Sunday 4 April 2010

Saturday night in Buenos Aires

Sun 03:40. Am down at Cronico Bar somewhere in Palermo. On my fifth litre of Iguana and I had a couple of small beers before. I am not that drunk but, pace Wodehouse, I can feel the sweet brown liquour plashing against my throat, if it's not quite up to my teeth yet.

Didn't get up til 3pm. I figured/hoped there would be no cleaner at the weekend, but there was. Anyway.

Left the flat for the day properly about 4pm after popping out to pick up my laundry. Tried to buy apples at a supermarket but turns out they don't weigh stuff at the till here, and in the end I said fuck it and just bought some soft drinks.

Had a pretty decent steak (400g) and chips plus (and this costs bigtime, but what can you do, eating induces thirst and I was probably a bit hungover still) 2 small bottles of coke as a late lunch/early dinner. Cost me about 12 quid which is pricey in a way but the quantity and quality were probably better than I'd have got in London for the same money.

Maybe it's just my cautious nature but while I can't rave about the meat here as I'd hoped, I must say in general it's been pretty good.

Got the metro afterwards - OK, but a touch infrequent and not overly clean - to Plaza Italia (?) and wandered around Palermo. Came here after a couple of beers in Migueletes earlier. Much wandering around after that but Cristian had said Palermo was cool and I must admit the vicinity of this bar had other bars and seemed my kind of place.

I am more drunk than I should be and I will have to get a taxi back but what the hell. I am indoors but it's still a bit table-oriented and I doubt I will get any chat on but sod it..

Am drunk enough to be amusing myself with my oft-denied plan to do psychometric readings at a psychic fair (for charity, I am not a total charlatan) when I get back to London.

Vague onwards plan is to spend a couple of days bussing it up to Iguazu falls. Nothing booked yet, cos I have been too slack/drunk. I am concerned I should maybe have started taking the malaria tablets already, and also that I maybe can't drink when on them (must web search that), but although it's still pushing it taking the bus up that way will give me an extra day or two.

Disheartening to realise I have only two more nights here after tonight. I find it hard to meet people here but nonetheless I find the city quite cool, and while I am not obviously failing to see anything essential I feel I've been a bit slack as a tourist.

Wikitravel suggests skydiving here. That both tempts and scares the shit out of me. But the more I think about it the more I should do that in the UK when I return, where I have no language issues and if I do break anything it's less of a problem. I can go to my desk in Canary Wharf with a broken ankle or leg but I can't cart my luggage around easily with the same. And let's be frank, why would it be any better to do that here than back home? I do hope to scare myself shitless by doing it within the year, but I see little point in pushing my personal envelope right here and now. I can crap my pants just as well over Oxfordshire as Buenos Aires.

Oh, I infer from the TV screen here and a masking tape cross over the '24h' logo that they used to be open 24h a day here but due to some law now shut at 5am. It is scary I am here so close to that. And also a bit odd that this city with its 5am shutdown feels more relaxed than London with its "24h drinking" (hahahahhaha). Theory vs practice.

Oh, there is clearly a limit to how many free peanuts in the shell you can eat. I've been on the same bowl for all five litres. They are a bit insipid to be frank, even without the effort of shelling them.

Oh, and I have seen so much more Malvinas crap. An ad on the TV today (3rd) said yesterday was "day of the fallen" re the war. This may partly explain if not justify all the Malvinas propaganda I have seen. I guess I just happened to turn up here at the most propagandic time.

04:30 Some of the music here is quite good - "Money" by Pink Floyd right now, a bit of The Rasmus earlier - but it's not loud enough to cut through the background noise of chat and really let me enjoy it. Tho if it was louder maybe I'd be hacked off at the volume, as the background noise is quite loud enough as it is.

Need to finish up soonish so I can get the bill and a taxi before the rush starts. Though according to the screens they can serve til 5 and you can drink til 5:30 so it's probably OK, but still.

05:07 Just got home. Got a cab for 25, I didn't understand a word he said to me when I aksed how much it was beyond that number (which is disappointing, I have taken a number of cabs on the continent without feelimg so useless) and the meter showed about 20 when we arrived, but 5 is nothing and another time maybe I will take it on the meter.Anyway it is ridiculously late and I need to got to bed, despite being not that drunk.

PS The bar was still rammed at 4:50 when I left.

No comments:

Post a Comment