Sometimes B and I will make fun of ourselves for similarities. We eat hummus. We like baba ghanoush. I even feel a little weird and accidentally pretentious when we tell people we met in Mexico. Or when we explain that we went to Argentina for our honeymoon.
Luckily, we don't eat moussaka.
And now we've met folks who really do embody these characters so skillfully portrayed by Christopher Walken, Will Farrell, and Rachel Dratch. It turns out they live in Buenos Aires and they like to drink beer in abandoned buildings at 2 in the morning.
I think I mentioned that we went out a 2nd time with our Aussie buddies. After our little trip to Iguazú, B and I returned to Buenos Aires to properly experience the famous nightlife there. Lucky for us, Johnny and Mary had arrived there as well and had plans to go out. We joined them for dinner.
At midnight.
I actually had an espresso shot at our hotel bar while we waited. We were so hungry, somehow still attached to our American time clocks and unable to take the appropriate nap from 6-10pm like the rest of the city's party-ers.
Some of our fellow hotel guests made it over to the bar and chatted us up while we waited for our late dinner. These 2 British dudes woke early from their nap (they blamed their hangovers for this) and provided us with ample entertainment via stories from their week in BA. I guess they are pub owners in the UK and have plenty of opinions about the restaurant fare in Argentina's lovely capital. Do you know the proper way to prepare cow's brains? Because they do.
A Canadian boy wandered up and also ordered a drink; he was on his way to South Africa to see his girlfriend. And then Johnny and Mary showed up with Ricky, Johnny's buddy currently residing in Buenos Aires. The world suddenly felt like a very cozy, familiar place with this mix of folks at the bar. Or maybe it was just because I was so warm and happy from midnight coffee.
Several bottles of Malbec carried us through our super late dinner. Ricky explained to us how he had come to Buenos Aires, Johnny flirted with the waiter and lamented that our new Canadian friend was on a very straight mission to see his hetero partner in Cape Town, and Mary and I made plans to shop the next day. Things got a little fuzzy from there.
Ricky told us about the Party. Brendon was listening better than and I says it's where folks go in BA to hang out at night; the location changes to different abandoned buildings and you have to be in the know to, well, know.
All I know is that suddenly we were in such a place, and there was music playing and a couple of people standing around. Perhaps 2am was too early for The Party to really be a party yet. Brendon ordered some beers and passed them around, and that's when we met The Lovers.
Skinny with crazy hair, this girl wandered over to me and introduced her presumably better half. "This is Georgie, my lover, he's a hairdresser!"
Ohhh, that's nice. Your lover? Great to meet you, Georgie.
"He doesn't understand much English, so I have to translate for him. I met him when he did my hair!" Georgie smiled. Girl smiled. So I smiled. I was sure I was going to snort my beer for trying so hard not to laugh. Lover? Really? Do we say that?
She told some story about how she came to Buenos Aires--following her lover at the time, of course--and I kept picturing Christopher Walken in that SNL sketch. Don't be the jerk American, Shannon, listen with interest! Dammit, where was Brendon when I needed him? Someone needed to witness this!
After that, more people began to arrive, and I guess it was like the underground gay scene in Buenos Aires, because most of them were boys introducing their boyfriends to me. Maybe it was because I was tired, or maybe because I was distracted by Lover Georgie's hair (it kinda defied gravity) but I felt like they were all waiting for my shocked reaction to their being gay. They seemed a bit miffed for not receiving some crazy response from me. Does the rest of the world think Americans are hugely judgemental of this?
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