Friday
I had intended to go to Tecnopolis during the day, a free museum which looks absolutely incredible. Unfortunately it's not open on rainy days. And Friday was decidedly damp. My backup was the museum of fine arts. I organised to go with Irene and Anna, the two Italian girls I went dancing with last week but they wanted to go later in the day so I set about doing some admin for the day.
By the time it got to 4.30, they still weren't done working so we decided to call it off. I think next time I'll just go alone. It's silly to spend all day doing nothing!!
Francisco, my Columbian friend joined us for dinner (after the Argentina match, which they won 3-1. Yay?) I was feeling adventurous so I set out for a stuffed squash with rice and a green salad.
I was really proud of myself when it came out just as planned! Everyone enjoyed and we spent dinner making international comparisons and debating whether Latin America was machista. Good times had by all!
Unfortunately Francisco had to get to work at 11 so we didn't have too long. Andres was feeling a bit under the weather so I went out to visit Scott, who was working at a cocktail bar a few blocks from the flat.
The bar was nice, understated and friendly, although quite pricey so I decided just sitting at the bar and chatting was preferable to buying a drink. It wasn't too busy so I wasn't left sitting for long, between Scott and the other barman there was a fair amount of conversation going on and it was a nice atmosphere in which to chill and people-watch. Or rather, cocktail-watch. The bar lady's name was Campanita, (translates as Tinkerbell) and she had a trail of fairydust tattoed up her right arm. Very fetching. She was also ace at cocktails.
I found this out first hand when the 2nd barman procured me a drink (the perks of being a girl eh!). Delicious!
It was getting on for 1-1.30 and the bar had started to get busy so I thought I'd better leave them to work and go find someone else.
I ended up going to visit Francisco at the hostel where he was working the night shift and after some confusion about what road to take from the intersection, I found the place without too much trouble, just a block or two away from home! Perfect. It was chuck out time in the hostel which means getting a load of half drunk tourists to bugger off to various bars and clubs. But as soon as that was sorted, there wasn't much else to do. We nabbed some of the leftover fernet and coke (more free drinks!) and sat at the bar chatting, whilst Francisco showed me some examples of his art.
It was a really chilled evening, nothing too demanding, and I didn't feel like I was having to make a good first impression for a change. Easy company. Thank god.
I headed home at 4 when I could suppress the yawns no longer. Buena onda and a free night. Perfect.
Saturday
It was a beautiful day, and on my way home I stumbled across a cute little park, surrounded by market stalls and al fresco restaurants.
I bought myself some incense and headed home, where Andres was up and about, but still decidedly not too great.
Ilan (my French friend from the youth hostel) had invited me to pop over that afternoon, so I got what I'd need for the night and headed round since it wasn't too far away.
I love living in Palermo! There's so much going on nearby. Compared to life in Belgrano at Martin's house where there was literally nothing close, this is absolute luxury!
When I arrived Ilan wasn't in, but I was welcomed in by his friendly housemate, Antonio, who answered the door in nothing but shorts and poured me some juice before resuming his dance practice, intriguing to watch, he soon stopped and came to find out who'd walked into his house.
Antonio it seems, is not a man of small talk. Of that I was certain, especially after spending an hour discussing the nature of religion, what is God, the meaning of life, and who we really are. There's only so many times you can respond to the question "who are you?" by giving inadequate answers before you just have to give up and concede that a seemingly simple question can be more than it seems.
Ilan never appeared and eventually I had to excuse myself, I had a BBQ to get to. An interesting side-quest for my afternoon....
Next visit: Zoe and Lucero. The two girls I almost ended up living with were having a bit of a party. Initially advertised as a BBQ, this was switched for pizza and drinks night last minute due to an unfortunate lack of BBQ on which to BBQ. But no matter!
I wasn't particularly in much of a drinking mood, after all my outings of the weeks so I took it a bit slow. It was one of those typical scenarios in which as a foreigner, it's really difficult to participate. Not only was I in a room full of Chileans (who speak very quickly amongst themselves) but most of the conversation topics I didn't know too much about. That said, the one-to-one chats I had were rather more fruitful. Much easier.
The party was winding down, though some were up for going out, so I threw out my suggestion - La Capilla. An old converted church where they were holding a psy night (Thanks to Zogg friends for the suggestion) and to my great surprise, Juan-Pablo (one of the chileans) already knew about it and was well up for going! And I already had the directions written down. Super win! We headed out, with Miguel (another Chilean) tagging along.
The night lived up to expectations and more, with the same friendly crowd as always and some wicked DJs. I think I may have found my new favourite club! So much easier to dance to than reggaeton too, that feels kind of unnatural. I tried to take some picture but it didn't work so well, I do however have this one of the beautiful morning we emerged into, rather splendid:
So after some initial confusion over where to catch a bus (some men came along with gates to close off our section of the road - half marathon apparently), I was finally headed home. At 7am. A sign of a good night!
A pretty normal time to get in for BA; on my way back from the bus stop I walked past one place that was still chugging away plus several people sat in cafés, ending the night with a morning coffee or a spot of breakfast. Madness, but I love it! I'm yet to finish my night with breakfast but Saturday night came close. I went to bed pretty sharpish but not before writing a note to Andres to wake me up when it was time to go shopping.
Sunday
I was woken up at 2.45. Dragged myself off to shower and soon after, we headed out to Coto, the enormous budget supermarket to stock up on essentials for the months. I was knackered, but Andres is easy company so I didn't mind too much, and was immensely relieved to hear that home delivery is pretty standard! We spent a good hour or two wandering around picking up offers, paid and walked home. Easy peasy. Still need to go get veg though, that's better from one of the many greengrocers dotted about.
We sat about watching football and chatting whilst I attempted to finish a wordsearch I was making for my class on Monday. A little while later, Ilan (the French friend I attempted to visit on Saturday) popped round to chat and swap me some dollars for pesos (I may have already mentioned the difficulties in changing money here - Ilan's off to the states soon and I need pesos) and we discussed the economy and world politics. Seem to be pretty hot topics here, and rightly so! I maybe need to get up to scratch on what's going on so I might be able to form an opinion...
Once he'd left, Andres cooked dinner, a delicious veggie tomato sauce with tagliatelle. For someone who doesn't cook veggie, it was outstanding. I was super impressed and it was exactly what I wanted. 10 out of 10. My original intention to head out to Tango had long been abandoned so we finally went to bed.
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