Special Weekend Edition!

Sometimes you see and experience so much that the cliché, “words can’t describe it” becomes all too appropriate. My first weekend in Buenos Aires has been such a moment, but I’ll do my best to cover all I’ve seen and done over the weekend. It’s difficult to keep up with the rate that I set for myself, so just try and stick with me. I’ll do my best to post regularly.

Also, stick with me; this is gonna be a bit of a longer one.

After the drunken escapades (probably ill-advised but at least well-supervised) across Palermo, a few of us decided to revisit some of our favorite spots in a better state of mind. We started at an ultra-trendy bar called Limbo. How do I know it’s trendy? Well they had a DJ playing on the front porch…where no one was sitting.

They served a stereotypical fusion menu comprised of things like French fries in Argentine wasabi sauce, chimichurri calamari, and probably something along the lines of falafel empanadas or some other food dish fitting the formula of Argentine Food+American/European Form of Serving+Asian/Middle-Eastern Ingredients. It’s pretty much if the Iron Chefs were bored one night in Kitchen Stadium and figured to put together the most random crap possible.

My Mojito also had a mint branch sticking out of it that was taller than the cup that it sat in. But somehow they served Dark & Stormys. I had to come around 6000 miles to find a bar that served my favorite drink. Go Figure.

Once the pretentiousness became too overwhelming, we set off to find the hookah bar from the night before. After some random shots down streets, we finally asked a cop (after each of us in the group insisted that someone else laid their Spanish on the cop) and found our way.

It was packed, with two other groups of kids from my trip who also liked it from the night before. After waiting about twenty minutes, with numerous glances from me to the owner, due to me being convinced that I have magic-bar mojo after figuring out how to be liked at the Monkey Bar, we got seated.

We ordered a hookah, but I was paranoid due to the other two group’s hookahs not hitting well. I used my pseudo-mcgyver hookah science and stamped the setup with my seal of approval. Hookah paranoia will sit in after leaving a house with five hookahs circulating and spending most summer nights smoking hookah. I used to think hookah paranoia was the domain of the weird and the wags, me being someone who set a hookah up last summer with a candy wrapper, lake water, a paperclip, and a pipe cleaner.

It hit well. The beer came in cheap liter bottles (which is so much classier and better than a 40), and the beer was Stella Artois, a higher end import in the States but as common as Coors Light down here.

Either the same band or a different one from the night before was playing. They were joined for a few songs by a girl who was the embodiment of stereotypical Argentine smoking-hotness.

The band finished its set with Vertigo, me being a U2 fan and probably drunk, singing along obnoxiously to, getting too excited when Bono’s random interjections of Spanish pop up in the song. You see here, Hola and Como estas are the parts of the song that everyone understands. Granted, no one can still explain why Bono counts uno, dos, tres, 14.

Towards the end of the night, someone from the table next to mine called me over. It was my Argentine songbird. She barely spoke a lick of English, but she was able to squeeze out the phrase, “Fly me to Miami to buy an iphone.” I told her that we’d talk when she got a record contract.

The place was almost empty and we were served complimentary pizza as the singer tried to win over two other Americans with me. We entertained it because we loved the idea of befriending a hot Argentine. Plus, she had her mom with her, how dangerous could she be (don’t worry she was 20).

Long story short, we promised to come to her show the next Monday night.

We didn’t.

But as I was leaving, the owner slipped me his card and told me to call next time I was coming through, he’d have a table waiting. Magic Bar Mojo Power!

The next day, my wanderlust kicked in and I found myself setting across the city for points unknown. Jerusalem is a city of cats. Cats everywhere. A cat was eating my friend’s sandwich once, he tried to take it back, it attacked him. I stayed at a hostel where kitties were literally falling out of trees. You know how I know Buenos Aires is a dog city?

Dog shit everywhere.

I made it to their Congress building, almost like ours but with a European twist, and came just in time to catch the tail end of a flea market being put on by the Madres, an activist group. I watched the stereotypical scene of two men intensely arguing over more often than making moves, during a game of chess. A huge crowd around them was swapping bets. I’ve always been told I should learn how to play chess. Wasn’t gonna do it here.

I made my way to Café Tortoni, a famous café in the city which was frequented by Borges and numerous other luminaries of the city.

I came there with my book of Borges and didn’t find any of the eminent writers disciples. I found Joe and Jane American tourist, albeit with a larger budget than the typical American slob. I found this city’s version of the Carnegie Deli or Union Oyster House or any other number of once great eateries that while they still turn out a good product, solely exist to provide a photo-op and a mini museum dedicated to the restaurant’s own sense of importance.

I was attacked by pigeons in the Plaza de Mayo (the center of the city in front of the Casa Rosada). Enough said about that.

I made my way to their version of the Pentagon and witnessed a hysterical scene. I noticed a man watching me from across the building’s front lawn. A few minutes later I witnessed him running down the block. A horribly obese man was chasing him. A wallet lay on the ground between them. The thief was running backwards, taunting his attempted prey like the Roadrunner to the Coyote. The fat man was wheezing heavily, almost collapsed, then gave up as the robber took a taxi away. I might’ve helped if I wasn’t too busy laughing.

I then took a picture for a few British girls in front of the Falkland Islands War memorial. I wonder if they knew the irony of their photo-op. (Brutal pointless war between two stupid regimes during which Britain trounced the Argentines).

I met up with a few friends and continued the sightseeing, making my way up to the Albasto, a famous indoor market place that was once full of intrigue and passionate tango singers, entertaining the stall-owners for a handout of a few centavos.

Today it is full of Gap, Juicy, Hoyt’s Cinema, several other chains (both Argentine and American), a Kosher McDonald’s?, and an amusement park called Neverland.

I rode the roller coaster.

We ended the night at a cute little café near my house where we got a cheap, but good meal of cerviche (a raw Italian fish dish) and a bottle of Malbec. Sitting there, I found myself having a deep conversation about god knows how many deeply held personal beliefs , concerns, and goals with people I met less than a week ago.

It was either the Malbec or the fact that jumping into such a state of uncertainty with others tends to facilitate and create the need for trust. Humans are naturally desperate for personal contact, both causal and intimate. To not be able to engage in fun activities and share in adventure with others is to not have people to remember your experiences with after they fade away. To not share what lies deep in you, leads to whatever you’re carrying with you to create something in you that eventually collapses on its weight if it’s not released. To not have those you can trust is to be forever in a state of travel, never knowing where it’s safe to land.

We will always reach out to others in order to feel some part whole. That’s how I found myself engaging in such a conversation with such fresh faces. And we were all in a sense alone. Alone in a city, lost in communication, needing the ability to feel some semblance of normalcy, anchors if you would. Because all others that we saw were still foreign and still far.

We then went to an ice-cream place where we got a Pirate Ship made out of three scoops of ice-cream, wafer cookies, fruit, whipped cream, and hot fudge. It was essentially a big Fuck You to Friendly’s Clown Face Sundae. Needless to say, it cleansed our palate.

I spent most of the next day soaking in the sun (I think it was in the high 60s and people were wearing winter coats as opposed to my t-shirt). I sat on the bank of a pond, at the edge of a rose garden, reading my Borges, listening to the laughs of paddle boating families and the strumming of a stringed quartet.

A week ago, I was somewhere above the Amazon rainforest or Andes mountains, farther away then I could have ever imagined, but always dreamed of. Reading in the park, taking in the day, you know what? I think I felt a bit at home.