Xmas - Buenos Aires Style!
Trip Start
Jul 06, 2005
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20
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Trip End
Mar 10, 2006
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Buenos Aires, Argentina
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
The Warm-Up
Well, we showed up in Buenos Aires to find several friends had already hit full stride in the BA party scene. First night saw us start out by stumbling across a big rowdy protest in our search for a quiet beverage or two. Can´t quite remember what the guidebook says about getting involved in political charged situations...oh yeah, find a cafe four feet from the guys with clubs standing off against the police, and order some beer! Had a drink and waited for the tear gas but it seemed the clubs were more of a show than a real threat, so we had to settle for lots of yelling and chanting, some pushing, and an eventual settlement where the police left the marchers be if they self-monitored the blocking of traffic. Ooohhh, rebellious! Moved on to blatantly abusing all rules in the hostel by importing copious amounts of outside alcohol for our ragtag assortment of characters. Matt kept us well fed with a continuous stream of gourmet pizza, I with a steady stream of terrible grapefruit pop and vodka and all in all a good night. Finished up at some drum and bass club named Bahrain, where I managed to meet a lovely girl from New York, more to come...
Adios Roberto
Night two and it was time to put on our best "no I´m fine, really, I always sleep two hours" faces and get out to give Rob a proper send off. As some may recall we met him in Colombia, he was here for Mark´s b-day, and is one of the better friends I´ve made on this trip. Had a very pleasant evening at a cool little pub, played a little Ms. Pacman and generally just laughed our arses off for a few hours. That night took us to Rumi´s, a cool club more on the outskirts. Despite losing half our crew somewhere and a stiff entry fee we had a blast, Rob and I rocking the dance floor and even a little headspinning action. Lowest point in the evening was when Rob pointed out the disproportionately large foot of the average Argentinean girl...can´t stop looking at feet now!
Dropping like flies
Buenos Aires right before Xmas is a major leaving point for people ending their trips, and our crew was no exception. Thursday meant ANOTHER big night, as only the biggest would be worthy of seeing off Matt. Good old Germany, the person we´ve shared the most adventures with by far on this trip and someone we are already planning the next one with.
Started the night with an unexpected and pretty much unexplained mini-Carnival drum/dance parade down the street behind the hostel. Cool! Later we hit the craziest club I've been to down here for sure, "Club 69". Line up, enter, recieve transvestite hug and greeting, proceed to dance floor to enjoy big breakdancing circle, look up after a while to notice the two exceptionally gay men in spandex shorts and gold sequin vests dancing on the stage in behind....WTF?!?!?!? The rest of the night proceeded in this fashion, big fat transvestites, a stripper who's gender we didn´t all quite agree on, breakdancing santas and elves, rolling stages with pole dancers, and ROCKING music with the crowd just going OFF all night. Craziness. Took Matt home at about 7 am for his afternoon flight and the crew was dwindling, down to four - Alan, Simon, Mark, and myself.
Matt´s Spirit Lives On
So, as much as we love Matt, he´s a madman. We honeslty thought we´d rest up a bit with his exit from the scene, but it seems with all the clothes and gear he left with us that his spirit lives on. Friday night we hit Mint, even knowing the BIG night was going to be Saturday. Turned out to be an overcrowded, average Friday night, and WAY too expensive (over $15US!).
Saturday, Christmas Eve, rocked. Had a shared dinner with everyone cooking WAY too much food, and bringing WAY too much red wine. Simon, our earstwhile ex-work partner from the Secret Garden days who´s joined the crew here again, brought out a bottle of the infamous mint from the Garden days as well - trouble. A new friend, Hannah, joined us at our hostel along with the boys Alan and Simon, making us a fairly formidable crew in the lovely small hostel we´ve recently been staying at. Ate oursleves silly, drank ourselves happy, had a funny gift exchange, and set out for yet one more big night - Opera Bay nightclub. We rallied a couple of Pommie girls from the hostel as well and all set out for the club, losing eachother along the way, everyone assuming the others had gone home, and all magically finding eachother in the enormous five room club in the end.
Danced, danced, danced. Until 8 am. In the blazing hot sunshine on the patio dance floor. On Christmas morning. Something tells me its a Christmas I´m unlikely to repeat! Christmas day itself we just chilled around the hostel, opened our stockings (Mark and I managed to get some stocking action rolling in the hostel - yippee presents!), I went to a Christmas mass with Alan at the cathedral in search of a little Christmas feeling. Learned a few Xmas songs in Spanish, licked baby jesus, fun stuff! Later on as we walked back there were LOTS of people out and about in the parks and squares, a big tango scene in a park by our place, and an entirely random and VERY cool spontaneous drum parade ROCKING the street outside our hostel. Good times me thinks.
Gearing down...slightly
Managed to rest up Christmas night, and last night a bit as well (although did hit a party at the boys´ hostel). Today headed out to meet the girl I mentioned earlier, Shaile from New York. Although we only talked really briefly at the club, based on that and the fact she was home-schooled I had very high hopes (us non-traditional schoolers are always cool cats)! Not disappointed one bit - just hung out in a park all day talking and would have to rank it among one of the coolest conversations I´ve had in a long time. She´s been through a really rough time in the last few months and the perspective on life this girl brings to the table is so, so refreshing - I was honestly blown away. We just jumped straight into the depth of conversation you often can´t manage with your closest friends...
Tonight the boys and I are going to get ourselves a bit culturafied and hit a tango show. Not cheap, but should be cool and is a bit of a must do in the birth place of tango. Tomorrow looks to be museum day with several in town free, hopefully combined with a good long photo session around this striking city. While we´ve partied HARD, I have to say we´ve been quite impressive in getting out and seeing all the sites everyday and I feel I´ve really gotten to know the city quite well.
On that note, I´ll have let you know how New Years measures up (back to the scene of Mark´s infamous b-day party, Pacha!) and will be sure to post lots of city pics next time. Take care and anjoy the rest of the holidays, all the very, very best from Buenos Aires,
--Shawn
Comments
where's the turkey????
k, i was with ya till the licking of christ as a child....hmmm yep. so your holidays sound pretty sweet i must say, sounds like you are definately keeping up on the partying (don't want to lose those skills, that would be tragic at best). so pretty much yeah, missed you lots at xmas, but don't worry i snagged some turkey for you from the family dinner... i stashed it under your bed, ready for you when you come back home(March is it? Mmmmm tasty!)