buenos aires pics

the tenador libre is my best friend

i hope yall appreciate what i do fer you..the computers here are crazy and slow and it just took me like an hour to try and make an underscore, funny cause i was just cursing the keyboard cause it wouldnt make a question mark then when i tried shift and the button marked underscore i got one, so i figured maybe if i hit shift plus question mark id get an underscore and sure enough it worked and i was able to log on and write you my little blog about what im up to..
so...
my impatient travel companion left a few days before me so i travelled to ba alone on a 22 hour bus trip. along the way i made a few friends who include the older gent seated next to me, the very small very old very cute old lady across the aisle and the argentinian child in front of me who found all of my facial expressions unbelievably funny and didnt necessarily require a response to his little kid lisping slangy argentinian accented spanish commentary about rocks and dinosaurs and so on...

it was a long ride. but the people are infailable polite and kind so i felt pretty at ease, going up into the mountains was the kind of breathtaking that makes you not pull out yer camera cause youd rather gape and grin which is what i did...

at the end though i just wanted to take a nap...we all bade our farewells, the old lady kissed me and told me to be careful and called me mijita and the kid stopped chatting with an excited family member to say goodbye, the old man wished us all good journey and my ass was in buenos aires

so sleepy self hopped in a cab and headed for the hostel where my lil buddy was fast asleep...even though i was sleepy it was hot as fuck on the 3rd floor of the hostel and i wanted to see the city so we headed out to sightsee

we wandered and took pics, saw people dancing tango on the streetcorners in la boca and headed to our local tenador libre for a late lunch...its basically just an all you can eat buffet but the food is great and its like 4bucks us

that night we went to a tango show, where amazing singers and dancers performed in a smoky club with pictures of composers and singers and dancers covered the walls and the tables were draped with marroon...we drank champagne and smoked and at the end of the show the dancer dudes totally made us get up and dance with them...

by this point we were a little drunk so we returned to the hostel looking for a roomie that chick had had drinks with, un tal danny, a really cute swiss kid, actually not a kid since hes 27 and works in a bank but he is all blond with glasses and mild sarcasm catchai...so anyway he wasnt there so we left a note for him to come meet us in this club...we headed there and he eventually caught up with us and we got a little crazy on the dance floor, since the chick and i like to sandwitch chosen cuties we basically just freaked that kid...we couldnt help it, it was this perfect harmless sitch and we just loved us some danny...so eventually we all stumbled our drunk asses back and i climbed up into the top top bunk, there are two beds below mine where sleep danny and his mom who is chill as fuck...
next day...
more sightseeing, churches, cemetaries, statues, they are definitely big on statues here, they dont bother much with little ones and why would you, whats the use of a little statue if you can put up a mondo enormo statue whatelse beautiful architecturea little shopping and the whole hot hot fuckin hot thing...i dont think

i have ever experienced this kind of heat...whole place reminds me a little of nawlins but like a huge latin american nawlins, its the fuckin humidity, and the balconies, and the people dancin in the streets, although that is confined to a certain famous for tango area...and then theres the mysterious and random big ass drips of water that seems to be the buildings sweatin on you...

i mean it is seriously hot, we have given up pretense at modesty to sleep in our panties, besides danny mom chica and i there was red, the kiwi who left yesterday, plus the really tall serbian dude, and the french couple but they left this morning...

good thing too cause it got ugly last night...it was reds last night...
he had this reddish beard so i asked if i could call him red and he said no...
anyway it was his last night so we all headed to an irish pub, i dont really know why an irish pub but thats where we went along with red danny chica the girl from spain and the argentinian girl who is a lawyer...they all started drinkin tequila shots and by the end of the night i had lost all of em but gained a big cup of frutilla con crema...which was good

this morning i tried to put it all together what had happened but the chick wasnt really in shape to talk and the person in reds bed wasnt red who left for the airport at like 5am about the time that we had nearly all gotten back but instead was cecilia the lawyer who had locked herself out of her room in the middle of the night wearing nothing using the bathroom and come in cause the door was open...it was all very confusing but we all got through allright. i handed ash the trashcan to puke in and balled up her bedsheets which were reaaaaal fucked up...with vomit, thats right she puked on her own pillow, and apparently pissed in front of a big hotel on the way home if danny is to be believed...anyway we eventually got her into a standing position and over to the tenedor libre for some food...

we love us some tenador libre.

so my dumb ass totally forgot...

¡¡¡¡Bachelet Won!!!!
tenemos una nueva presidente!!!!
she won she won she won!!!!!
ella ganó!!!!

i knew i was gonna need proof...

so a rather anxious lil gringuita waited bogged down with her big ole bag at a rather early hour...she having celebrated her departure by getting very little sleep and drinking rather too much...
so the ra plus devoted pal and pelucha extraordinaire salvador waited to load onto one of several buses headed far far away...
most of the other volunteers came with a friend or small group of em...she was alone, shy, and not catchaing mucho...

bus loaded up and sleepy hung over girl slept through nearly the whole six hour trip...awoke to another world..
it was bright as fuck, hot as fuck, dry as fuck...nothin but cactus and dust for miles it seemed and as the bus bounced along she could only think, are we there yet and why didnt i bring more water...

finally the bus arrived at the little school where wed be camped out for ten days give or take...and we unloaded...it was so small we couldnt actually fit all the sleeping bags unrolled into the one main room, so several ended up in the passageway between classroom and dining room...

it had already begun to get cold and everyone get settled then sat out front watching the stars...this gringa recognized orion right away and thought kermit would be proud, then asked somebody wheres the southern cross, to which he replied, in the south gringa! like she knew where that was....but he pointed and suddenly she saw the southern cross for the first time ever...
the sky was big and clear and cold...

finally they had dinner together and were told to introduce themselves to the person next to them then intro that person to the whole group...just what she needed...group games in spanish...but she pulled it off and it wasnt half bad...

the next day one señora malvina showed her and a few others how to make bread, which they cooked in a little iron stove outside, one with actual fire..

then she began her project which was to create a concrete floor for part of a comunal building...

this lasted the duration, involved lots of leveling, shovelling, measurring...then carting in of gravel spreading of gravel, leveling measuring...then the mixing of concrete which involved lots of shovelling of sand and gravel, mixing, spreading, smoothing etc...

with a team of volunteers paired with some workers from the community this work took place daily between breakfast and lunch then lunch and dinner...

it was hot and dry with little water, about a half hour walk to the site from the school which had to be done in the morning, then back for lunch and a brief siesta, then back to the site until 8pm then back to the school for dinner...

it was a tiny little community where everyone lived far from each other and about all there was to see was dust and goats...

she had never had such a good time...
during the day she would take breaks to talk to the lugareños, the old men who showed them all how to mix and spread concrete...shed ask questions about thier lives and why they lived like that and it got easier to understand thier soft slur of words...

or shed palear ripia for like days in the hot sun, just getting down with that, that gravel shoveling feeling...kinda groovy once you got into a groove...

every break was well deserved, every meal exquisite, every sunset amazing..
she went to bed exhausted and woke starved...

she made friends with some of the other volunteers who at night would teach her slang and swearwords...one night her whole table began to speak in the spanish version of pig latin...

she just laughed...i mean how ridiculous can you be...she was encouraged to shout out things like avíspate rehuevón (kinda like wake up dumbass) or reconcha tu madre or voy a guitriar (slanged out fer im gonna ralph) and when she lost track and just said oh kiss my ass people said were speaking spanish gringa try and keep up...

on the last day the people threw a big ole party for everyone and brought out shit tons of food plus beer mixed with soda, biltz and pap of course, ones red ones orange...prefer the red myself...then everybody danced...

this gringa danced a ranchero with don maximo...not sure how but its true...

and finally we all came home the next day, tired and dirty and hungry after ten days of five minute cold showers every other day and lots of work and lots of sun....

we had us some fun though i tell you what...so now my ass is headed for buenos aires but i will check back in soon...

Llahuín pics

im baaaaack!!!

so unlike the song im not gonna start at the very beginnning (it is a very good place to start)
sino, at the end
as a very dirty very tired wearing pjs beneath shredded jeans having run out of clean chones and started period that very day calloused hands and paint stained feet confused as fuck no catcho nada gringo stumbled into her home...
nobody was there..
she dint care...she ran into her room exclaiming to her bed how shed missed it and yelled im home im home!!!
then she tried to decide wether to eat shower or sleep first
then she noticed a pile of packages on her floor....

she started at the top and was delighted to find a music mix and some chocolate from j...continuing she found a lovely pic of her city in the fall from cheets plus some more chocolate...at this point all alone in her empty house she was squealling with glee this gringuita..
she went on to open the big mother of presents and found a discman....oh yeah buddy, she was like thanks kerm i knew youd help me out...
another present, a case of cds!!!
another, a bigger case of cds!!!!!!
the next, an even bigger case of cds!!!!

at this point she is crouched on the floor yellin no fuckin way!!! as she flips through...among the highlights are js mix to blast, jens Damn! where my rach at? (volume 1 and 2) and kermels grrl power hip hop mix which includes that sweet track fatherless child that he somehow remembers she always wanted....

there are mixes and newbies and old faves...the peeps have come through...she sits there munchin chocolates and tries to decide what to play first...

so after what must be two months of no music, the first thing she plugs into the discman is the damn where my rach at mix but before she leaves the house she puts on the good ole victoria demo and listens to the songs shes been singin to anyone who will listen for the last two weeks....

when they return all her peeps say damn, yer friends love the fuck out of you...she just grins her grimy lil gringa grin and says yup, they sure do...

love and thanks to kermel j marty vic and cheets and to all of my (what like 3) devoted readers!!!

i luvs ya!!!!
merry fuckin xmas and a happy gotdam new year!

so im out for a while

my ass is headin off to the boonies with a bottle of water, some sunscreen and some frickin work gloves to help construct modest structures in a coupla lil pueblitos so friggin small they aint on the map

should be fun

and im going with a group of adorable bright eyed chilenos...so for the next ten days there will be no engles unless i think it to myself...and ima try not to...

this should be the exact thing i need as ive been getting restless and bored and broke in santiago and my allergies are killin me in this polluted ass city...

have seen pics and it looks like a lovely lonely hot hot fuckin hot sort of place...

love to all and will check in upon my return