Awesome Argentina

Hola,

Sometimes things happen on this trip that I just need to put down.

Yesterday I found a small bar just off the central plaza to watch the Argentina vs. Ivory Coast soccer (er, Football) game that had the town shutting down its stores and crowding its bars. Soon into the game, after I had drank quite a bit of beer, I gots to talkin' to the bar owner's son and his friends, all of which roughly my age and mostly all wearing Argentina's baby blue and white jersey. We drank quite a bit while talking about this and that (I was a bit surprised at how they didn't really watch the game all that intently, more an excuse to socialize and drink, just like in Canada). After the game, which Argentina won, the town - excuse the french - went absolutely ape shit, as if they had just declared independence or something. Flags were everywhere, people rode in the back of pickup trucks with faces painted, and every single car was honking its horn. We went outside and locked arms, singing some Argentinian song whose words I never quite picked up, and would circle around any good looking girl or girls that came walking down the street after one of the guys would hungrily say "chicas...!"

After about half an hour of this we walked to the plaza where I was used as some kind of cute puppy dog named "Canadianse" which could be used to get girls' attention. I was paraded from one group of girls to the next, all of which were stunning, and well dressed. One girl even made off with my hat (I was a little drunk and she was cute as hell).

After a ride on a moped to one of the guys' house we watched porn (apparently what these guys do for fun) and played chess - a weird combination to say the least. After his mother showed me dozens of photographs of her family we had a meal at a street vendor and again I was used as a lever for prying open girls' address books. The guys were extatic.

People here are very different from other countries I have been to on this trip. Elsewhere people, as much as I hate to say it, felt a little insecure about themselves when a foreigner was around, like they were being confronted by a millionaire on Safari ("hey look, there's a dark one!"). Here people are genuinely interested and unafraid, and the girls (as I really found out later, although I am going to omit that part because my mother reads this...) love the allure of foreigner, even a scruffy poor dressed one.

The first stop was, to my surprise, a gas station. We didn't buy gas, we bought booze and sat and had a warmup session in the gas station's bar (this was, literally, an Esso with a bunch of tables where people sat and drank; then drove home). I found this part really strange but they didn't understand why (drinking at a gas station??). After a couple bottles of some local stuff and some Coca leaves to keep the juices flowing we were off, drunk, rowdy, and having a good ole boy's night out.

We spent the rest of the night at a really, really packed nightclub that was strait out of Montreal (minus the fire safety regulations) as was the music and fashion. When the bar closed at 6 am I went to an afterhours bar until 8:30 and then retired with a new friend.

Today I recovered. Slowly.

I got a comment from someone from Buenos Aires about my last blog entry, one that talked about my first impression about a part of Argentina's culture. She made two criticism, the first being the part about them "being comfortable in their own skin" but wishing it were "whiter". After re-reading that I deleted that part and apologized, it came out demeaning, I think. But her second criticism didn't make me edit anything, that about them having a different attitude towards commercialism than we do in Canada (specifically the joke about them having coca cola posters on their walls - in fact I would bet that they have exactly the kind of stuff we do on our walls, if maybe with more taste). I stick by the message though, although I have only seen one part of Argentina. They do have a different approach towards western-style commerce than we do in Canada, but I like theirs a lot more. They are proud of the type of economy that they built; they are aware of all its facets and they are very happy to have it. Whereas in Canada I feel like we are... owned by it, like it is just a given that IS our world and like we have no part in it. I am going to have to think about this more over the next month and a bit I spend here, but it is very evident that they have a unique way of looking at the styled neon lights.

People are obviously very proud to be Argentinian, too, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. As this girl pointed out, they are just suffering from an economy in a slump, but they still love their country. But they love the way their country does business and dresses, too.

I hope if the person who left that comment on my blog will email me...

Ciao for now

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