Shitty Week

My camera got stolen, oink was shutdown, and my house nearly burned down.

I am never going to blackout again.

I've seen the Andes mountain range from within 3 different countries. I've gotten smashed with at least 3 different cultures. Not counting the foreigners I've met along the way.

There was shitty snow in Bariloche. It was an excellent ski resort. The Argentine party schedule was not conducive for the enjoyment of both nightlife and skiing. I prioritized, but nevertheless, thumbs up to the bars we did go to. 24 hours there and 20 hours back. The Argentine countryside is not very attractive, not in the pampas, imagine a bus ride from Denver to St. Louis. Word to the wise, double check what day you are actually leaving and do not go by your instincts when you're having fun. They don't replace your tickets when you miss the bus by a day. We found that out the hard way.

Drinking with Uruguayan skinheads was a solid experience. SHARPS mind you; paradoxical nonetheless. Not that it's hectic here, but I have never seen such a relaxed metropolis as Montevideo. Nothing like any primate city I have ever visited. 3 hours from the port of Buenos Aires by ferry.

Buenos Aires is a wonderful city. The postcolonial monumentalism is completely apparent, and to the foreign, and possibly domestic eye as well, it is impressive. In contiguous juxtaposition are the graffiti and clandestine monuments which are just as awe inspiring in their audacious defiance of the demagogic symbolism. Palermo Viejo evokes a cosmopolitan hipness that can be found in the progressive neighborhoods of most major Metropolises. La Boca is cultural clusterfuck of color and touristy establishments, veiling with relative effectiveness the decrepit conditions which surround it. If you want to get a picture dancing some sidewalk tango it is just the spot. All this is just 1:15 minutes from where I live. I don't go there enough.

The partying has gotten a little old. When out of the cradled atmosphere of complicit collegiate degeneracy it doesn't seem as appealing; it becomes mundane in a sense. After all, you can't really enjoy a blackout.

The nights are not really nights, but transitions into more nights. By the way, hogs ain't shit by these standards. Here in La Plata I guess I've fallen into a routine cycle which is only broken by these few escapes into different parts of the country. Drinking with amusing friends, not great friends, losing the weekend in a blur and then reading for the rest of the week, with a few interspersed points of interest. A completely pointillist tempo as Bauman would have it. I guess that's the nature of living without a grounding element.

airports

The transition has been smooth. I am now on yet another continent and have had the good fortune of making it all the way to Santiago, if only to the airport. I am currently staying in a house with a group of student activists and volunteers from the US and Latin America.

Chaos. Dirt. Smog. Noise. Overcast. Petroleum. Pilsner. Cristal. Tizon. Huachipa. Gringas. Cheap taxis. Futbol. Mexicanos. El Peru.

The past few days have been a whirlwind.

I started my trip off without any sleep. This has apparently become a necessary aspect of most of my flights at this point. I justify it by the fact that I can sleep on the plane which makes sense at first but does not account for unplanned occurrences as would take place in "El DF."

I get off the plane and arrive at the more lax hours of operation in el DF. Nevertheless, the chaos and grime that is Mexico City permeates the atmosphere, in a good way.

My addiction guides my course through the airport in hopes of taking a few puffs and subduing my inclinations for the several hours that I have yet to travel. I sit down, have a sandwich and some juice since I could foresee the unfulfillment on flight meal that I would be graced with. I ended up chatting it up with a scottish expat who had been working on an oil rig and was going back to his wife and kids in Brazil. He didn't like scotland.

Perhaps it was intuition which induced an anxiousness in me at the time. I said goodbye and went off to find my departure gate, only to find out that there would be no flight to Lima that night. The plane had crashed with a transport vehicle. This inconvenience was, needless to say, disconcerting but I went with the flow and hopped on a flight to Chile. It turned out to be the best flight I had been on in a long time. All the wine I could drink and a wonderful entree of tripe and rice.

In the morning I woke up to the sight of the Andes on the left, approaching the beautiful city of Santiago. The sight of the mountain range from the airport exacerbated my anticipation of exploring Patagonia's mountain ranges on my stick.

That would have to would have to wait until after Peru. Lima is unique geographically and culturally, but other than that it encapsulates many of the idiosyncrasies of most major urban centers in its chaos, pollution, pace, and general feeling of consumerist superfluity. So far so good.

I get to the house and am struck by an odd sense of deja vu. I feel like I knew the house already, for it is exactly what I had envisioned. Nice setup. Turns out it is only a 10-15 minute walk from the ocean.

We go out and look for ceviche but fail at our attempt to find it so we get cheap sandwiches then go to a bar next to the compound-like intellectual center that is "la Catolica" in order to watch some football. 40's are 2 dollars at the bar. Me gusta.

The rest is where it gets hazy. US got worked. We went out. Sargento Pimienta's, Watdajel, Tizon, and then this weird bar in a touristy part of town that reminded me totally of Tijuana and Revolucion street.

Friday night. Ate ceviche, delicioso, not like Mexican ceviche. Played soccer next to the cliffs. Team gringo lost, just like the real one. Got a bottle of Bacardi. Challenged Matt. I drank almost an entire fifth of rum, then we went out. Needless to say we had to come home and bring Matt back. Bacardi, Tizon, Ozo. Quote of the night:

"They always say no the first time." -Kiet

Saturday. What a day this was. I am "crudo." You intuit the translation. We make it out to Huachipa finally. This is the region of Lima where I will be working. The conditions are appallingly squalid. There is a surreal layout to the area since there are no trees and the ground has been torn apart by the practices of the brickmaking industry.

Child labor is a huge problem in the area. The school is impressively lacking. We spend our time working on the playground. Word to the wise, don't start spinning the kids around unless you have a lot of energy. It was fun. The kids are cute.

Night comes. People come. Pretty soon there's a party. Sargento Pimientos. Gringas. Party. Jesus Freak. "Fresa" who is full of shit. We finally make it back to the house. Drunkenly stumble after late night munchies.

Today. Mexico won.

Pre-departure formalities

The Argentines are continuing to make bad impressions on me. Up to this point I have not been able to get in touch with anyone at the Argentine Embassy. Their working hours must be wonderful because they are apparently open only 3 or 4 hours of the day. That's bureaucracy though. We'll see what happens tomorrow at the embassy though.

My current stay at home has led me to a state of lethargy I have come to embrace ever since the end of last summer's break. I don't know how exactly it is that I have become so languid but it is becoming rather disconcerting.

On a more pleasant note, I have been drinking far less. Part of that might be correlated to the fact that I have been going out to far more expensive bars with a more exclusive crowd. So getting drunk at the bars with a bunch of college aged alcoholics doesn't seem to fly as well out here.

However, the club scene seems so irreverently hedonistic. I can appreciate going out to a trendy club and spending a few extra dollars for the ambiance, but when I take into account the fact that the more trendy the club is the more materialized the people become the experience becomes deflated. The people in these clubs effectively cease to be fully human and take on an artificial persona which is all part of the prescribed norm for such environments.

Don't get me wrong, in the moment I still definitely have a good time, but to tell the truth, I would much rather be in a sub-trendy (sub-culturally trendy) dive bar which allows for a more personalized experience, and effectively detach myself on my own accord, i.e. through my own intoxicating behavior, and not by the societal imposition.

On an entirely different tangent, Johnny gets out here tomorrow. The plan is to go bum around Venice beach, to which I have personally never had the pleasure of visiting, despite the fact that I have lived in Southern California my entire life. Not that it's ever been that enticing to go there, but there are a few cultural aspects of that place that I should probably partake in.

I am also making use of this trip to go out to the Argentine Embassy and confirm the documents I am going to need for my student visa. We'll see if the Argentines actually redeem themselves or if they're going to let me down yet again.

I have also found out that it is much more difficult to get your criminal history than I had previously expected. There are only a few times during the week that this can be obtained from the police department and the official documents need to be obtained through the submission of various forms to the state.

I think it wouldn't be too far of a stretch that by the end of this process I will be more apt in my maneuvering through bureaucratic institutions, which is good since the socialist state is founded upon the bureaucracy.

I am currently listening to the "boys of melody" by The Hidden Cameras, which is an amazing song by a gay band. Literally. Apparently the shows are a riot but unfortunately they are not very well known amongst non-gay circles. I became acquainted with them through the soundtrack of the movie Shortbus.

I recommend this movie for those who are truly not homophobic because there is a great deal of male nudity. The movie explores human sexuality through the scope of several individuals in an exclusive salon in New York whose purpose is to provide a medium for the sexually gifted and challenged to come together.

Netflix is awesome, by the way. So is HDTV. Combine the two and I may have found the reason for my lethargy.

I need coffee and a cigarette.