Hey from B.A.

So, as I believe I left it, we were making some decisions. And it looks like we will be staying in Buenos Aires for at least the next two weeks. Our original horse ranch idea was temporarily shot down when we found out they were booked with volunteers until sometime in Feb (don´t worry we are looking at other ranches). Also, we came across a very cheap guesthouse in the Montserrat neighborhood that made our decision alot easier. Being familiar with the backpacker scene, I am no stranger to living amongst a diverse crowd, however this place possesses a dynamic I have yet to see prior. The cast of characters includes the cool Argentine family that runs its, a Brazilian mother/daughter traveling duo, three Americans (from Marquette, friends with Megan Quane), our roommate Mike from LA, who is traveling around South America on a mountain bike (yeah, could be slightly nuts), a French family (parents + 2 year old child), and a string of other transients whose names will never be known. The house has an old world feel with 20 ft. ceilings, exposed brick, and an open air structure that makes hanging in the shade in the courtyard oh so sweet. A quick renovation by Schloegel Design and Remodel and this place could easily pass for an Italian villa. Oh, and the best feature, the owners recently decided to make some capital improvements and installed 3 foot deep "pool" in the courtyard.--which is sure to be the site of some fiasco soon. Petro and I´s living quarters are in a room with two bunkbeds on the floor, one of those beds is occupied by LA Mike, and our beds which are on top of a lofted area in the room. Also, we found out yesterday that we share our room with a new litter of kittens, who hide underneath a downstairs bunk bed--ideal, right?. Our first night, a fourth roommate, whose name and nationality were never established, decided to wage a passive/aggressive war against us. Most likely upset that we were carousing loudly with other guests outside our room until 5:30am, Mr. Poopy Pants decided that he would retaliate by continuously shaking his loud paper bag several times in the morning to wake us up. Weak sauce. Mike, Petro, and I had a pow-wow about it later and decided that if this guy was going to pull a stunt like this again, we were going to give him a code red ala´ A Few Good Men. Lucky for him, he departed from the house later that day, thus avoiding the serious beatdown that was sure to ensue. To avoid future episodes with uncool roommates, the newly established room union (Mike, Petro, and I) has decided that next time any potential residents are shown the room, whoever is in it has to pretend to talk to themselves and chew on their arm to discourage any new occupation. This tactic has already failed as when I awoke this morning there was what appeared two women of unknown nationalities residing on one of the bottom floor bunks. Back to the other guests, I´m sure when you read that there was a 2 year old child residing at a backpacker guesthouse, you were slightly appalled as was I, considering that our behavior here so far has been not quite ideal for early childhood development. However, after thinking about it more, this kid does have sort of an envious childhood experience--being exposed to so many different cultures and nationalities (the kid was playing soccer with Petro and I last night at about 1 am). As our house´s mascot, he´s great, however I did have to have a sit down talk with him yesterday--threatening that if woke up the whole guesthouse again with his early morning crying, he was going to have to face the wrath of our dreaded room union. Sadly, probably seeing the arrival to two potential role models for their son, the French family appears to have fled last night.
The schedule of life in B.A. has taken some getting used to. We eat lunch around 4pm, dinner around 10-11pm, and nobody in the city goes to bed before 5am. And so, I have been trying to give myself a pep talk lately trying to convince myself that I am not a bum if I continue to wake up around 2pm. It´s the burden I´ll bear I guess. Another interesting note about B.A., the population is very into themselves--Argentina has the 3rd highest rate of plastic surgery (maybe the first factual statement I´ve made in the blog thus far). In attempt to keep up with the vanity of the local population, Petro and I have been taking proactive steps to blend in, such as: changing clothes at least once every two days, employing a side-part hair strategy, and mainly just affirming Argentines infactuation with themselves by blatantly staring at them. With our incredible staring abilities, one would think that spoken language would be obselete, however we are starting to feel the inadequacies of our spanish skills. But, i could write a page just on that alone and I will later.......