Meeting Porteños, a Cultural Exchange

So, I guess I left off pondering my options for my Saturday. So I contacted Katy and she told me that her roomate Cecilia (Ceci) had invited us to see a play, then dinner, then to a party at her friend's house.

I got ready, took the subte, Linea D and switched over to Linea B and arrived quickly. I always think distances are shorter on maps, so I'm really glad I didn't choose to walk, I would have made everyone royally late. So I met Katy outside her apartment and we went to greet Ceci, who by the way has the cutest, artsy little aparment. She created shelves in her living room out of wooden boxes stacked together into a pyramid shape, her tv is on cinder blocks, and she has beautiful bright colors all over the aparment. Plus, CATS! I love it!

So we took a brisk walk to wherever the play was, I think it was just outside of Palermo Soho. We met our friend Anna there, as well as some of Ceci's theater friends. Oh yeah, Ceci did theater at la Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) and is currently working for the BsAs independent film festival, as well as providing audio for a documentary. She's basically amazing!

The place where the theater was at was adorable as well. Different carpets all over the floor, gold drapes, little tables with pillows on the seat, very artsy like the rest of the night. We paid for our tickets, which were 20 pesos, a little more than 6 dollars (amazing) and waited for one more friend. When we got in, I saw that it was going to be a VERY small showing, as I predicted; space for about 40 people very much like the Fountain theater in LA, but even smaller.

The play was called El Duel, and it was about two very broken people, who have both suffered a lot yet still have passion for life, a little too much passion. So the women was a widow and the man was coming to collect taxes from her dead husband and a series of very intense monalogues and dialogues insued, the guy was a thoroughly disgusting character and the actor did a really great job going all out with that, spitting all over the place and bursting with anger. The acting was very good and it was a very interesting play, just too violent for me at times, I can't really watch stuff like that, so I didn't feel too good at the end of it. That and towards the end, the women fired a gun and the sound was very much like a gun, lots of ringing in everyone's ears and momentary deafness. I wasn't prepared for that.

Either way, it was a good experience, going to a play completely in Castellano and meeting some of Ceci's friends there. Afterwards, the actors came out and mingled with people outside, and when I say mingled, they were right beside us, I accidentally pointed directly at the woman, you know, just like my usual smooth style.

Afterwards, we walked through Plaza Serrano and to a restaurant at what used to be an old banquet hall/sports club. It was cool because I realized that the prices were unbelievably cheap, Ceci said the cheapest you will find in Palermo Soho, and that this spot was probably where the locals went to eat while they could sit and laugh at the tourists overpaying for other food and drinks in the rest of Palermo Soho. So it was nice to get out of that tourist bubble for once. So I ordered my 16 peso steak, which was about a little more than 5 dollars. Right after eating it though, that disgusting feeling of too much meat settled inside me again. I am really getting to the point of not being able to eat much more of all this meat. I crave tofu and veggies all the time. Anyways, as we ate, two guys came up to our table and asked us if they could sit with us because they solely wanted to buy drinks and the waiter wouldn't let them sit at a table unless they were going to buy food as well. So Ceci, being as sweet and welcoming as she is, let's them sit down. I guess if we were ever going to let guys sit at a table with us, these would probably be the ones. The were good company, talkative and not aggressive. They were from España and litterly arrived in BsAs the day before we did. They love it here, compared it to their town back home and said that porteños are definitely much more inviting and cariñoso than people in España. I quickly stated that my lovely Profesora Guillen was from España and that she was one of the sweetest and cariñosa women I know, but he kinda brushed it aside and said it was due to the fact that she lived in America, which didn't really make sense to me. Meh, whatever, I still love Profesora Guillen. jeje

So we finished up there at around 12:30 am, jaja, yeah I know, it's so disgusting eating that much so late, but in BsAs the night was young and there were still so many people still eating at the restaurant. We walked back towards Villa Crespo, where Katy and Ceci live and where the party was going to be at. It's always pretty amusing going to parties and people's houses in BsAs, because as you sit outside waiting for them to come downstairs and let you in, I know I have sat there and thought, omg where am I, what did I get myself into, this area looks shady. But in the end, it's never what I suspected and usually beautiful upstairs. So one of her friends lets us in and walks us upstairs, through their aparment, up more stairs and out onto their terrace! OMG, I was really not expecting that! It was GORGEOUS!!! One of the few times I was lifted out of the noise of the city and into some fresh air. There was a lower area with more chairs and little tables and pillows, plus the bar. Then another area that was more flat, that was going to be the dance floor, where they were currently playing some trippy music and showing some weird music videos on a projector. It was so cool! It was pretty indescribable.

It was nice arriving early (jajaja yeah at 1am it's early) and being able to check the place out before it was crowded with tons of people. So once we started mingling and talking to some of the other hosts of the party, we found out that the party was put on couchsurfer.com, so there was going to be a nice mix of random people there. We ran into this one annoying kid from Portland, Garett, the hipster/skater who litterly did sit around and talk about skating for a while. So we were stuck talking to him, but he introduced us to this other guy Nicolas, and in their interactions, we saw just how annoying Garett could be. Nicolas is from Argentina, currently living outside the city at a naval base, hanging out in the city on the weekends he has free. Well, he is trying to learn English and was talking to us in English to practice, but Garett still couldn't understand him and at some point Nicolas was sitting there apologizing for his English, which he shouldn't have to do because there he is making an effort to learn a different language and practicing with us. Yeah, at another point in the night Garett, brought over another porteño and announced, hey guys this guy knows really good English. Gah, stupid boy. jaja really, did he just come to BsAs to find the only English speaking porteños to talk to?

But yeah, the night went on, I talked a bit more with Nicolas, who was cool for a bit. He was very into indie music and american shows, says they help him learn more English. But more and more people showed up, and all of us started mingling with other people. Natasha and Elizabeth showed up later too. We found these three crazy guys who were smoking and were trying to guess our ages. For some reason we look a lot older to these porteños, because they guessed we were in our mid 20's. Pretty sad. Oh well.

We also met this pretty cool girl from California named Sheeva, she was our standing in line for the bathroom buddy who was very nice to talk to. Ew, some guys in line behind us later on in the night kept asking me where my little friend was, you know the one that was very skinny and tiny. Gah, so gross, and stupid standard of beauty that is pervasive here. FYI, most women here are petite naturally, but there is a huge issue with anorexia and bulemia here, and my friend Elizabeth who lives in a dorm has a roomate who actually was anorexic. Her roomate says that women like JLo and Shakira are considered big here. So, nice bit of conforting info to know.

Towards the end of the night we were standing in a particularly stinky corner and so happened to meet another Cecilia and this guy Selmar. This Cecilia lives in BsAs, Selmar lives an hour outside of the city and commutes to work in the city. At this point of the night, the music had changed from electronica and trance to more an 80's punk and ska sound, amazing, just what I love. So Cecilia was telling us about a few 80's clubs that are free on Saturday nights, so I know that Natasha got her email, I got her cell number, we basically made plans for our coming Saturday, which I'm excited for. Selmar was really cool to talk to. He is very into punk, American and punk en español as well as like rockabilly and 60's folk, all very good music. Me and my friends would start dancing when we heard a really good song, and Katy asked him if he dances and he said no. I asked him if he prefers moshing, and he said he used to be into that and go all crazy, but that he's calmed down a bit. jaja. Yeah, and then I started describing SLC Punk to him and he had seen it, which I told him was surprising because I don't even know many people in the US who have seen that movie. Yeah, all in all, a very cool guy, not aggresive and pretty chill. Hopefully we'll get to hang out with them next weekend.

So we headed out at about 6am, because we knew we had to still make the trip back home. Natasha and I began walking up Scalabrini Ortiz and Katy just followed, she didn't realize she needed to go in the opposite direction. But then she just decided to walk with us and catch the Linea D and talk it back home. Halfway home, I really needed to pee, so we found our beacon of hope, a McDonald's, filled with porteños getting their morning munchy fix. It was ridiculous how packed it was, even more ridiculous how clean the bathroom was. When I came back to find Natasha and Katy I found them talking to these two guys and joined in the convo and these guys were pretty surprised by my Spanish. JAJAJA, these guys were pretty gross, well at least one was. They kept asking us where we were from and what we were doing here. Then they kept asking if we wanted to go out with them, then they said they had two gyms and would give us free membership for a "cultural exchange", jajajajaja so GROSS! Plus, one of the guys was really old and had a headband in his hair, sign of a douchebag, jajaja. Yeah at that point we needed to go and continued on our journey. Natasha turned left at Paraguay, then as Katy and I finally made it to Santa Fe, we found that the subway wasn't open and wasn't going to open until 8 am. So I gave her some monedas, and we found a colectivo that was going back to her place. I also gave her my guia T, the map we use to know what colectivos to take, but now I feel at a loss without it, I hope to get it back soon.

Yeah, pretty interesting weekend. Oh and the extent to which men will throw themselves at you is just crazy. On Thursday when I was walking home, some man in crutches turns and says, "Es la primera vez que te vi, y es la ultima vez que te voy a ver, me das un beso?" Translation, it's the first time I'll see you, and also the last, will you give me a kiss. GROSS...but they just kinda yell these things out as you pass buy. I haven't had anyone invade my personal space or some too close to me. But still, it is very creepy sometimes. ok, so that's all I guess...jaja