Posted by I’ve been in Buenos Aires for 2 days now. It really is an incredible city though vastly different from Istanbul, Dhaka, Kuala Lumpur or the other int’l cities I’ve visited. My first day consisted of getting into town, checking into my hostel and walking around. This hostel that I am staying at is incredible. The staff is friendly and the clientele is more diverse than anything you’d ever find in one place. I’ve met amercian college students from florida state university, new yorkers (duh), brasilians, israelis, irish, english and germans. I’ve never met so many irish folk in one place (or period, for that matter). This place is just packed with ’em! It’s as if the entire island is here!
Everything starts late here. Dinner is around 9 or 10 pm. People don’t start partying till 1 am at the earliest and stay out till 6 or 7 am, which is a decided change from home where I’m usually in bed by 3am at the latest. We went to a night club called Metro Park – let me tell you something, Argentinians know how to throw down!! And Argentine girls are quite… quite. I left a bit early, around 3:00am-ish and went to sleep around 4am. Still it was an incredible experience. I didn’t take my camera to the club though. It’s not a slim-fit (which is good because otherwise, I’d lose it) and I didn’t want to feel bulky so there’s no pictures of the club, sorry 😉 Yeah we’ll leave it at that. I left a bit early, around 3:00am-ish and went to sleep around 4am. Still it was an incredible experience.
Today, I walked down to the Buenos Aires docks and had some of their world-famous steaks. They don’t do anything to them in terms of preparation – just beef and a little salt. I’ve had New York strip steaks and everything that Kansas City has to offer. They can’t touch an Argentine steak!! I’m not sure what I’ll do tonight. A bunch of people are going to a rock concert; I may join them or just chill at the hostel and shoot pool with everyone else.
The common denominator I find among those I meet while travelling internationally – NO ONE LIKES GEORGE W. BUSH!! Not the Americans travelling or living abroad, nor the Irish, English, Germans, Brasilians or Argentines. The easiest way for an American to make friends while abroad is to introduce him/herself, state his nationality and then promptly ‘reassure’ the group that, “I did NOT vote for Him.” No need to even say His name; everyone knows who I’m talking about. haha.
I haven’t done much shopping here but I’ll attend to that tomorrow. There is a big antiques/crafts fair in one of the barrios. Speaking of Spanish (or not), I don’t speak Spanish. It hasn’t been a big problem but I find that less folk know the English (or American, if you want to be specific) language than in Turkiye. Our hegemony is not so strong here as it is elsewhere in the world, methinks we need some pre-emptive action to correct that. It’s funny though – folk who don’t know English, per se, still know American pop songs quite well. They’ve got some excellent mixes of spanish music and hip hop, which I must get. I hope this finds you all well. Take care. Peace.
