fall is here, hear the yell.

hate the rain. hate the rain. can't go outside 'cause i hate the rain. hate hate.


haaaaaaaaaate.


it's winter now...

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The thermostat broke and it's about a hundred degrees in my apartment. My roommate is out of town, so I'm here alone, sweltering in my underwear. It's a very white Christmas.

I realized the last time I updated, I don't remember doing so: some time when I must have woken up in the night and forgotten.

I spent this Christmas with Chileno who came to find me at the hostel, which included napping together in my tiny bed, watching Vin Diesel speak Spanish on the TV, cheese and spinach empanadas, and conversations like this:


Edu: Para lo asscrack!

Me: Para lo ass crack de Chiquito!

Edu: Donde esta ass crack de Chiquito?

Me: Ass crack muy grande de Chiquito!

Edu: Para lo Chiquito tiene un ass crack no poquito!


This is about as romantic as it gets for me these days.

Feels weird to be headed to a movie on Christmas that isn't Die Hard or Die Harder.

Merry Christmas you guys! Love you!

Every year it's weirdly stressful, and it always goes by super fast, but I hope you are all having lovely days with your families of choice!

Last night was the *official* Christmas celebration of BsAs. Today is not one of celebration, but of recovery.

At about 9, I went to the Swede's apt. and had Glögg and cookies with a bunch of fun folks. Then we went out to find an open restaurant on Av. Chile, which is never closed...but was last night. We ran into a man who had come to his restaurant with his wife to use the business grill for dinner, and who took pity on our sad-faced Swedish friend and opened up his restaurant just for us. Soon we were joined by three other parties of hungry miscreants (and one stray Labrador) and our table outside expanded. For a fairly reasonable price considering, we all loaded up on asado and beer. It was fabulous.

Then we walked down to Puerto Madero and got attacked by mosquitoes watched a skinny, brown Santa in sandals and other people light various things on fire while groups of people cheered from balconies. Fireworks, in most other languages, translates to 'Artificial fire'.

Then my Slovakian roomate (Martina) and I returned to the hostel to this madness:

Fag Haggetry with Marcelo and Alex. You know when I'm the tall one that thems be some seriously wee folk:


Juan, the William Burroughs of La Rocca who suggested we 'do love' when I first arrived
(Me: Juan, you are the party master! Juan: Yes. I am.):



and when that ended at 3:30 a.m., the (suddenly very affectionate) Chileno loco showed up with his crew and we turned on some hip hop and renewed the madness until about 7 a.m. I'm supposed to go to his house for more partying today but I doubt he'll wake up until after 4. Hopefully he cooks because there is nothing open anywhere.

Tomorrow I go to Colonial Del S. in Uruguay again and bike my ass off, or fall asleep in the park/on the beach again, or both.

The nice people from the Jordanian chapter of the IEEE gave me this award after my two hour marathon talk. They were really nice and I suggest visiting the IEEE chapter in Amman.

This week is the week of injury.

It is 5:30 in the morning here and the Uruguayan just split/pierced my lip by accident whilst play-fighting. Earlier in the week he bruised my wrist and then before that was the notorious thumb/taxi door incident. I KNOW HOW TO PARTY OKAY.

I iced it but I bet tomorrow I look like a retards anyway.

MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL!

What? It can't be Christmas eve. Christmas isn't for at least a few weeks!

Everyone here is obsessed with Fernet. It seems like such a girlie drink to me, but dudes here especially dig it. The Colombians mix literal buckets of the stuff with Coca Cola and drink it like it's water. DROP IT LIKE IT'S HOT.

Also, this is everywhere: Thanks, Nestle.



whO eats ice cream sideways???

When hanging out with dudes, it´s sometimes really hard to flirt with just one dude whilst avoiding somehow exciting the other dudes into dudely competitive action. It sucks, too, because of course I want to be at my friendliest/sexiest/most open for dude I´m flirting with, but I have to mute it whenever other dudes drift through our mutual stratosphere or they´ll pick up the wrong flirty/friendly signals and I´ll get hit on by balding Jesus again, a situation which I could live without for an eternity.

I thought I'd spend the day with the pressure of my return flight hanging over my head like a giant psychological turd, but I just checked and it was LAST NIGHT

and

I MISSED IT

and

HOORAY I'M FREEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

I can´t wait to go upstairs and take off my shoes pants!

So tonight I was sitting in a luxury cab, watching the disturbing video on the back seat of the passenger seat, listening to Lionel Richie´s ´Hello´?´ and generally spacing out...I paid and exited the cab, and was suddenly assaulted by a loud, repeptitive monkey-like screeching. OH SHIT, I realized. THAT MONKEY IS ME AND I HAVE SHUT MY THUMB IN THE DOOR OF THIS CAB THAT IS ABOUT TO DRIVE OFF.

Yeah.

So I crushed the tip of my thumb entirely, but aside from what looks like a burn mark and general numbness, it´s not too bad...a little swollen. I may lose the nail. Sexy! The worst part was the utterance of the unconscious monkey noises...imitated by many an unconcerned passerby.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

On another note, globalization is fucking beautiful. I have seen Argentines fall in love with Norweigans, who fell in love with Irishmen in love with Americans, who fell in love with other Argentines who loved Chilenos who loved Russians, etc etc. It´s like that Blur song, only better. It´s amazing. I absolutely love the travel youth culture. I wish I was 10 years younger but oh well, it doesn´t seem to matter much.

Here's Tori (Norway) about to embark on the Vaciopan experience, with Kevin looking on in anticipation:



After we ate the Vaciopans, teeth bleeding and stuffed to the gills, we were bombarded by Argentines who crowded into the tiny space to watch an amusing cartoon that is something like the Southpark of Argentina. I have no idea what the shit was going on, but apparently there were a bunch of zombie clowns and they were pitted against all of these various other characters, including a fat stripper who sang Britney Spears songs, Bruce Willis and God. At one point a convertible fell on a bunch of the clowns, and the pope got in and drove off.

Last night was Kevin's final night in BsAs. We went to Plaza Dorrego and he and I danced the Tango. You're not supposed to bang into other people or laugh drunkenly during the tango, but we worked it nonetheless. I miss that irreverent bastard already.

Sunset in the necropolis.