So I've been repeating myself... sorry (thanks for pointing that out Carolynne). We are currently sans internet but there have been a few things going on.

Saturday morning and the owner of the old apartment was supposed to come round at 10:30 to give us the deposit back and charge us for the phone calls we'd made. As ever, it seems in Argentina, we waited. Punctuality is not seen as the same necessary virtue it is in the UK, and it's not rude to keep someone waiting, it's actually the norm. Mind you, as foreigners we usually turn up bang on time and we expect to hang around. Florentina showed up at 11:00, not a word about the time, after all, where else would we have been? She proceeded to talk the hind legs off a donkey I had metaphorically brought along, had we been to Tigre? (no, but we planned to: "do it soon," she said, "The leaves are all good colours at the moment"). Where were we going? (Villa Crespo: "Oh, I was born there," she said, "On Guruchayga, it's up and coming, she added, I knew that as soon as I saw that they opened a bonboneria [v fancy chocolate shop] on the street I was born").
So we got into a taxi at around midday and were met by a chap from the property agency (we haven't got the cheapest deal, but the agency gives all their profits to the red cross and to homeless charities in BA so we figured it was money well spent).
A couple of hours luxuriating in the space, the quiet, listen are those birds I can hear, are those trees out the back (including a huge avocado tree, we think) and it's as though Santa Fe is another world.
Then, off down to Retiro, to the bus station to catch a bus to La Plata. Liz's friend, Heather, passed us the email address of a friend (Bonchi) in the city a couple of weeks ago. After a few exchanges of emails he invited us to his birthday party. So of course we said yes. The party was due to start at 10pm, which of course means 10:30 at the earliest. La Plata is a small university city to the south, it's the capital of Buenos Aires province. It's about 60km away, an hour's bus ride. A comfy bus too, with seats that recline a long way, so comfortable that it was difficult to stay awake (but I'm glad I did, because it meant I could see the pampas, the slums, the shanty towns, the police... okay, maybe I should have nodded off).
La Plata was designed, the streets are all numbered (funny to be talking about directions and to have someone say 'oh it's on 24, between 60 and 61) and there are 16 major squares in the city, each connected by diagonal boulevards. We spent a few hours walking around, the streets were almost deserted. A few coffee stops and photography stops and we were ready to head to the party.
We found the address and rang the wrong bell, which started a dual tirade of Spanish and barking, figured out the right one and voila.Bonchi and his friends are bohemian, and relaxed about having two strangers turn up, speaking almost none of the language. We spent the evening chatting away in Spanish, like two loquacious four year olds, occasionally just staring blankly as a bit of rapid fire Castilliano sped past. Bonchi's girlfriend had made some sandwiches and what with that and the wine and the talking, all of a sudden people were putting on coats and heading off. It was 4am. A couple of the guys we were chatting to (Felipe, who's a film maker, Julio, who's an actor, and Mouse (he may have been introduced properly but it got away from me, after that his mates called him Raton) asked if we wanted to go to a bar. Our alternatives were: the bus station, where we could wait for a couple of hours for a bus, or the bar... guess which we chose.)
At 4:30 the streets were packed, not packed like in Leeds just next to the nightclub at letting out time, but packed in the sense that a lot of people were just arriving. We wedged into a tiny bar full of people enjoying dodgy 80's choons and had a beer. After a little while, Felipe said, Nos vamos... and we did. It was a little loud and by that time tiredness had wrecked my (already small) ability to understand anything on the first (or second) try. We said we'd head back to the bus station and Felipe walked with us... a lot of people on the streets, much more at 5am than there was at 5pm.
Felipe insisted on walking us all the way back, even though it meant a 30 block walk back for him, so Liz bought him a coffee (seems like small recompense but he did insist).
We got the bus back and arrived in Retiro at 6:45am, it was still full of people. From there we hopped on a colectivo (which was full after a couple more stops) and walked the last bit home just as the sky was getting light.  ¶ 2:23 PM