.

At least if they have a war, you won't have to deal with the fucking insane inflation here, though.