Bucleros’ Bash in Buenos Aires
I had two days in Buenos Aires before the boys arrived. I spent most of my time wandering around, finalizing the last details for when they arrived and avoiding all the dog crap on the sidewalks. They say Buenos Aires is a very European city, and it is; the dog doo clinches the comparison for them. Even in cities where all the dogs are homeless and run around in little gangs there is not as much crap on the walkways. Those undomesticated dogs seem to have a little more respect for public areas than all the dog walkers (running around with sometimes 10 dogs) in Buenos Aires…
The day Rukman and Pompei arrived, I got up early early, walked to the subway, which I took to the bus out to the airport. This would be the last time I would take public transport for while, as the boys are pretty much all about cabs. I waited in the front of the huge crowd of people waiting for their friends, family, or whoever else, checking out every person…is that them? No. Them? No. Finally they came out…familiar faces in a crowd of strangers. Except for Rukman’s long hair, they were the same as I left them 8 months earlier. A little it of Chicago in Buenos Aires.
We wasted some time in the neighborhood, walking around a bit and getting an awful breakfast until we went for our apartment. I had found this place on the internet, and the pictures looked cool, but the place was way better than the pictures let on. There was a huge living area with a fireplace, an open dining room and kitchen, and a huge hallway with blue, yellow, and clear windows leading to the bedrooms in the back. Each bedroom had its own bath, including bidets, and there was a third half bath off the living area. The place was beautiful.
We headed to Palermo, a neighborhood in town that I would most liken in Chicago to Lincoln Park; it was described as a Porteno yuppie’s wet dream in my book (although the boys’ Time Out book became “The Book” of the trip…Rukman likes to do things by the book, for which I made fun of him, but gladly obliged). We hit a few bars in the neighborhood, but made it an early night (which wasn’t all that early, getting home at 5am), since we had to get up the next morning to pick up Eli.
We had only a few hours sleep, but we got up and headed to the airport. We were tired, but a sort of slap-happy tired, having fun on the ride out there. We got there a little late, but there was still no sign of Eli. I waited in the front of the crowd again, excited to see yet another familiar face. Time went by and still no Eli; his flight had arrived…where was he? Our mood slowly turned sour as time ticked my and still no Eli. Did he not get his passport in time? Did he miss his flight? Did he just not come and wasn’t coming at all? We were cursing him to hell, pretty much. Someone check your voicemail; someone check the internet. I went to check the internet and found out that due to bad weather in Chicago, he had missed his connecting flight and would be there the following day.
We pretty much now hated everyone and everything, blaming Eli, Chicago, the weather, each other (why wouldn’t you let me check my email?), everything within and without reason. We went for breakfast in the morning, where Rukman was determined to get a steak. No steak. Only coffee and croissants. Rukman was really pissed now. “This is a total waste of time. Seriously.” Pompei and I laughed at him and we all slowly came to laugh at ourselves for our little Blame Game episode. We napped and headed back out for a huge lunch, gorging ourselves on great beef (and one of the best sausages I’ve ever had).
We headed out to Palermo again that afternoon so the boys could do some shopping (and buy the same exact stuff they already own, just cheaper) and had an awesome sushi dinner (apparently the sushi was “alright”, but given my recent culinary options, I thought it was awesome). We went to a few bars that night, where we met some local guy who took us out to a club….interesting enough, one room had dance music, and the other had rock music. The night flew by (it can do that when you don’t even go out until after midnight), and we got home with 1 hour to sleep before attempting to pick up Eli again.
We were in no way as enthused to head to the airport this time. I still stood up in the front of the crowd again waiting for Eli, while Pompei and Rukman sat less interested (and at times asleep) at the cafe. Finally Eli arrived, and the bucleros were finally all together. (Bucleros is a word in Spanish that I made up; the intended meaning is “loopers”, the nickname for a caddie. I tried the word out on some of the locals, and it apparently doesn’t exist; the closest meaning they come come up with would be something like hairdressers, although we quickly dismissed that option.)
Rukman and Pompei slept fr a bit and I headed out with Eli to have a few beers in the local plaza before heading back to sleep myself. For dinner, we went out for more beef (Oh God, not more beef…my body just didn’t want it, so I opted for the other option – pasta), and headed out to more bars before going to a party that we had been invited to. We got there late, missing the music (which was described to me as “a lot of noise”), which was probably a good thing. It was in some hair salon with sand on the floor and some dude passed out right by the door. We made friends with various people at the party (including some couple who was extremely excited about everything, jumping with every word coming out of someone’s mouth), and the boys started inviting people to our apartment on Friday for a party. This was the first I had heard about it…
A bit more drinking and sleeping on Sunday, and we headed out to Iguazu Falls on Monday morning. The falls were beautiful; the weather was warmer and it felt great to be in the jungle again. We hiked around during the day and went out again that night, met a few people (sometimes on the shadier side), dancing the night away, and getting woken up by the hotel manager the next morning to check out of our hotel.
Back in Buenos Aires, we met up that night with Gonzalo, a local friend I had met in December in Brazil. The boys mentioned the party again, and it was now on. Gonzalo and his brother are DJs, and it just so happened to be Gonzalo’s birthday on Saturday, so a party for Friday night was really perfect timing…
We spent a few more days of eating a drinking, and on Friday we prepared for the party. We were fully equipped – beer, wine, liqour, and toilet paper. We moved all the decorations out of the living area to keep them from getting broken and/or stolen (which provided an interesting challenge to me to return everything to its proper place after the party). The sound system and lights came (I’ve never had a party with a DJ, huge speakers and lights!), and Gonzalo set up his equipment…midnight came, the party had officially started.
Our first guests were 3 guys, one of whom we had met at a previous party. Then Gonzalo’s girlfriend and her sister came. After that, no one showed up for another hour and a half. It was now 1:30am, and there were 5 guests at our party. We were pretty sure this was going to be a flop…in Chicago, if no one’s at your party by 1:30, you can pretty much bet no one else is going to come. But, over the next hour or so, the place filled up; the party was on, and we didn’t know nearly a single person in our house!
We had an interesting list of guests, mostly from Buenos Aires, but also from Italy, Germany, Paraguay, New Zealand, and the police even stopped by to tell us to turn it down a bit. The party did indeed go until 6am, or even later, with our last guests being a really drunk/half passed out/seemingly possessed girl and her friends taking care of her. Of all things, she had passed out in David’s bed, with her right hand clawing at the wall every once in a while.
The cleaning duties were left in my hands, which, thanks to Eli’s efforts (he spent more time cleaning than I’ve ever seen in my life, due to his lack of Spanish skills) weren’t bad, but I didn’t touch it the next day. We finished our visit with a nice “American” lunch of Big Macs, and a little last-minute shopping. I went with them to the airport and saw them all off. Once again, I was all alone out here, and this time with no prospects of any visits for a while.
Tags: Argentina, Buenos Aries, Tag Index
Tania