Rewind

I realized that I completely skipped writing about my weekend in Buenos Aires before coming to Mendoza.  It was full of such an interesting sequence of events that I feel I do have to write about it.  It says something to me about the character of the city, though I can't quite figure it out yet.  But, without further ado, here's what went down:

Thursday.  A pretty normal day until the evening came, when Robin, Troy, Mike, and I went on a rainy bicycle adventure to help make bracelets as a fundraiser for kids in the hospital.  The whole project was started by one of Willie's friends named Kyle, and the idea goes like this: the poor little kids in the hospital write Christmas cards to Santa asking for presents, then we make bracelets to sell to raise money to buy the presents the kiddos wanted.  Thursday night was the big Pulsera Party, where about thirty of us came and went and made lots of little woven bracelets.  It took me back to summer camps days like crazy - how fun!

Friday.  I met up with Kate, Aminah, and A's boyfriend Massimo for a little jaunt around the centro.  We decided to meet in Plaza de Mayo, the one in front of the Casa Rosada (President's office), but just as our meeting time arrived, the sky suddenly decided to vomit big fat slushy drops of rain.  Literally out of nowhere.  Luckily I had grabbed my rain jacket as an afterthought on the way out the door, so I had something to cover myself and my camera as I joined a crowd of others dashing for dry land.  It went on for about five minutes and then stopped and the sun came out.  Silly weather.

Our original plan was to visit a few museums, but we didn't end up doing to a single one.  None of us knew or remembered the addresses of the ones we thought sounded interesting, so the afternoon turned into a few hours of wandering around, going into random shops and stopping for a snack at a café.  Kate's iPhone told us that there was a museum close to us, a giant building modeled on Dante's Inferno, with each floor representing a different stage of heaven and hell.  We found the building and went in, only to find out that the building tours didn't happen until eight at night, and they cost eighty pesos.  Not exactly what we were hoping for.  So back to more wandering around, which was actually really nice because I got to spend some time with good friends and I'd never just walked around the center of town for the fun of it; I always went there with the purpose of going somewhere specific.

Friday night brought me to Bonkers, a dub-step club in the city center.  I went with a big group of people, some of whom I knew and some of whom I didn't.  The club was in a basement of some big building downtown, and the music bounced around like crazy off the concrete floors, walls, and ceiling.  It was largely populated by kids.  Like sixteen-year-olds.  Going to the restroom was like a throwback to high school dances, where entire groups of friends would go together, stand in front of the mirror making sure they looked their best, and gossip about "oh my god, that guy I was just dancing with...".  To top it off, every girl was dressed up as sexy as can be (we unfortunately witnessed one friend lifting another's skirt, only to find a thong).  Contrast this with Kristin and I, in jeans and tank tops and sandals (Chacos for me!) and who cares what we looked like (I wore what I'd been wearing the whole day).  It was a surreal experience, shall we say.

For a while I enjoyed the dancing, but got tired soon after and decided to leave with Kristin, who lived five blocks from the club and had a spare bed with my name on it.  We all showered once we got back to hers, so being clean and sleeping on a bed felt like gold after being on the guys' couch.  I slept like a baby till two in the afternoon (probably a record for me).  I woke up to the sound of Kristin and her roomie Brett (the girl from Durango who was the guide for the bike ride I went on) talking, and I wandered out to the living room, only to be offered breakfast, coffee, and HOT SAUCE.  Let's take a moment to digress and say how much hot sauce has been the object of constant desire in BA.  You can find some in Chinatown, but it's not your good ole chipotle hot sauce like Cholula (which is what I feasted on that morning with eggs, beans, rice, and veggies).  Best breakfast ever.  I have Craig to thank for that; he's Kristin's ex-boyfriend who had just arrived in BA from the States a couple days prior, and brought a wealth of hot sauce with him.  My hero.

Saturday.  I was really impressed with Kristin and Brett's apartment, which turned out to be a long-term vacation rental.  It just had so much character to it: brick walls, tapestries everywhere, half-wall mirrors all around the guest room, funky wall angles...hard to describe, but it instantly caught my fancy.  So unique!  After such a wonderful welcome and breakfast from the girls, we all headed to Plaza Francia, right by the Recoleta Cemetery, to peruse the artisanal sidewalk market there.  Kristin and Brett were on a mission for Christmas gifts for friends and family, and Craig and I tagged along, just taking it all in.  We ran into Robin with one of his bike tours there, and so we talked for a bit before going our separate ways.  There were loads of beautifully-made things in the market: shoes, clothes, jewelry, art, bags, mates, hats...you name it.  We wandered for a few hours and the girls found quite a few of the gifts they were looking for, while I enjoyed the sunshine and seeing everyone's incredible crafts and feeling like a slacker.

Early evening rolled around, and with it came time to go to Kristin and Brett's friend's birthday party.  I contemplated going back to Robin's, but realized there was really no need to go back, as I had been fed and clothed so generously by the girls.  The party was a pretty small gathering when we arrived, so we all got the chance to sit around, munch, and talk to each other.  More people joined us as the night went on, and by the time we left around ten there were a good amount of friends there (a good thing for the birthday boy, because Kristin had been relentlessly teasing him that he didn't have any friends in town because no one came to his party).  From there we went to a small concert at a nearby bar, where another friend's band was playing.  The music was basically a band (drums, upright bass, guitar, and keys) playing jazz, over which the one person I knew, Jay, rapped.  It was nice, not incredibly upbeat but more in a chill vein, and Jay was the last person I would've expected to rap (a little taller than me, white skin, shoulder-length blonde wavy hair)...I think I was just a victim of stereotypes, because once he started rapping it was obvious that he loved it and it seemed to fit with what I knew of him.

After the concert was over, we hung around the bar, killing time until we could go to a house party that Willie knew about.  I talked to quite a few interesting people in that time, including Mariana (from Mexico, on vacation), Isabel (from Bolivia, studying in BA), Joe (from CA, unemployed English teacher), and Eduardo (odd porteño actor), among others.  Just a show of how international the city is.  Once three in the morning rolled around, we piled into a few cabs and headed to the house party, which was laid out as following: big basement for dancing, ground floor for hanging out, upstairs terrace for more hanging out.  We all started out down on the dance floor, but after a while we all tired of the pounding beats and ventured up to the terrace for some fresh air.  I stayed for a few minutes, but then decided it was time to leave, as I was at the end of my rope for dealing with parties and things were getting awkward between Kristin and Craig.  I made my farewells and began to walk back to Robin's place, only a few blocks away.  Bummer was that I walked a few blocks in the wrong direction first (I had my doubts as to whether or not I was right, but kept telling myself I'd walk one more block and see if I came to the street I needed to find), and had to backtrack a bit once I realized my mistake.

Crossing one of the bigger streets on the way, a guy caught up with me and started talking to me.  At first I was wary of The Guy, but after a couple minutes I got the sense that he was harmless, which turned out to be pretty accurate (we walked by a guy passed out outside of an apartment building and we both turned around to make sure he was alive; upon seeing that he was, The Guy woke him up and got him started walking home, concerned that otherwise he'd be robbed).  The Guy actually had a really interesting story: he's from Paraguay and is in BA to study for his Masters in Psychology.  Apparently this is taking a lot of money and he doesn't have enough to live on, so he's a prostitute by night.  And he's addicted to coke (and he wonders where his money goes...).  The Guy actually had a bag of it on him and took little sniffs as we walked and asked me to make sure he didn't have any residue on his face.  Then he started talking about how he likes coke because it helps keep his sex drive in high gear, and the effect was obvious on him as we walked.  Sketchy.  Cue my exit.  Luckily, by the time this happened, we were close to Robin's and it was light out, so I took my leave of The Guy and took a roundabout way back home, just to be safe (but not before he gave me a big hug and thanked me for my company on his walk).  By far the weirdest experience I've had in the city thus far (unsettling as well).

Sunday.  I met up with Kristin and Craig in the afternoon to peruse the San Telmo market, another sidewalk show of artists with jewelry, antiques, clothes, leather jackets, music, sunglasses, etc. that's at least fifteen blocks long.  This market, compared with the one in Plaza Francia, was less refined, and actually had less variety as well.  It had a more commonplace feel to it, while the other had more of a fine-arts atmosphere.  On a great stroke of luck, I ran into Kate and Brian and stopped to talk to them, losing Kristin and Craig in the process (though I did find them later on).  Kate, Brian, and I wandered down the rest of the market, stopping to watch some tango dancers and a hilarious clown who squeaked instead of spoke.  Brian and I got burritos from the well-known Mexican burrito man: cheap and delicious, and with hot sauce.  We parted ways at the end of the market, and I made my way home to pack for my trip to Mendoza, in time to meet a few CELTA classmates for some farewell drinks with Kate.  The place we went was very eccentric, with tartan napkins, flower-painted sheet metal on the walls, old mismatching wooden chairs, and an ample selection of board games for anyone's use.  They served us wine in pingüinos (ceramic jugs shaped like penguins), and we all enjoyed each other's company.  I was the first to leave, as I had to catch the bus, and you know the rest of the story.

I'm sure some parts of this story aren't exactly what you want to read (I can imagine my family's reactions to the part about me walking home with a coked-up prostitute).  But I didn't leave anything out in the effort to illustrate just how many different things can happen in the city.  It's still a new thing for me to get used to; things like this don't happen in small-town Colorado.  It's important to experience, because it shows the high and low sides of life in BA.  However, I think it's added to my restlessness and impatience to get to CP and establish a routine more like the one I'm used to, working and living in nature.  On that front, I am buying a tent from one of the interns who's there now and is trying to lighten his load for his upcoming travels, and I learned through an email from the girl who's currently the hostess in the lodge that the month of January is booked pretty solid with visitors, so I'll be busy right off the bat.  Bring it on.