Gang, I think this is it!

It's a hit! Gang, I think this is it!

It's a hit!

A few early nights and quiet days had me feeling much better but it had thrown my plans out. It looked unlikely that I would get over to Uruguay. That would mean one stamp that I wouldn’t be getting in my passport. European travel is much less exciting now your passport doesn’t get stamped. I have no idea why but the people at immigration in the various countries I had been through had crammed all of the stamps into the last few pages of my passport, sometimes squeezing them on to a page that already had a couple of other stamps on it despite there being plenty of blank pages up front. None of them were particularly neat with their stamping either. I would not make a good immigration officer as I would have to make sure the stamp was level, the right way up and with an even margin from the edges of the page.

I met up with Nacho for lunch. He had suggested a place near his office called Fika but as I was walking down the street it was on he was coming up the other way. He told me that the place was full, mainly with his colleagues as it was right by his office. We headed to another place he suggested and had lunch there. He filled me in on the plans for the evening, going through the various options that we had for a Friday night out in BA. All of them involved drinking at one establishment or another and it sounded like it would be a late night.

I told Nacho that I would cook dinner for us as he had been so kind as to cook for me twice already. My walk after lunch took me via the supermarket and I had a good wander round the aisles picking out some things for dinner and checking out the local produce. I love walking round foreign supermarkets looking for products that have names that make me smile. Obviously the Spanish/Latin classic is Bimbo bread which never fails to put a smile on my face. We went through a phase at work where whenever one of us went away somewhere we would try and find the most inappropriately named sweets or snacks to bring back into the office. Sarah and I won the competition with a bag of mints we brought back from Budapest. I’m not going to repeat the name in polite company though.

Nacho arrived home later that evening and I cooked us some dinner. I had bought some chicken but it hadn’t defrosted so I told him I would cook that the following evening. We ate while watching a film. Nacho kindly played it with the English for me and put Spanish subtitles on. It was a good way for me to pick up a couple of new phrases although given the film was Source Code and about time-reassignment and exploding trains I think they would be of limited use.

Gang, I think this is it!

We headed out around 10:30pm, which I think is early by Argentinian standards. Our first destination was Club V in Palermo which was a mixed crowd. Nacho and I found ourselves a couple of seats and settled in. A waitress came over with a couple of drinks menus and started speaking in rapid Spanish. I didn’t catch a word of it. She finished what she was saying and looked at me. I looked at Nacho. He explained to me that there were a couple of specials on drinks that night and explained what they were. We ordered a couple of drinks and she went off to get our drinks. We were joined by Santiago and a friend of his, Natalia. I was enough of the way in to my first cocktail to chat in Spanish to Santiago (the person) about Santiago (the place). Pablo arrived a little while later. There was a promotion on at the bar by Bacardi and because we were drinking mojitos (homo-jitos?) we were given the chance to win some promotional tut by spinning a wheel. I ended up with a keyring which given I was effectively without my own door keys for the next 8 months was not the most useful prize. Pablo won a rather phallic looking wooden fruit muddler. Various rude suggestions were made after he took it out of the box to look at it.

From there we headed off to MOD Variete Club for a spot of dancing. Pablo was the designated driver and the five of us squeezed into his car. It was a good job that Natalia was so slim as it was cosy in the back seat. Pablo found what looked like a good parking space one street away from where we were going. He parked up and we all got out. As we did a man in fluorescent tabard approached the car. There was an exchange between the man and Pablo. The man was trying to charge Pablo to park on the street, despite the fact that it should be free. Not wanting to pay and not wanting anything to happen to his car Pablo got back in and drove off deciding to park elsewhere. Apparently it was quite common in Buenos Aires for people to try to charge for free parking in return for “looking after” your vehicle.

The club was busy with a very mixed crowd. Every third song seemed to be a Madonna song which I didn’t mind at all. We were joined by Dario, Leandro and Markitos. I got big hugs from them all and we chatted away in Spanglish. I had truly been made to feel part of the gang. They were all so friendly and welcoming that I felt I could settle in to Buenos Aires very easily if I decided to move here for a while.

As we danced away I noticed two guys next to us who kept looking over at our group. They were dancing with two girls. The crowd was mixed so I wasn’t sure if they were straight or not. A while later one of the girls came up to me and said to me what I guessed was the Spanish version of “My friend fancies you”. She gestured in the direction of the two boys she was with. It wasn’t clear which of the two fancied me but neither were really my type so I figured the best course of action was to feign ignorance. I gave her my best “Lo siento, no entiendo”. It seemed to work and she went back to her friends. Just after I explained to Pablo and Nacho what she had said the two boys came over and started to talk to them. They were extremely good friends and fended off the unwanted advances for me. We danced into the early hours and finally got a taxi back to Nacho’s.

“It's a hit! Gang, I think this is it!” 
Lyrics from It’s a Hit! from the musical Merrily We Roll Along