El Tigre and 4th of July

The one notable thing I did this past weekend was take a trip to El Tigre, an area an hour or so outside of Buenos Aires. It was a very refreshing break from the fast-paced city life. It is located at the river delta of Rio Paraná and many people live here and use boats as their main source of transportation (there was even a grocery store boat and a school boat for transporting children to and from school). We also saw Puerta de las Frutas which has a rich history with the import/export of, you guessed it, fruit! Now its primarily just a market with tons of souvenirs and handcrafted goods and foods. On the return trip home, we enjoyed a delicious merienda, which is an Argentine tea-time, consisting of submarinos (do-it-yourself hot chocolate) and alfajores (the most popular cookie of Argentina). We then fell into a sugar coma upon the return home.

Today is/yesterday was the 4th of July! And absolutely no one couldn't have cared less! (Except for some of my fellow students). Argentines don't really celebrate their own independence day (9th de Julio/July) so why on earth would they care about ours? Anywho, a huge group of us Yankees decided we were going to go to this expat, USA-style bar, suitably named The Alamo (and also known as Barefoot Joe's). I was very excited because its known for being super cheap, and upon checking it out online, I found out it was only 2 pesos per beer for ladies! So I decided that I'm for sure going, asked my host mom how to use the bus, and off I went.

Now the buses (colectivos) here are WAY different from the ones back home. You can wave them down like taxis, they don't have a set schedule (sometimes three of the same bus arrive at the same time), you can stop it wherever you want (but must signal it) and when looking up routes there is no map, just a long list of streets that I'm supposed to somehow know.

So I take on my first bus ride, and besides going way too far before I got off, it went pretty well! So then I have to walk back in the direction I came from to get to The Alamo. I finally find my street and start getting ready as I see a good crowd formed outside. I get to the door and the guard tells me its 30 pesos to get in... Now, 30 pesos is not a lot. Its a little less than $8 US, plus the cover charge went towards your bar tab. Nonetheless I had been expected free entry and beers for 2 pesos (.50 cents) each! So I got stuck outside hoping that one of my friends would come by and spot me 10 pesos... I waited for a while haha. Plan B eventually became too tiring and I was getting too cold, so I decided to return home. No problem, just use the same bus I already tested out earlier! Well, I did worse on the ride home than I did on the way out. I got off waaaaaaay too early because I saw what looked like a familiar subway exit... I was wrong. I then proceeded to walk home in the freezing cold, by myself, trying to look as Argentine (and tough) as possible.

I officially have a higher failure than success rate when it comes to night life in Buenos Aires. Oh well!!! I have plenty of time to turn that around, and I'm learning along the way! Even more good news is I gain some extra sleep. So as they say here in BsAs,

Chao!