First day of Spring and Day of the Students

Well I´m back from my weekend. Here´s how it went.

Friday night of my friends and I got together at a shopping mall to hang out. Elizabeth, the girl from Texas, had to buy a coat so Joseph (New Zealand) and I hung around while the girls did there thing. At around 10 pm we split up to go back to our respective houses to eat dinner and get ready to go out. At around 12:30 at night Elizabeth, another american girl, and Marnix (Holland) met up at my house. We took a cab into the city to go to Johny Be Good (a nice restaraunt bar place) to chill for a hour or two before we decided to go out. At around 2:30 in the morning, just when people where beginning to come out in Argentina for the nightlife, we took a cab to the Mitre. The Mitre is one of the nicer clubs in town. The bouncers didnt give us any prolems and the entrance fee was 20 pesos for guys, 10 for girls. We paid the fees, paid to have our coats held for us, and went into the club. I don´t think anyone back home has ever experienced something like this. Being my first time, I was pretty blown away.

The club was jam packed, and I mean crowded. You couldn´t move without kinda pushing and wiggling through the people. There were two floors. The main floor was the main dance floor plus bar plus balcony. It was playing dance music and rock and random other stuff. The music was so loud that if you were holding a drink, the liquid vibrated constantly. Bit of advice in Argentina. If you ever need to clean wax out of your ears, dont buy cotton. Just go clubbin. It works.

The girls split immediately, so Marnix and I wandered around for a while. The bottom floor was a techno rave style dance floor and bar. Pretty nice. There was alcohol everywhere, including the floor, but I didn´t drink anything. After about half and hour, I decided to have some fun.

I don´t know if there is a law against ugly people in Argentina, or if the bouncers are just very selective, but there was not a bad looking girl in that club. Or the ones later in this story.

I wandered around until I spotted a group of girls who didn´t seem to have any male counterparts hanging around. I walked up, tapped one on the shoulder, and asked in Spanish just slightly worse than what I am capable of, "What kind of music is this?" Honestly, I knew exactly what kind of music it was. It was Cumbia, popular here in Argentina.

The girl politely answered my question, then turned away. I smiled. On average, it takes two seconds for them to figure this out. Two seconds later, she turned back to me and asked, "Where are you from?"

After that, I was mobbed with questions by a group of excited girls for about half and hour. One of them thought I was Argentinian and pretending to have a bad accent because I understood everything they said, but a wandering exchange friend of mine verified my story. The cool thing about clubs is that once you have friends, you don´t need to worry. I stayed with that group of girls the rest of the time. One of them in particular was very beatiful, and we danced together a lot. The policy in Argentina is that if that happens, you should kiss the girl. Unfortunately, the other girls never really left us alone, but I got her instant message address and will hopefully see her again. At about 6 in the morning I left the club with the girls, walked a ways, and then split off fromt hem, catching a taxi home. I got to sleep at about 6:45.

I was woken up Saturday at4 9:30 by my host brother who told me I had 5 minutes to pack my stuff for a weekend getaway to Carlos Paz. I packed quickly, and before I was fully awake we were on a bus to another city to catch a large spring festival party thing.

Fortunately, we have lost of family in Carlos Paz so we stayed at the house of the grandparents. At around 7 pm that night, we took a bus to Mayu Sumaj, a small town who´s main revenue comes from the riverside club it has. This weekend was the first party at that club in the year. Its only open spring and summer. We got into the town around 7:30, which is ridiculoulsly early for Argentina. The reason we did that is cause its a good idea not to take buses at night. We had friends coming to meet us... but they didn´t get there until 12:30. We waited 4 hours outside in the cooolllld. It was miserable. I was really pissed.

Then to top it off, when everyone finally arrived, the cops shut down the party cause there was like 5 thousand people wandering around this town the club didnt have the permits to throw the party yet. Great.

What happened next was hilarious. Thousands of kids lined up along the highway waiting for passing buses and taxis. It was crazy. Whenever a bus pulled up, there was a riot to get in. I suggested a smarter idea. I took my little group of seven people and walked a ways down the road. The next taxi that came by I got, and we piled in. We took it all the way back to Carlos Paz. Along the way we saw many people from the party just walking the 5 miles or so. In the end it costed me about 11 dollars U.S. I paid for it since the others didnt have any extra cash on them and we were heading to a club in Carlos Paz.

We took the taxi to Keops. Keops is...spectacular. It is the largest club in all of Còrdoba district. From the outside, it looks like an ancient egyptian pyramid palace. Thats its theme...egyptian. At around 3:30 we got into the club, for 25 pesos a pop. This place was nice. They even had bouncers who were midgets, just for show. The place was huge, but also more crowded then anywhere I have ever been. It had 3 seperate areas to dance, many floors, and many bars. But there was about 5 thousand people at this place.

My host brother, his friends, and I wandered around for a while. Bit of advice. Its more fun to go into clubs with girls beforehand then to just go with guys. Its kinda boring after a while. I decided to make some new friends. I quickly thought of a new question to ask, and squirmed, wiggled, and pushed my way to the wall, were the music wasn´t quite so mind blowing. (The music was sooo loud, my shoelaces came undone, no joke. It felt like your entire body was vibrating. Much louder than the Mitre). I spotted a girl, and asked in spanish, making sure to pronounce clubs like an American, "Are there many clubs this size in Argentina?" A couple minutes later I was chatting with all her friends and just haning around dancing. Nothing more happened but it was a lot more fun than wandering around getting smashed by the crowds. We left at 6, and got picked up by Pablo`s cousin and her boyfriend in a small little car. We fit a total of 9 people into that car and took a unforgettable journey back home. It was great. We were blasting Argentinain music and singing at the top of our lungs all the way there.

The next day I decided to split from my brother and meet up with some friends from my school. We met in front of the largest stage I had ever seen. It was a concert, but more like tens of thousands of people had been randomly misplaced in this one park. It was really hot, really crowded, and I was getting miserable. My friends and I were right in front of the stage and had to be careful to avoid the mosh pits going on. After an hour or two I had had enough of the heat and bad music and walked to the bus station to take a bus from Carlos Paz to Còrdoba. It was an uneventful trip.

Now its Monday morning and I have caught up on my sleep. The weekend was a lot of fun and sometimes really boring, but unforgettable. It was loud, hot, but fortunately safe.

I dont think I am going to try three concecutive days of clubbin and concerts for a long time haha. Chau