There's really no adequate way to describe the depression you feel when you leave a relative paradise like Buenos Aires to return to Mercer County, New Jersey. It's like pulling your dick out of a supermodel's pussy and sticking it in the ugliest piece of jiggling moo ass you can find. (Although that's a pretty accurate road map of my dating history sans the supermodel...present company not included of course). Buenos Aires is the mecca, the paragon, the utopia of the modern world. To all the New Yorkers out there with the delusion that Manhattan is such hot shit, take a fourteen hour flight to the other side of the world and sample the quality of life we've allowed to slip through our fingers.
Imagine if you will, a modern city where a cab ride from one side of the city to the other costs three bucks...where every meal is prepared fresh and mind-numbingly delicious...where designer labels and other retail goods can be purchased for mere pennies above actual manufacturer cost...where you can enjoy sunny, sub-tropical weather year round, where the people are warm and friendly and cocktails cost two bucks...where you can walk into an uber-hip club wearing clothing you've worn for days and reek of sweat...this isn't some hyper-reality, this is the world I lived in for seven fantastic days and it absolutely KILLED me to leave.
Now you may be asking, as did many prior to my departure, why in the hell I would pick Argentina of all places to visit. Granted, it's not your typical vacation hot spot, but what the hell is that anyway? I wanted my next vacation to be unique...exploratory...cultured...something raw and beautiful that you just can't experience sipping daiquiris on a beach at a Club Med. I mean, yeah, I do enjoy the resort experience from time to time...that's for when you really want to unwind and be pampered for a week. This wasn't that vacation. My friend Austin had just left for Argentina when the idea came to me. Argentina. Why the fuck not?
I left the 13th at 5:50 PM from Newark Airport. Joining me were my friends Charlie and Felix as well as my fiancé (Missy). I dubbed them "travel buddies", a term so gay when spoken it immediately makes your ass sore. This wasn't the first time I've traveled with Felix or Charlie, but it was the first time I've done so with both. This would also be Missy's first international flight anywhere.
Felix and I had some bad travel experiences in the past (so bad I actually made a documentary about one of them) so we were both a little perturbed when we saw our flight to Chicago was delayed due to maintenance issues with the plane. Should we miss our connecting flight to Argentina there wouldn't be another one for a full 24 hours. Fortunately, the travel g-ds smiled on us this time and the plane to O'Hare arrived with time to spare.
A not-so-quick 10 hour flight to Aeropuerto Internacional Ministro Pistarini de Ezeiza left my legs swollen and numb, but the compartmentalized meals, as usual, didn't fail to please. (I love plane and hospital food...go figure.) I was delighted to discover, after disembarking the plane, that a pack of Marlboro lights breaks the bank at a fucking whopping $1.50 a pack. G-d bless you, Argentina, and fuck you New York. That's right people....one dollar and fifty cents...what I would imagine it costs to grow enough tobacco for one 20 pack of cigarettes, box it and still have a little left over to make a profit. Fuck you and your $8 packs of cigarettes Manhattan, you greedy fucks. The cab ride to Buenos Aires was about a half hour...I was able to call my bank at home so I could set up a loan to pay the whopping EIGHTEEN DOLLARS the cab ride cost us. ($4.50 a person).
Cab drivers in Argentina are fucking insane. 'Nuff said if you've ever played Spy Hunter, RC Pro Am, or Grand Theft Auto.
The first thing that struck me was the advertising. Buenos Aires is suffocated by corporate marketing. There's nothing subtle about it...it's about as in your face as you can get to someone without clubbing them to death with a Marlboro brand baseball bat.
Our hotel was much better than expected. I was told the area our hotel was in, known as the Recoleto, was considered to be the Beverly Hills of Buenos Aires...but that's all relative really. It was clean and well appointed...friendly, English speaking staff took our bags to our room and didn't pester us for tips (propinas...a word we came to know very well in Cancun...fuck you Cancun.) Just to put things, again, into perspective, my fiancé and I cleared out the mini-bar twice, ordered room service twice, and made dozens of long-distance calls...our checkout bill...$40. Try that at the W in mid-town and see what happens.
We met up with Austin sometime later that night. He was stunned to see his jew-y friends from New York so far south of the equator. I would've been too...had he not chose Argentina I doubt the impulse to visit would ever come. He introduced us to his roommate, who is a fucking jerk if I ever met one, and his friendly yet plump sister who he apparently made clean his room and wash his clothes all week while she visited him. They took us to Des Nivel...the local steakhouse that serves oral orgasms in the form of beef tenderloins prepared with a mild spice rub that complemented the natural flavor of the fresh Argentinian beef. The cut is called "bife de lomo", which I accurately translated to "best motherfucking piece of steak I've ever had in my entire life...ever". Total cost of dinner with trimmings...$8.
Every meal was like this people. MMM...groan....oooo. I couldn't stop eating (which isn't unusual, but I really engorged myself this time...I was like a bloated tick...) It's not everyday you taste beef that had been slaughtered and vegetables that had been picked the same day you ate it...but every restaurant was like this.
I'm not going to bore you guys anymore with how cheap everything was down there...well, maybe one more thing...went to the mall, bought a Yves Saint Laurent suit for a hundred bucks, Dior shirts, ties and jeans for $150 bucks and a pair of Miss Sixty jeans and a leather purse for Missy for $100 bucks. Try that at Short Hills Mall.
On Saturday we visited the local public pool. They inspected our fingers and armpits for evidence of communicable diseases. Luckily, my beef scented armpit stench didn't qualify. The look on his face when I showed him my talon-like finger toes was classic.
We raced go carts (20 laps for $6 bucks) around a track...no seat belts...flame retardant masks our only defense against permanent burn scarring...don't go go-carting in Buenos Aires...they just don't have the regulations. What a thrill man.
On Tuesday we took a ferry from Buenos Aires to Uruguay and rented scooters for the day (cost $15) to put put around historic Colonia. Ate the local food (an odd combination of seafood ingredients that tasted much better than they looked) and swam at the beach. Scooters are awesome fun. Anyone who calls them gay hasn't driven one through the streets of Colonia at 50mph. Mine was black. It was my Knight Industries Two Thousand and nobody could stop me. I was a scootering fiend. Missy was afraid of the scooter...so they stuck her on a quad which wasn't remotely safe at all. If you know my fiancé, you can understand the humor in watching her tremble before the rumble of a 200cc engine as it begs to flip you over on your ass.
We met up with my friend Jay, who had been touring Peru for some time and endured a 20 hour bus with no AC, no food and no water just to hang out with us. Jay's one of those people who left his whole reality behind to travel the world. I really envy the freedom he has because I will never know that kind of joy in my lifetime. I get glimpses...a week at a time...it's really sad if you think about it.
Felix and Missy caught some serious sunburns, so the last two days were pretty much a wash. We did have an opportunity to enjoy the local Chinese cuisine (the china town is about a block long...$4 bucks, in case you were wondering) before visiting the local zoo. I don't think I've ever been that safely close to animals that could kill me so easily. It was rather funny.
Other funny things that happened during the trip:
1) Went to a bar...Charlie stopped up the bathroom with a big dump...I immediately followed him, took a dump on his dump, and upon discovering my inability to flush the toilet, informed the closest hot waitress of my dilemma in some broken Spanish I got off Babelfish (I had stopped up a toilet with a dump earlier in the week at the internet cafe). She replied with a polite gracias and returned with my drink, a sex on the beach. I don't know if I could be more sexy than I was that night.
2) My friends pathetic attempt to walk the line between flirting, hooking up with local girls and cheating on their girlfriends in the states. I've never seen such longing to be single in my life.
3) Austin's apartment's neighborhood. Beirut...on a good day looked more welcoming.
4) Preparing a mate incorrectly in front of a waitress of painstakingly explained the preparation process for five minutes. I don't have that kind of patience.
5) The 7th Degree of Hell...a local libation containing every possible starch based liquor imaginable. It was criminally awful.
6) Missy's high heels tearing up her feet and having to sit on the floor and bandage her in the middle of the busiest retail district in Buenos Aires.
7) Playing the Batman pinball game, which I haven't seen in almost ten years. That wasn't so much funny as was trying to play a pinball game on a rocking boat
Well there you have it. Trying to sum up the experience in a blog posting is next to impossible. It was a full week...a rewarding week...one I hope to repeat again in the near future. I uploaded the photos of my trip to my gallery. The link is below. Thanks for reading...hope this at the very least piqued your interest...it's really a great city and I sincerely recommend the trip if you have the money. (Total cost for airfare and hotel....$880).
I guess I should start shoveling my front porch now...thank you Blizzard of 05. Did I mention I left sub-tropical climates for this?
