Let me tell you a story.

It takes place in the big city of Buenos Aires, which is really fucking huge. Orin and I had been living the nocturnal life, sleeping the heat of the day away and then awakening like vermin to rove the streets searching for flesh..of cow. We had killed the day, drinking the blood like orange juice, and then returned to the hostel to sit on the veranda and share some wine with a nice man from Denmark.
Morning crept up on us silently, but we were blasted out of our seats by the deafening beats of a badly tuned snared drum. There was approximately 10 people on the balcony, all conversing at a normal pitch, and we all stopped to listen to this off kilter beat. After exhanging the usual ´what in the hell is that...it´s like 2 in the morning´everyone returned to their conversations, raising their voices a couple notches to be heard over the awful moan of the drums. Soon after, Lucas, our Argentinian friend that works the night shift at the desk wrapped his head around the corner and asked us all to lower our voices. ¨Why don´t you tell that to the guy on the drums¨ one traveller retorted, but nonetheless, everyone brought it down for a minute until they were sure he was back downstairs. The drums soon stopped, and Orin and I, trying to help our friend, left to go to bed.
We wandered downstairs to see if the internet was working, which it frequently wasn´t, when we ran into the root of the problem: Lucas´boss was teetering around the room, drunk as they come. We sat down to say hi to Lucas, as his boss stumbled back into the bar. He began to explain that his boss was aboslutely out of control drunk, and there was nothing he could do about it. The bar, which closes at 1 30, had been reopened by the intoxicated jefe, and we turned around to watch him vomit through the, for some reason, opaque window into the bathroom. This place was set up for perverts... and tonight we took front seat. He wiped his mouth warily, leaning against a rail, and almost tumbling over. He was absolutely pissed. Lucas woefully told us of the complaining neighbours and the angry travellers who had come out to yell at him, and how there was nothing he could do because he didn´t want to get fired. A girl then came out of the bar, with a disguisted look on her face. We soon found out that she was a previous employee, and that she had been hit on by her creepy boss, who had tried to neck her while she was on the ground. ¨he tried to pick me up twice... i am a big girl¨she stated, ¨i do not like to be picked up!¨It was really hilarious the way she delivered that line. The boss then weaved out of the bar again, and proceed to stand creepishly behind me, swaying back and forth, while Lucas tried to talk to him. This was all quite hilarious because his boss did not speak any English, and was too drunk to even talk any spanish, so Lucas would speak some spanish, and then say funny little quips about him in English that he could never understand. El jefe´s drunken teetering could only go on for so long, and soon it was too much for him, and he stumbled backwards, catching his foot on a desk and careening into a wall where he smashed his hand into the escape route and broke the glass all over the couch. We were all relieved to see that he was not bleeding. This was probably the moment where he realized the party was over. There was two white kids sitting on chairs staring at him akwardly and his employee, telling him he better go home if he didn´t want anymore trouble tomorrow. Heeding this advice, he groped his bycicle out onto the street, got on, and proceeded to fall straight on his back. He lay there dazed for a couple of seconds, and then undeterred, he mounted again. This time he rode for a few more meters, clipped the curb on the other side, and bit it off again. This was the point where I was quite concerned, but Lucas assured me that it would be fine, and I knew that it was not my place to get involved, so we watched him lurch off into the distance.
We all returned to the front counter, Lucas was visibly stressed out, feeling bad that we had to see this all. ¨This is not a very relaxing setting for a hostel¨he apologized, but we would have none of it. His conversation and this interesting drama was way better than some lame ass prim hostel, we assured him. A guest, which el jefe had been partying with, lay asleep on the couch in the bar. Lucas noted that he would have to send him to bed soon, but was distracted by the flip book i made of his boss vomiting. After a while, the guest came stumbling through the door, blood running down his forehead and dripping off his nose. ¨What the fuck¨i hollered, ¨dude, that guy is seriously bleeding¨. Lucas hadn´t noticed it at first, but quickly busted out the first aid kit and brought the guy to the bathroom. This guy too, was very very drunk. He was convinced that he had been attacked. He kept on muttering in Spanish that he wanted his picture taken, he had been attacked! We all assured him that he was alone in the room, and that he had probably attacked the pointed edge of the stool with his head. Eventually Lucas got him cleaned up, and the fact that it was a head wound and his blood was thin from all the alcohol they had sucked back accounted for all the blood, as it was actually just a minor cut on his forehead.
By this time it was 6 in the morning, and Orin and I began to feel the tiredness creeping in. After a bit of conversation to wind us all down we said our goodbyes, trying to convince Lucas to visit us in canada, and headed for bed.

So far, as in canada, there is the tepid blend of assholes and amazings. For all the jerks you have to deal with, it makes it worth it when you meet that person that makes you laugh and tries to engage you in conversation even though you can barely understand eachother. One of these came about in a completely empty lunch joint, where we ordered a beer and a burger. The waiter was extremely friendly, and obviously very bored. He took an interested in us, and after we scarfed down our burger he sat down and started a conversation about everything and anything. We talked about our families and our countries, and he eventually busted out the newspaper and we flipped through it together, discussing every page, from cars to cocaine, with our broken translations. It was really sweet really. We talked about motorbikes and empanadas, where to go in Argentina, and about the local murder of a cop and the sad funeral. It was really amazing how friendly he was and how eager was to talk, and patient too! Often people will start to talk to us, then sort of give up when they realize my spanish is very limited and orin´s is nil. We parted with our first kiss on the cheek, and he giggled at orin being the big biker giving another man a kiss, which he knew was weird in our country. We had entered the place upset over a number of things, and left dancing in our shoes. It was awesome.

So, we are in Uruguay right now, in the capital city of Montevideo. It is said to be a smaller version of Buenos Aires, and I find that i am suited to it much more. It is definately smaller, and much less polluted, with much less traffic and dog shit to be weaving around, though it definately still exists ( i stepped in some today). The ferry over here was amazing. The interior was pimp, with wood floors and nice seats, and it was amazingly advanced technology. It was what I imagine the fast cats would be like if they hadn´t failed so badly. It ripped along at a tremendous speed, leaving us amazed. It took us 3 hours to cross the river, yes i repeat river. It is the widest river in the world, and just near Montevideo we hit the ocean. You could actually watch the colour change of the water from the murky river to the blue blue ocean.

In Montevideo we have gone on lots of walks. It has a sea wall just like Vancouver! It´s so cool! It runs for a long time, and we haven´t been able to walk it all yet. One day when we were walking down it we got side tracked by an awesome little amusement park, where everyone seemed to be having the time of their lives. So, of course, we bought 8 tickets and rode all four (big rollers) rides. The first was the swinging ship, which seemed to have the limit taken off it and went terrifyingly high. Once we realize we were not going to perish it was awesome. Next was a swinging around in circles ride, and third was the dreaded roller coaster. Now, ever since my uncle Glen and I went on the wooden rollercoaster for the first time in my life at the PNE and I almost fell to my death (i kid you not) I have been terrified of rollercoasters. Orin and I stood by it staring upwards, debating whether we should do it or not, when we noticed a young girl begging her mother to join her. Her mother was having none of it, no way in hell she was getting on that death trap, and i don´t blame her. They looked at us, and i knew i was screwed. She walked over and began speed spanishing me, so i said ´si´and orin, small girl, and i all jumped into a cart, equally terrified, and before i could over think it, we were off. Suddenly, we were up way higher than i wanted to ever be on a shitty south american ride, and then freefalling back down to the earth. I screamed. Loud. I´m not ashamed. Orin was. haha. In the end, it was actually quite fun, and we parted with the girl still laughing. I was very happy with myself for facing my fears, and glad that it wasn´t as bad as I had thought.
The last ride was really odd. It was just this circle of seats that bounced up in time to tango music, and span a little bit. It was quite lame, but everyone else on the ride seemed to be having the time of their life! They were all singing along a the top of their lungs, screaming, and standing up with their arms waving in time to the music. I could not stop laughing at the absurdity of it all!

Today we finally made it to the beach, though not until after 5, and it was awesome. I lay in the late sun, warm, but not threatening to burn my poor skin off, and drifted off into a nap while Orin read. And i would really like to emphasize this. Orin is reading. All the time. More than me. He has finally realize that there are good books out there, and if you find them it is worth the search. I am abosolutely elated. Reading is something nobody wants to do alone in a couple, while the other person twiddles their thumbs and interrupts you with petty remarks that you don´t really respond to because you are so involved with your books. So this said, three cheers for orin´s new academic side. Today we also went down to the market for lunch and i got an asado, which is a really oddly cut ´steak´that has tons of fat and ribs, but if you can wade through that it is really delicious meat. Then we walked out onto this rock walkway into the sea, where there were hundreds of local fishermen casting their lines off into the oily ocean. Kind of creepy, but no one seemed to care and it was fun to watch everyone´s different method. Some had really nice rods, others just had some piping with line wrapped around it, and one guy had about 20 hooks with no bait that he just bobbed up and down catching small fish for the bait of his friends hooks.

Well, that is a mouthful of what we have been doing so far. Hope it wasn´t too much for one entry, and i will try to break it up a bit more from now on.