Días 12 - 19 (ish)

Ok, so it’s been another week since I last wrote...doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun and all that! And this past week is a bit hazy – somebody didn’t take notes as to what he’s been up to. So here goes, let’s see what I can remember!!

Ok, Friday, me, Matt and Mareck went to China town in a BA neighbourhood called Belgrano. I say China Town, more like China Street…I met up with the guys there as I had been in the office in the morning for the meeting. This meant braving the tube for the first time on my larrence! Not too scary and quite straightforward (though some knob managed to go one stop too far, so had to hop back on in the other direction –still, at $0.70 (11p) for a journey, it wasn’t too much of an issue. This error would have cost me approximately 27 times more had I have made it in London!) We went in search of exotic spices as, to be honest, as munch as the food is out here, you can’t get anything spicy for love nor money. There were a few things in the Chinese supermarket which looked fairly promising, but nothing really took my fancy (especially considering the smell of the shop was making me heave, and the rows of dead fish were making me scared!) Friday night, we cooked chicken and beef kebabs on skewers with peppers and onions. I say “we”, Matt and Mareck cooked…I watched with a litre of Quilmes Beer in my hand!

Saturday night we planned to do a biggy, Argentine stylie – whereby you don’t even *think* about going out until about 1am…which to be fair, we didn’t. We did make it out…for about half an hour. Cocktails involving tequila, rum and some other shite did not help our cause. We made it to the German bar for, I would say “one”, but it was more like a quarter. Mareck stepped outside for some fresh air. Matt and I soon joined him, only to find him yakking into the gutter. I was in bed by two. So much for my hardcore Argentine night, where I planned on rolling in at about 8am Sunday morning. It was for this reason that we decided against going to the Boca Juniors game on Sunday afternoon. Had we have known what lightweights we’d have been, we could have made it to La Bombanera. Oh well, I got up at 2pm, and Facebooked and such-like all day/night!

Monday was a bit boring. I did laundry and got my haircut. The haircut is…interesante. There’s a hairdressers right near my flat so, as I am a lazy git, I went there. I walked in, and no one was in there, apart from a hairdresser who must have been in her late 60s. I felt too guilty to just turn around and leave so entrusted her with the barnet. Which she’s pretty much mullered. It looks slightly more acceptable with product, but she’s basically just hacked into it blindly! Oh well, it will suffice, and I was still proud that she understood what I wanted (not that she paid much attention mind), especially given I can’t usually explain it in English, let alone Spanish!

Tuesday night I met up with Adam, who was pretty much out of action all weekend, what with his and his missus’ one year anniversary celebrations. He had intended to take her to Uruguay as a treat/get his passport stamped as his Visa is dangerously close to expiring, but the trips were fully booked (with it being a local holiday), so now has to go on the day his Visa expires. Two and a half month’s time, that’ll be me! Gotta love the South American corruption mind! I went to a couple of new bars on the Plaza Dorrego (my neighbourhood’s local square) which was cool, as, despite nearly 3 weeks’ living here, it is somewhere I have never been!) The evening was rounded off with a nice Sandwich de Lomito, which is basically meat in bread.

Wednesday night was the launch night of The Argentime’s new cultural supplement, ‘The A Supplement’, (see what they did there?) This basically involved dressing up smartly, going to a gallery, and talking to advertisers/potential advertisers/industry people in both Spanish and English – the free red wine helped relieve the initial awkwardness. Oh, and in Kate, a fellow intern, I have found somebody whose cheeks go nearly (though not quite) as red as mine…see pics on Facebook for proof! We nearly had the newspaper supplement launch event with no newspaper or supplement mind! Me, Liv and Michelle (Kristie’s housemate/Argentimes contributor) arranged to go and pick the papers up from the new printers at 6pm. Given that the event started at 7pm and the venue was only half an hour away by cab, we gathered we’d have about half an hour’s leaway…you’d think huh? We turned up at the printers though, who’d totally denied telling us the paper would be ready at 6pm, despite Kristie confirming this several times during the day, and Michelle doing so at 5.50pm. With a mixture of getting angry/crying/pretending to go dizzy/using her feminine charm, we eventually received the papers at around 7.30pm – half an hour into the event. Not a major disaster in the end, but obviously not the ideal scenario, making us look rather unprofessional. We eventually handed out the paper at 8ish, WITH new supplement and it seemed to go down really well. Oh, and my name is now in print in The Argentimes, how cool is that?! (Loser, I know) As nice as the food was (prepared by none other then Francis Mallman, Argentina’s equivalent of Gordon Ramsey), it was only canapés, so I once again deemed it necessary to conclude the night’s events with a Sandwich de Lomito (for all those who have forgot, meat in a bun!!)

So this brings us up to date. It’s Thursday, I’m in the office, Stan the kitten is harassing me and I’m researching a story I’m going to be doing on Che Guevara…it’s all business as usual. The Andy Fletcher interview has been cancelled, so my big story for the next edition (other than the Ché Guevara one), will be a review of “High Tea” at some hotel. “How gay!” I hear you cry. Well, in answer to this I say a) It’s not as gay as the drag queen sex tour (which also got cancelled – welcome to Argentina people) and b) I get free tea AND cake, and you don’t…admittedly though, there’s plenty of time for it to get cancelled.

On that note, I’ll let you lot get back on with your hectic lives (which for most involves settling back into the hectic uni lifestyle…by the way – what the hell is going on in Neighbours…?)

Ciao for now chicos!

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