A la Noche

My nightlife experience in BsAs is slowly (yet surely) expanding. Here, the real weekend starts on Thursday nights, which is perfect since that how it usually goes down in Gainesville (Indie Night, I miss you so). This Thursday I went on this Pub Crawl that was free for international students! Free, however, only got you so much. Free beer and wine was advertised during the 10-11 sign up, but I didn't really benefit from that seeing as they ran out quickly. Then we went to 3 bars and received a free "shot" at each place. More like a sip of soda. Nevertheless, we had a ton of fun, it just wasn't all that free. We ended at this club called Lost. It's one, if not the, place to go on Thursdays. This was the largest club I've ever been to and the environment was pretty amazing, two floors packed with dancing Argentines, a break-dance circle, and the scent of recreational substances in the background. We stayed there for a super long time dancing, and finally left when 6am came rolling around! The most surprising thing to me, was that the fact we left at 6am seemed to be a normal night out... I guess I'm starting to adapt. I was even able to wake up for class and appear to be alive the rest of the day (until my pre-dinner siesta, that is).

I napped for about 3 hours, woke up for some dinner, then went back out with some friends to a bar. We didn't do anything too crazy on Friday night, but we got to play land mines in the bar... a little taste of home haha.

Today I walked all around the Botanical Garden close to my apartment with some friends and then we explored one of the many parks in the Palermo (my) area. Then we went to an outdoor market in the Recoleta area, where I purchased my first mate gourd! I told my house mom about it, so now she's helping me begin the process of making mate:

- First you put used mate leaves from another person's mate gourd into your own

- Let sit for 24 hours

- Remove the paste of mixed tea leaves and water from the gourd

- Scrape the inside of the gourd rigorously to clean out any extra... gourd?

- Then you may finally put in fresh mate leaves, add hot water (at the perfect temperature) and enjoy yourself some mate!

I look forward to trying it out like an authentic Argentinian tomorrow!

As for tonight, we're having to improvise. Tomorrow is the local election for jefe de gobierno (mayor equivalent) of Buenos Aires. This means that the solicitation of all alcohol is prohibited in the city tonight after 8pm... the purpose of which is to allow the locals to have a clear head for voting. Another thing here is that voting is considered to be 100% mandatory. In a way, its nice that they have such a high showing for voting, but on the other hand, I don't think its such a great idea to force voting. This just means that people who don't even care, or aren't informed will just go and vote for whoever in order to avoid the fine given to those who decide to abstain. So what did we do? Bought our alc. before 8 of course. Now we just need to find a nice park to enjoy our drinks and have a laid back night. Still a work in process, but I'm hopeful.

Chau!