New Cell Phone Number

Unbelievably, I lost my cell phone a second time while in BA. Here's the new number in case anyone wants to give it a ring.

011 57 3136937093

Hope that works and that maybe, just maybe, someone will call it...

Opera Bay

Nobody Was Supposed To See This One...

The Obelisk

Inside Opera Bay

Government Building

Guys I Met In The Hostel- Far Left From Australia, Nepal, and England

My Idol

My First Visitor

That's right, someone finally got off their ass and came down for a visit. John Boss, a neighbor and friend from childhood, decided to give it a whirl and spend a week in gluttony paradise. He was up in Costa Rica for the past two weeks, and extended his trip for one more week to see what this place is all about. Of course, he was put up in the finest accomodations (my spare), given fine linens (an old blanket and cotton ball pillow), and even got laundry service (my maid washed everything in his bag without being asked). I'm telling you, this place is luxury!

He got in on Saturday afternoon, and I was supposed to be there late that night, but we all know why I wasn't able to make it. That sucked, but I at least got there Sunday early evening, and was happy to find out that we had yet another "puente" which gave us the next day off. So, we decided to go out and hit the town. We went out for dinner, and off to a club called "Blue" for a little while. Now, John is a great guest for a lot of reasons, but primarily because he speaks incredible Spanish, so he's totally self-sufficient. Knowing this made me much more relaxed, so relaxed that I decided to let him fend for himself later that night. At some point, I decided to walk out of the club, without saying a word, in search of my weakness...late night grub. Yep, that's right, I ditched him in favor of a corn bowl and french fries. The next morning, shame-faced, I came out into the living room, and was greeted with the question, "Don't you know? You never ditch your wingman." He was absolutely right, it's a terrible thing to do to someone. I vowed to make it up to him, and the way I did that was with 6 straight nights of debauchery. Seriously, right now, I'm just at the point where my body has finally forgiven me (somewhat) for last week's complete lack of self-control.

The great part about the week, was that even though I didn't have any of my luggage, I did have the two 1-liter bottles of Bombay Sapphire, and you know what that means...good times. We went out on Monday night, after spending our afternoon at the gift-from-God Hotel Intercontinental pool (John especially liked the outdoor shower), to the local supermarket and found two items that were badly needed in my house. One was a set of shot glasses and a shaker, the other was a bitchin' set of 9-ounce martini glasses. We immediately put them to use. The night before I had tried to make martinis using a highball glass filled with ice and a plate as the lid for the shaker. I then, not so carefully, strained them into regular glasses and probably spilled more gin on the counter than into the glass. Martini glasses were a necessity if we were to carry on with these high-class drinks for the rest of the week.

So, that night we poured several and went out for dinner. Honestly, now I don't even remember where we went, but I'm sure it was damn good. I'm telling you, I could eat out every night in this city and never repeat a single restaurant. In fact, I came to a realization that really, there's not much to do in this city besides go out to eat, out for drinks, or out to the clubs. Oh, and then there's the righteous pool. Did I mention the pool? Yeah, the pool. God, I love that place. The next day, I had to go back to school, while he got to sleep in. There were no kids, so that meant a day of MySpacing, emailing, and shooting the breeze with everyone about their breaks. When I got home, we started right in with the martinis, naturally, and out for another dinner. We found this incredible sushi place down the street from my place and made it our regular spot.

On Wednesday, I went to school, and John set about to fix my doorknob that hadn't been working well since I moved in. He spent about 30 minutes the first night trying to get in, asking the portero (gate-keeper/security guard) and my neighbor for help before finding any success. There was a technique to it, which consisted of crazy jiggling of the key which I'm sure my neighbors LOVED, that I had pretty much mastered, but it was getting old. Apparently, when he asked my portero to help, the guy got so pissed off, he practically broke the damn thing. So, when I got home, I had a new doorknob and I was excited. We drank more martinis to celebrate, and then went out to dinner again.

On Thursday, he decided to come up to the school. I can't even tell you how excited the kids were because they knew that pretty much nothing productive would come out of that day, and they were right on point. Since John had played competitive soccer as a kid and up to his college days in Chico (ah, yes, now we get it...two Chico grads...the drinking makes sense), I hyped him up to the boys in the class and taunted them by saying that he was going to take on the entire class and beat their asses. That morning, we played games, had a dance competition (that we scored as the official judges), and did some small amounts of "work", which all led up to the high point of the day...John vs. The Class in a deathmatch of soccer. He schooled them for a while before finally having the class play against each other. He was on one side, but wasn't allowed to shoot the ball. He led off the game by throwing an ever-so-slight elbow into one of the kids that grounded him. The kids all yelled, "Take a picture!!!" and I said I would if Felipe wasn't genuinely hurt. When I got to him, he was crying with blood in his mouth. I could tell that he really wasn't damaged though, so I told him to go rinse his mouth out and come back, which he did. The other highlight would be John calling the kids "cabrons" which I'm pretty sure means "bastards". That was pretty funny. The game, and the day, were a success, so we decided to go home and celebrate with....martinis!...and dinner out!!!

Friday morning rolls around, and after leading his team to a loss, John was hungry for more, so he came back up to school again. It was another free-for-all day, and the kids loved every minute of it. After school, we hit the happy hour scene, where we had some great Sangria with friends from school. I had wanted to take nap, but because of him, I didn't get to do ANY sleeping. I pretty much blamed John for the drinking all week. It really was his fault. I don't normally behave like this. Instead, it was straight to martinis, and then off to the highlight of the week...Mangos!!! If you don't remember my early blogs about Mangos, it's the place with women and midgets dancing on the bars, and it's always a great time...

The next morning, we were convinced that we'd spend the day at the pool, come hell or high water. Even though the skies were grey, we were convinced that we'd enjoy our day. As soon as we got there, we had an immediate break in the cloud cover and were thinking how brilliant we were for taking a chance, but 15 minutes later, the clouds were back. Regardless, we ordered bloody mary's, a pizza, and then proceeded to fall asleep under the clouds for a few hours. Apparently, I snored quite loudly...classy. Oh, and there was a kid there named Daniel who had Down's Syndrome. He put us into a real predicament. He truly was the funniest kid I had ever seen, and was doing and saying some priceless things, but the dilemma was whether or not we laughed at him. Was it laughing with or at? We believed it was the former, so we went along with the comedy.

After that, hell, why not?, we went out for sushi for lupper and then back to the house for...well, you can probably guess by now. We threw down a few and headed out to dinner with my friend Gurgit. We were supposed to make it out to a "Pimps and Hoes" party, but all ended up passing out on the couch. John had to get up about 4 hours later and take a cab to the airport. Poor bastard.

Quite a week...who's next?

BK

I Thought It Couldn't Be Done

I really thought that after everything I had been through with LAN Chile airlines, I had seen the worst, but I was oh so wrong.

The next morning at the hotel, I got up at 530 becuase nobody knew when the shuttle was supposed to come. My flight wasn't until 1030, but I wasn't taking ANY chances. I had been asking the previous night when we were getting picked up, but nobody knew and they said LAN wasn't answering their phones...typical. When I got to the lobby at 600 AM, there was a shuttle just leaving and the driver said he'd be right back. In fact, he said another shuttle would be there in 15 minutes. What a joke. This Australian couple and I sat there for over an hour with no word. Finally, we jumped into a cab and went there ourselves. I waited for several hours and boarded the plane. So far, so good.

I got into Bogota and went to find my bags. I figured that since I was taking an Avianca flight from Bogota to Medellin, I should be able to pick up the bags in that airport, take them through customs, recheck them to Medellin and be on my way. No bags. I start to semi-lose it and went to find a representative. He said they'd be in Medellin when I got there, but I knew better. Long story short, I still do not have my bags. It's really just unbelievable.

I finally have a visitor from home! John Boss, who grew up across the street from me has been here since Saturday night. We've been having a good time. On Saturday, I took him to the pool, where he fell in love about 5 times. Too bad he's engaged! Last night, we ate sushi at this killer Japanese restaurant a few blocks away from my house. It was fantastic. I also bought a martini set that we broke in before dinner. I can't decide which I liked better...martinis or sushi...tough call.

OK, I really need to stop screwing around on the computer. I've been doing it all day!

I will ask Kelly to post some of my BA pics tomorrow. Stay tuned...

Ben

Hell...Revisited

I like summarizing by using one word, and this time I think I´ll choose the word...SCREWED.

Presently, it´s 840 Am, and I´m sitting in the Santiago airport when I should have been home sleeping.

Yesterday, when I got to the BA airport, I was told that my flight was canceled. I think I knew at that point what the rest of my trip would be like, and I was exactly right. I told the lady that wouldn´t be enough time to transfer my bags and she assured me it would, right before taking a personal call on her cell phone and ignoring me. Typical.

I figured I wouldn´t have my bags and I could deal with that, but when we landed, and after I ran to catch my next leg, the lady at the counter told me that my seat had been given up because I wasn´t there an hour early, but rather only 30 minutes early. She also proceeded to ignore me and a fellow traveler, a girl who teaches in the Dominican Republic. We went to the LAN Airlines office and they told us that it wasn´t their fault and that COPA Airlines were the ones who screwed up. To make a long story short, partly because I only have like 5 more minutes on this computer because Chile charges ridiculous prices for EVERYTHING, we ended up waiting for 5 HOURS in the airport before being told that we would have to take a flight tomorrow morning. We were sent by bus to a 4-star Crowne Plaza hotel, which was friggin´NICE (too nice) for the night. I woke up this morning at 530 to try to catch the supposed bus that was waiting for us, but after sitting there for an hour waiting, two Aussies and I jumped into a cab and drove here ourselves.

This has been a truly ridiculous chain of events. What kills me is that John Boss has been at my apartment since last night waiting for me and we were supposed to go hit the town. I am well beyond angry at this point and now have an immense hatred for all things Chilean. I will NEVER come back to this country again, and that´s good considering their prices for everything.

The only good news is that I found 1 liter bottles of Bombay at the duty free in BA for 15 bucks each. I bought two. I can´t wait to crack those suckers open when I get home.

I leave in two hours to Bogota and then a one hour flight to Medellin. I´m willing to bet that my bags aren´t there when I arrive. If they are, I might just have a heart attack on the spot.

That´s all.

BK

The Week In Review

Friday is here, which means my trip is nearly over. I leave tomorrow morning, early, and just pray that I don´t get nailed to badly because of my massive amounts of luggage. I`ll be up tomorrow morning at about 5 AM, so that means I`ll be leaving when some of the more adventurous of all of you are just going to sleep, or, right in the middle of the action (we`re 5 hours ahead of the west coast). I wanted to wrap up the week with a quick summary of events. But first, a couple of facts about the city:

Buenos Aires is HUGE. The population is about 14 million. There are 39,000 taxis I`ve been told, which is one of the highest ratios in the world. The city itself is settled on a river, and really has no beaches nearby, which is kind of decieving if you look at a map. Also, the economy took a really bad dive about 5 years ago. It used to be a really expensive city, but because of politics and a fleeing president, it crashed. It used to be that 1 peso was worth 1 dollar, but now 3 pesos are worth the same. That means that there are big city prices, but you end up dividing it by 3. For example, I`ll go and order dinner and a nice steak will be 30 pesos (10 bucks), a bottle of wine, 30 pesos (the same) and walk out with a bill that`s about 65-70 pesos, which should really be that much in dollars, but actually three times less in dollars. It makes it easy to justify filet mignon dinners every night...

The city is divided up into several sections, and each has its own feel. I first stayed in an area called Palermo, which itself has several parts. I was in Palermo Soho, which is much like any other area referred to as Soho, which I`m thinking means southern part? There`s also Palermo Hollywood, which has lots of restaurants and pubs. I had dinner there one night, and ate the best steak of my trip, a filet mignon called Lomo, which was slathered in Roquefort cheese. Then there`s a part of town called Recoleta, which is next to the downtown. This part of the city is famous for the Recoleta Cemetary, where Eva Peron is buried. I got the picture I needed, then got the hell out of there. However, I do have to admit that for a cemetary, it`s a pretty cool place. It holds the bodies of the very wealthy and prestigious families that have lived in the area. It`s also got lots of cool restaurants, one of which I just left. In fact, I had to stop there based on Kevin Meis`s advice. He told me there was a restaurant that served provolone cheese right off the grill. It was damn good. Thanks, Meis.

From there, we head into the downtown part, which is where I`ve stayed the last couple of nights. It`s your typical downtown, complete with lots of traffic and shopping. It`s a cool place, but you know how downtowns are. They get old fast. Moving along, you can find the area known as Puerto Madera, which is the old shipping part of town. It consists of an old port that`s not used anymore, but has lots of cool buildings, great restaurants, and it`s on the water, which is nice (even though it`s completely brown). It has a really famous bridge, which was a gift from Spain. It`s called something like Puente de la Mujer, or a rough translation, Bridge of the Woman. I don`t know what was woman-like about it. It didn`t give me dirty looks or argue with me, so I don`t know the deal with this one...

Then we get to San Telmo, which is the beginning of the seedier parts of town. It`s the supposed birthplace of tango, and it has a really cool street fair on Sundays that I got to see when I first got here. I got some great pictures there. It`s also where I went when I stupidly signed up for a tango lesson and dinner on Wednesday night. I went with two other people from the hostel (after I had checked out) and was disappointed that of ALL the hostels, there were only about 10 of us there. It was supposedly one of the hottest milangos (tango bars), but there was nothing hot about it, unless they were talking about the temperature. In that case, it truly was the HOTTEST place in San Telmo. We got there and had a very basic one-hour lesson. I really sucked, but not as bad as this girl from London...she was a disgrace. If I dance better than you, that means you are really shitty. The lesson wasn`t half bad, but dinner after was incredibly disappointing and I practically had to beg for a second glass of wine. After I was done badmouthing American politics, education, athletes, and the like, this Argentinian guy takes over and starts giving us this hour-long speech on the history of the country. I tried to pay attention, but my bitterness about dinner, my disinterest in continuing to tango dance after dinner, and boredom with his rant made me want to leave, and this guy wasn´t shutting up. So, being the suave and tactful person that I am, I started looking around the restaurant and reading things on the wall to give the impression that I was bored, but not going to leave. Then I pretended to see something that interested me outside. I casually walked out and looked around. I then moved far enough out the door that it made it look like I`d be right back, and eventually, I briskly walked down the street and jumped into a cab. That was the end of that.

Yesterday, I slept in really late, and hit the last destination, which is called La Boca. This is a funky part of town that is by far the scariest, complete with shanty towns. It lies on the working port and has lots of characters running around. What makes this a popular place is that it has a stadium and is home to a soccer team called Boca Juniors, who are on vacation right now. That would have been fun to see. Oh well. It is also well known because lots of the houses are painted crazy colors, which is supposedly because they used left-over ship paint on them. It was a pretty fun place, but I didn`t stay long. The cab driver insisted that I`d be raped or robbed there, or maybe both, so I did what I needed to do there and bailed. On the way back, this other taxi driver TOTALLY tried to rip me off. He was an idiot. It`s not like I`m a complete Gringo traveler, I mean, afterall I spoke Spanish with him the whole time. When we stopped, he tried to charge me SO much. I didn`t even get mad, I simply told him his meter was wrong and that I wasn`t an idiot. He ended up asking me for half of the fare. But c`mon now. If you insist that your meter is right and then settle for half, something`s not right. It reminded me of the time in high school when I bought a fake lunch pass, which I insisted was real (it DID look very real). They told me that they were going to suspend me for 3 days, and I argued relentlessly that they couldn`t because it WAS real. Finally, when they realized they had hit a brick wall, they told me that they`d just put me in in-school suspension for the rest of the day. More than satisfied with this result, I kindly obliged. It takes a liar to know a liar!

Last night, I got lucky in my hotel room. No, not that kind of lucky, I caught the last 5 or 6 episodes of The Surreal Life on VH1. You know, it`s the one with Janice Dickinson, Jose Canseco, Amarosa, and the others. It was hilarious. I could watch Amarosa and Janice go at it all day long. That kept me until about 930 PM, at which point I went out to the brewery for dinner and drinks, and then went to the Kilkenny Pub which was kind of a snooze. I went to sleep late, but slept in even later.

So, from here, I think I`ll go try and grab some last-minute souvenirs and call it a day. It´s been a fun trip, but I`m going to re-think my solo travel mentality. There were so many times that I wished I had friends with me. I think I`ll just have to try harder to convince them to take some time off and head down here. Speaking of which, anyone want to join me in Central America in June? Maybe Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, or the like???

Talk to you all later,

Ben

Day From Hell...

Yesterday, in one word, sucked.

It was supposed to be a 50-minute booze cruise, but that was not the case.

I got to the terminal one hour early, at 1015. I figured, how many people are really going to Uruaguay?, but I was oh, so wrong. I could barely get in the damn door without throwing elbows into little old ladies. The lines in this place really weren`t lines at all. It was more like a bunch of people fighting to get to ticket windows. It`s times like these that I`m glad I can throw around my weight because I surely did. So I meet up with these 3 guys and we wait for one hour before getting to the ticket window. All the people in there were definitely pissing me off, but nobody more than this damn nun standing in front of me with not one, not two, and not even three suitcases, but 6 SUITCASES and a guitar! I thought nuns lived a simple life, but it was more like watching The Simple Life on TV with Paris and Nicole unloading the bus with their mountains of bags. Ooh, good one Ben! How did you ever think of that play on words? You are so clever!

We`re told that the boat is going to be an hour late, which is no big deal. I guess I figured that this was a special occasion since maybe people were going back after celebrating the holidays in B.A. We finally got on the boat at 115 PM, a full two hours late, and this was all while standing in various lines. I`m thinking that I can drown my anger with free beer, but NO! Drinks aren`t free! Another South American lie. There are so many lies in South America, it`s unbelievable. Rather than disappoint or anger you, they just lie to avoid confrontations. I can`t count all the lies I`ve been told since coming down here, but that`s another story for another day. The lack of free beer didn`t stop us from consuming plenty though, but what really sucked was that the so-called 50 minute ride was actually 1.5 hours and it was choppy as hell. I started sweating like a Hebrew slave and thought I might be spending the rest of my day throwing up in trash cans, but we got there just in time. Another little surprise was that when we got there, we went ahead an hour! Now, it`s almost 4 o`clock and our boat is leaving at 845, but we have to be there an hour early! That means we`ve come all this way to hang out for about 3 hours!

Wouldn`t you know that after 3 straight days of heat, we pick the day to go the beachfront town when it`s the crappiest weather? What luck! It was cloudy and gray, with rain, and probably 25 mph winds...all day long. We basically just strolled around stopping at a couple of different restaurants for snacks and drinks, but before we knew it, we needed to head back to the boat terminal. While we`re walking there, I ask these guys why I have only my ticket there, and no return ticket. They all say that they have one and I can´t figure out why I don`t. I brace myself for an encounter at the ticket window...

When I finally get up there, I try to tell the guy what happened, how the other ticket counter in BA never gave me my tickets back. I tell him that the other guy forgot and that I should be in the computer. He basically tells me that it`s my fault and that I can`t travel without it. I tell him again that the other guy forgot and that I should be in the computer. He tells me that he cannot look me up and then asks me if I have my tickets. By this time, I`m ready to come through the god-damned window for a strangling. I tell him that I don`t have the ticket and he asks me what happened to it. I couldn`t believe it. This had to be the stupidest man alive. I told him one more time that the guy didn`t give it back to me, and could he please look me up in the computer using my passport number. He tells me he can`t do that and that I need to buy another ticket. I told him once more that the guy didn`t give it back to me and that it`s not my fault! I tell him that I used my credit card and that I should be in the computer. Finally, he asks me for my passport and looks me up. Then he reprints the boarding pass. I was so irate by this point that I absolutely wanted to go off on someone, but I thought that it could land me in jail, or even worse, cause me to stay another night on the worst tourist destination possible. I get my ticket, then we find out that there´s an hour delay! Yippee! We get into a line that literally isn´t moving at all and sit there for 30 minutes. We finally get through customs and then wait some more in the boarding area. The boat comes and we get on. The cabin is really nice and the seats are super comfortable, so I`m thinking this will all be OK. We order a round of beers and the lady tells us they`re free! We`re all smiling and happy, ready to put down some serious beer. I ask the lady if it`s all-you-can-drink and she says yes! I start pounding my beer and ask the guy for another. Then he tells me they`re out. There`s no more. I couldn`t believe it...actually, I could at this point. Fine. No beer. Whatever. I recline my seat, and then guess who comes on board? A family with a small kid and a crying baby! The kid comes right behind me and gives my seat a good, swift kick. I said something like, ¨Oh, hell no.¨ The kid then proceeds to reach over the seat and put his hand on the guy`s head sitting next to me. We look at each other, and without saying a word, move forward to the front of the boat. Then the baby goes pretty much full-force for the remainder of our trip. We finally get off the hell-boat. I remember watching people get off the last boat and they didn´t have to wait for anything, but not us! We get off and then have to stand in a line and wait for a bus because they took us to a different dock! Finally, we get off the bus and back into the city at 1030 PM. But we`re not quite done yet! Now, we all have to wait in the rain for taxis in a culture that doesn`t believe in lines! I said screw it and just walked in the damned rain. I finally found a cab, and thinking that I needed to do something good for myself, I asked him to take me to an area with restaurants somewhere near my hostel. I found one, ordered the best steak they had, some mozzarella sticks (way better than any others I`ve ever had) and a bottle of wine. The last hour of the night was good. Very good.

Today, I got up, packed my bags, and came over to the internet cafe to book my hotel. I`m getting the hell out of there. I can`t take it anymore. It`s time to sleep in a bed that fits, shower in a place where I don`t have to wear sandals, and relax in an area that isn´t filled with a bunch of stink- ass hippies. Hostel life is not for me.

After I check in, I´m going to try to find a tango show for the evening. I also have some other sites that I need to hit. I`m out of here early Saturday morning, so I´ve got three solid days left. I`ll keep you posted.

BK

Buenos Aires is Kick-Ass

I love this place. I could see myself living here if given the opportunity, however small that chance may be...

Last night, we rang in New Years with a roof-top BBQ at the hostel and then headed off to the most AMAZING club I`ve ever seen in my life. It was called Opera House and it had just re-opened after some renovations. I`ll have to post the pictures later. This place was simply indescribable, but I`ll give it a shot. It`s this giant place, designed after the Sydney Opera House, complete with 5 different rooms and different music in each one. It has a retractable roof and sits on the water in a part of town called Puerto Madero. I went with these 3 guys I had met in the hostel who were really fun. One was from England, another from Australia, and the last from Nepal. We got there at about 2 AM, and I lasted until about 5. At about that time, the pizza craving kicked in and I was on a mission. I found a cab and headed back towards the hostel in search of some late-night grub. I don`t remember much, but I do recall the looks and laughs from the guys who worked there as I SLAMMED down about 4 or 5 slices. I woke up this morning, went down to the lobby, and slept on the couch for about 2 or 3 hours. It is hot as hell down here right now. Today, it was something like 115 degrees. I do have a wall unit AC in my room (that everyone is jealous about), but it kicks off at 10 AM. I tried to sleep it off there, but that was tough, given that I went to sleep at 6. I don`t know how the Argentinians do it...

Today was an unexpected adventure. I headed down to the Puerto Madero part of town for some sightseeing and decided to grab lunch at a local restaurant. Yes, it`s true, Argentinian steak is the best in the world, and I`m proving it to myself day after day. I haven`t had to use a knife yet. So anyway, I stepped into a restaurant and grabbed a loin steak covered in Roquefort cheese. I overheard a guy trying to ask a waiter what a certain word meant, so I decided to step in and help out. I casually talked with these three guys, who were all from the US, while eating and eventually moved over to their table. We ended up hanging out for a couple of hours and then went to the boat terminal and booked tickets to Uruguay for tomorrow. We will be sitting in first class, which means free booze for the 50 minute trip. We`ll have to work fast! We`re heading to Colonia, which is an old part of town. We`ll be there for about 8 hours before heading back. Should be fun.

After I left them, I started off towards the hostel but got enticed by a local bar. I went in for some drinks and met two guys from Ireland. We chatted it up for the last 2 hours, which was really fun. I finally left to go find some more steak, and ran into this internet cafe, so here I am.

I`m having a blast down here. It really is a cool city. I think you`ll notice by the lack of length and creativity on this blog that I don`t even want to put in the effort to entertain. I already want to get the hell out of here and go to my next gastronomical activity. I just wanted to drop a line and say hello.

I have some great pics that I`ll post when I get back to Medellin. In the meantime, I hope everyone is well and that you all had a great New Years!

Ciao,

BK