Folks and the Flu

Buenos Aires

I´m going to miss this view from our balcony at Hostel Estoril.

The first leg of our trip, the part in Buenos Aires, was dominated by Argentines and Argentina. We soaked up the cafe culture, explored different barrios, and spoke a lot of Casteshhhano. We went to clubs and tried to talk to Argentines, with varying degrees of success. We did not have any success with chicas, much to Alex´s chagrin.

Following our very local and very slow trip around Uruguay´s Rio de la Plata coast, we came back to Buenos Aires. This was a far different experience, to be honest. We spent most of our time with Americans and Brits and Australians, especially one girl named Kelsey who was pretty cool but for some reason seemed to dominate our social lives these last few days (see Josh´s blog). For some reason we decided to see the first Tango show we saw advertised on the street, and the result was marginal food, photo ops with tango dancers, and a leggy old woman belting out songs. Man, that sucked. The hostel was much fuller, so Alex was in seventh heaven, directing night life and flirting with several individuals who we only knew by Alex´s favorite moniker for certain available women, "Chub Chubs."

We spent two nights on pub crawls. For those of you who have never done a pub crawl, imagine 6 Canadian guys screaming every 5 minutes a chant that goes "Who wants to rock the party? We want to rock the party!" Imagine an unapproachable gaggle of girls in D.C. accompanied by their British, Canadian, Australian, and Swedish equivalents. Imagine stupid amounts of liquor and beer. As a rule, I like to avoid things like this, but the other guys seemed to like it and, to be honest, I didn´t mind a little dose of fratty Americana nor the company of a girl from San Francisco on the first night.

On the second night, things were much different. Alex was insistant upon a mad search for this friend of a person he had met in a party once on Foggy Bottom, and Josh and I were in the mood for a much more chillaxed evening. We ended up going bowling with two Americans way off the tourist map. It was a good time, and I got a chance to practice the Carlson Curve as they call it. Our "quiet night" ended up lasting until 4 am. Sheesh.

The last night was hell on earth. Whether it was a bit too much partying or too much exposure to sick people (it seemed like everybody in the city had a cough), I got something fierce. I paid for the pub crawl, but I ended up leaving after the first bar. Besides the discomfort of fever and debilitating pain, I also had to deal with three roommates arriving at different times in the night. The last, Alex, arrived following a phone call to my cell which woke up everybody, and came with a girl from Chicago. Apparently everybody else slept through the humpidillos. I had to leave the room.

Anyway, I´m low on the clock here at this internet cafe, so I´ll leave this post by saying that I loved BsAs, even if there was a certain degree of kitsch, poverty, and illness attached. I´m eager to get some fresher air though, so vamos a Cordoba!