:: Electric Psychedelic Pussycat Swinger's Club ::

:: Monday, March 21, 2005 ::

hola from argentina

Buenas Noches, mis amigos! For those of you who aren´t in the know, i´ve decided to spring break out here and Uruguay for the next 10 days. I am at an internet cafe in Buenos Aires at the moment, in the heart of downtown - microcentre to be exact. It´s about 9:30 pm here a nd i´m tired as hell.

I left nyc in a hurry as i put off all necessary preparations until the last minute. The flight here was a bitch. Eleven hours of pure hell. I was seated next to 3 infants, all of which cried through various hours of the night. Even my recently purchased noise cancelling headphones were no match for these little devils. Needless to say i was fucked of any chance to get a decent night´s sleep before arriving into the city. Oh, and the stewardess who was in charge of my aisle was a real piece of work. Imagine aunts patty & Selma from The Simpsons and you´ll get the picture. She and I exchanged pleasantries as i tried to tell her that i pre-ordered a kosher meal on this flight, but apparently they only received 1 kosher meal request and that was for the jew in front of me. I know, i know, what the fuck is this asian doing ordering a kosher meal. I don´t blame the trick for not believing me,but I couldn´t believe her attitude. She thought i was lying. that bitch. But uh, yeah... in my experience i´ve found that airline food sucks, but from what i´ve seen of the kosher meals, they seem semi-palatable.

Touching down into Buenos Aires at 11am, i gathered up my trusty rucksack, went to the cambio to change out $10 us for roughly $30 pesos and i was on my way i nto town in a nice tour bus. After a quick transfer, a minivan driven by pedro (just kidding, didn´t catch his name) dropped me off in front of the Milhouse Hostel, about an hour in from the aeropuerte. Here´s how absurdly cheap it is¨in buenos aires : 3 nights accommodation cost me only $19 u.s. $ 19 ! (okay, this keyboad is retarded. the space bar gets stu ck and many of the symbols are in th e wrong places. Fewking south american craftsmanship. where ar ethe nips when you need ém? ). I´m sharing a 4 person dorm room on the2nd floor overlooking a busy street on one end and facing an open courtyard i n the middle of the hostel. All in all it´s a clean place and so far the peoplehave been very friendly. But what the héck is up with all the aussies here¿ Half thepeople staying here must be from Australia! So many aussies, but not the one i want to see. I think i´m the only ORIENTAL chickety china the ¨chinese chicken¨ in the entire place! That´s alotta pressure. Gotta put my best foot forward and give them a goodimpression of my people. Maybe´i´ll offer to dry clean everyone´s clothes free of charge. Just kidding. Half-price.

And the women here are beautiful. It´s too bad asians get no lovin´ the world round, ´cept in asian countries. Plus, it´s kind of hard to sound smoove when your spanish is muy bad.

After cleaning up, i headed out to a recommeneded Parilla (steakhouse) in the San Telmo neighborhood, about a 20 minute walk from downtown. My first meal of the day was a Bistec Lomo (sirloin steak) done up medium, along with papas fritasand una insalata con onion y tomato,topped off with an ice cold cerveza. Did i stay within my budget? Entire meal came out to $34 pesos, or$11 US ( in your eye, Rachel Ray). How fucking cheap is that? And let me tell you that the cow that sacrificed its life to be my lunch did not die without serving a higher purpose. This was one of the, if notTHE, j uiciest steaks i´ve everhad. Ruths´Chris steakhouse ain´t got nothing on the Argentines. Meat so tender it sliced like butter,baby.

Afterwards, i spent the afternoon walking around thecity and ended up at a famous cafe, La Tortoni on plaza de Mayo, which is just a few blocks away from wher ei am staying. There i ordered a caffe con leche (coffee with milk) and a churro. I took my timesipping on the fantastico caffe a nd took some time out to write in my journal. Was also able to fire one up in the middle of the cafe. EVERYONE smokes here. And at $1.00 US a pack, it´s understandable. It´s funny, beause tango is so big in argentina (its birthplace), every 5 minutes someone poppped in towards the backarea where i was sitting to check out their tangodance room forlater in the evening. I¨m thinking of taking a free l esson this week. we´ll see.

Anyway, that´s all for now. I gotta get back to the hostel and prepare for this evening´s festivities. There´s some big party being thrown inside our hostel tonight - dj, empanadas, wine and beer, allfor free! My dormmates (a norwegian and a spaniard - Äre and Hector - and i are goi ng to check it out. Until the next update...

Ciao!

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