With our time here in this city dwindling, Petro and I have been trying to cram alot of experience into limited time. Does this mean we wake up before noon?--rarely, in fact never, but post 2pm we take productivity to the next level. Take this weekend for example. We woke up yesterday and toured the La Boca area of B.A. (as recommended by Nick Decenso in the Comments section) with our fellow housemates Marcia and Carolina from Brazil. As you can see from the above picture and other pics in the album, La Boca is a colorful, artsy area that is near the city´s center. It is also the area containing the Bomberdero soccer stadium, which is the home of the Boca Juniors and the past homefield of the legendary Diego Maradona. Although there was no game going on when we toured the stadium we pretended there was and lit fireworks and threw molotov coctails on the cops passing by. Also toured the Puerto Madero area, which was jam packed with people living well beyond our means, which meant we did a whole lotta staring. The day of sightseeing ended quite interestingly when our foresome exited the subway train and the 40 year old Marcia was harrassed by an Argentine woman who was hellbent on causing some trouble for a foriegn latina. Petro and I were dually shocked to see the mostly mellow Marcia trading serious slang with this woman. Although it was in a mix of Spanish and Portugeuse, I think the gist of the altercation went something along the lines of "excuse me miss, I know this might be rude but I am going to cut off your tongue and shove it up your @ss." The real ingenuity of their conversation will be forever lost in translation but Petro and I sensed the seriousness of it when Marcia put up her fists. Smart enough to know not to get in the way of two latino women, Petro and I started hedging bets. Unfortunately, our lust for violence went unfulfilled and the Argentine woman wisely backed off. We now call Marcia "La tigre (tiger)" and we will never cross her.
You might be wondering how the weather has been lately as the last information conveyed described it as skin-melting and night terror inducing. The last 3 days have been very pleasant, which is the only way I can describe it because the temperature is given here in celsuis, which requires a mathematical equation involving more than one step, thereby rendering the process not worth doing by me.
In health news, we both seem to be in fairly good condition except for a most-likely broken toe Petro is nursing after having a high-heeled girl accidently step on it at the bar. Unfoturnately, we have been telling our fellow housemates that we are medical doctors from the States, which meant that we had to pretend to be able to treat his swollen toe. We are now saying that we are psychiatrists to avoid future exposure.
In people news, the houseguest who left our room for the hospital (for dengue fever or something similar) has not been heard from for the past 4 days. Good luck Mr. Name Unknown. Oh, and by the way we burned your bedsheets and clothes.
We have been spent some time with Irish Brian, mostly examining the idiosyncransies of our respective cultures. Our favorite topic is our colloquial language differences and my new favorite expression is "going out on the piss" (going out to drink). We also said goodbye to our good buddies KK, Emily, and Kevin from Chicago by hitting up a trendy club in B.A. that played 80´s rock videos on jumbo screens. Reflective of our status as the only gringos in the club, we danced with little regard to style and rhythm until 5am. Dancing to Bon Jovi never felt so good. And so, that was it-all in a day´s work.
I haven´t touched on the subject at all in my blogs but the driving in B.A. is something to be feared as a taxi passenger and terrified of walking the streets (the B.A. provincial area is reported to have about 10 driving related deaths DAILY). Check out this movie I shot when we took a crazy taxi ride out of La Boca. Notice Petro in the front with his head out of the window at first and later smartly retracting it as it surely would have led to decapitation.
Today we are feeling a little restlessness and so we have made the decision to pull the plug on B.A. and head to less populated pastures. Haven´t fully decided on the destination but that insignificancy will be figured out at the bus station tomorrow morning. As such, you probably wont hear from me for a couple days. Sorry for the long blog but I had to get some things off my chest.
Stay classy,
Brian Burgundy
Sunday
The End of B.A.
Taken from the selective memory of Brian Quarnstrom
Labels: Argentina
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3 comments:
HOLA CHICOSS..
it's mee..yeah
I'm already missing you guys..
You have to go to Brazil...
Kisses!
Cacá!=]
Brain, you boys be careful now down south. Keep an eye on the boy for me. Still waiting on my first hit from the link on your blog. I know it will come. Will you have access to the computer down south?
any stories that parents can't read? email them to us!
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