Posadas, Argentina on Christmas Eve 2009
Everything is closed; the restaurants, the bars, the clubs. I follow the taxistas advice and head down ten blocks from the city center to the riverfront costanera zone in hopes of finding some action. The views are beautiful; unfortunately the place is deader than a cemetery. “Where exactly are we going?” my girlfriend asks.
“I don’t know, porra,” I angrily reply. I look to my left and see some people eating on the terrace of a restaurant called Al-Arak. “Civilization!” I tell myself. We triumphantly march up the stairs to the terrified look on the faces of the people eating.
“Estamos cerrados,” they tell us, with the perturbed look that accompanies having said the same thing some fifty times in the span of a couple hours. I walk away dejectedly and tell my girlfriend to stay put while I check out if the place next door is open for business.
Of course they aren’t. Yet, for some reason, when I return to Al-Arak she’s standing there with a smile on her face. “They invited us to eat with them! Que vergonha!”
“Serio?”
“Ahan!”
I put on my best fake-shamed face and walk over to the table thanking the family profusely for letting us allowing us to join their Christmas dinner. “Muchisimas gracias!”
“De nada! Quieres algo de beber? Coca, cerveza, champagne?”
Having already got my foot in the door but not yet ready to paint the carpet with mud, I opt for a beer. We exchange pleasantries before they start talking politics. “Today,” the owner began, “I saw that some 30 million Americans are going to get free health care.”
“Si,” I reply, “it’s great news for Christmas eve, but that still leaves out 270 million others. It’s kind of crazy to charge people for being sick.”
“Es verdad, and you don’t think about it when you’re young but when you get older it’s terrible. Aqui no pagamos nada.”
“Si, lo se, and the University of Buenos Aires, all the public universities, are free. All of Latin America comes here to study, cierto?”
“Si. And what brings you here from Brazil.”
“Actually, my girlfriend is from Brazil, but I’m actually from los Estados Unidos, vivo en Miami.”
“Ajjjj, Miami, que lugar!”
“Si, but I like it in Latin America better—the culture, the way of life is more my speed.”
“Es verdad. Aqui es mucho diversion, poco trabajo.”
“Que sueno mio!”
“jajjajajajajajajaja, ‘que sueno mio.’”
We move from the dinner table to the patio area and start smoking hookah. The owner lightens up and starts filling my beer glass full of champagne as I compliment the design of his restaurant and how modern the whole area looks. He fills our glasses to the top. I finish them to the bottom. I decide he is my new best friend.
After the fireworks show from across the border in Paraguay starts, my newfound family starts telling me about the shitshow that is an outdoor Paraguayan electronics market. “There you can get anything you want. Even devices that you thought, ‘you’ll never find it—they stopped making it years ago,’ they have it in Paraguay.” I tell him I’m gonna have to jump across tomorrow and get my hands on the original Nintendo so I play some Duck Hunt up in this bitch. I don’t think he understands.
For some reason the old man keeps speaking in Portuguese despite my singular use of castellano. He starts talking about his travels throughout the south of Brazil and Porto Alegre. I tell him of my introduction to the city, when I stumbled into a bar where the local gauchos were watching the Gremio-Internacional game. He’s not impressed. My girlfriend tells them about life in Rio de Janeiro. They eat it up. I am no longer the center of attention. I become very sad, and sleepy.
I am awoken from a short snooze to the sound of glass shattering. Eyes wide open, I look around. Perhaps the local banditos did a hit and run? Nope. It was my own glass that fell out of my hand when I was sleeping and dreaming that I was still the most interesting person in the room.
We say goodbye.
After a fifty-foot walk away from the restaurant, one thing is clear: the same street that was deader than dead a mere two hours before is now jam-packed with Argentinos looking to get loose. I walk to the convenience store, all eyes on me like Tupac, basking in the fact that I’m the only foreigner for miles. “Do you think that everyone is staring at us because we’re foreigners, or because we’re drunk?” my girlfriend asks.
“Probably both.”
The place is absolutely packed. We walk over to the river and scout out some potential targets to give us free alcohol. “Porra,” my girlfriend starts, “here nobody hooks up with anybody? I don’t see anyone kissing.
“Yeah, they do, it’s just that here the concept of despacio is important.”
“Em Brasil nao!”
“I have some news for you.”
“Yeah, yeah—I know. We’re not in Brazil.”
“Isso.”
“So, are we gonna go in the club, or are we gonna sit here all night?”
“I’m pretty content. Why don’t you go talk to that group over there?”
“Which one?”
“The one with the cooler full of champagne and whiskey.”
“Why don’t you go talk to them?”
“Because I don’t have tits.”
“Keep eating those empanadas and that statement might not be true for much longer.”
“Vai a merda.”
She walks over. Ten seconds later, the whole group is waving me over and a glass full of whiskey is slammed in my hand before I can say “Hola.” Life is good.
“De donde son?”
“De Rio de Janeiro.”
“Rio de Janeiro!!!!!”
“Brasil-il-il-il-il-il!!!!”
“And what brings you to Posadas?”
“Estamos on the way to Buenos Aires and wanted to see your city.”
“And what did you know about Posadas antes de tonight?
“That you have a nice riverfront and that it’s easy to get a visa to visit Paraguay.”
“Jajajajajajaja.”
Whiskey morphs into champagne; champagne to Red Bull. It’s 3 in the morning—the night is young.
A young Argentine with slicked back hair walks up to the group and tries snaking his way into some free alcohol. I guess it takes one to know one. Glass in-hand, he walks up to the foreigners and opens with “voces da onde?”
“Rio de Janeiro.”
Right as he hears this, he spreads his arms wide, mimicking the pose of the famous Christ Statue in the “City of God.” I glance over at the cooler; then quickly turn to my empty hand. It’s times for a refill. When I come back with some fresh Moet Chandon to clear my pallet, my girlie’s laughing.
“Que foi?”
“When I told him I had a boyfriend, he asked me “are you happy?”
“So?”
“Tao directo!”
“Welcome to Argentina.”
One hour five glasses later, I decide I’m tired. We try and grab a taxi but the only cars passing by are drunken motorists. I jokingly put my thumb out to hitchhike. A 20-something Argentine sticks his head out the window.
“A donde vas?”
“Por la Plaza 9 de Julio.”
He turns to the driver. He sticks his head back out the window. “Get in.”
“De donde son?”
“De Brasil.”
“Brasil!”
The guy in the passenger seat passes back another glass of champagne. Despite feeling like I’m gonna vomit, I sip from the glass and watch in horror as the driver slams on the gas despite the three empty bottles on the floor of the front seat.
“Is it alright if we drive around a little, you know, dar una vuelta?”
“No, motherfucker, “I wanna say, “I wanna go home and get to sleep you son of a bitch. Take me home now!” Yet when I consider the alternative, I tell him “sure, todo bien jefe.”
He pumps up the music. Before I know it, the whole car is in a trance and we’re all dancing and making it clap like Sean Paul. The champagne keeps flowing like we’re sitting below the Hoover motherfucking Dam.
Then, the impossible happens: we arrive at a police checkpoint. “Sucks for this guy,” I think, congratulating myself on the superhuman insight to not have driven tonight despite the fact that I don’t have a car on this continent.
“No va a pasar nada,” he says, confidently handing me his glass which I throw down like Lebron. He rolls by the checkpoint, does a quick u-turn and turns up the music while we re-enter our trance and jam the rest of the ride home.
Bienvenido a Argentina.
Everything is closed; the restaurants, the bars, the clubs. I follow the taxistas advice and head down ten blocks from the city center to the riverfront costanera zone in hopes of finding some action. The views are beautiful; unfortunately the place is deader than a cemetery. “Where exactly are we going?” my girlfriend asks.
“I don’t know, porra,” I angrily reply. I look to my left and see some people eating on the terrace of a restaurant called Al-Arak. “Civilization!” I tell myself. We triumphantly march up the stairs to the terrified look on the faces of the people eating.
“Estamos cerrados,” they tell us, with the perturbed look that accompanies having said the same thing some fifty times in the span of a couple hours. I walk away dejectedly and tell my girlfriend to stay put while I check out if the place next door is open for business.
Of course they aren’t. Yet, for some reason, when I return to Al-Arak she’s standing there with a smile on her face. “They invited us to eat with them! Que vergonha!”
“Serio?”
“Ahan!”
I put on my best fake-shamed face and walk over to the table thanking the family profusely for letting us allowing us to join their Christmas dinner. “Muchisimas gracias!”
“De nada! Quieres algo de beber? Coca, cerveza, champagne?”
Having already got my foot in the door but not yet ready to paint the carpet with mud, I opt for a beer. We exchange pleasantries before they start talking politics. “Today,” the owner began, “I saw that some 30 million Americans are going to get free health care.”
“Si,” I reply, “it’s great news for Christmas eve, but that still leaves out 270 million others. It’s kind of crazy to charge people for being sick.”
“Es verdad, and you don’t think about it when you’re young but when you get older it’s terrible. Aqui no pagamos nada.”
“Si, lo se, and the University of Buenos Aires, all the public universities, are free. All of Latin America comes here to study, cierto?”
“Si. And what brings you here from Brazil.”
“Actually, my girlfriend is from Brazil, but I’m actually from los Estados Unidos, vivo en Miami.”
“Ajjjj, Miami, que lugar!”
“Si, but I like it in Latin America better—the culture, the way of life is more my speed.”
“Es verdad. Aqui es mucho diversion, poco trabajo.”
“Que sueno mio!”
“jajjajajajajajajaja, ‘que sueno mio.’”
We move from the dinner table to the patio area and start smoking hookah. The owner lightens up and starts filling my beer glass full of champagne as I compliment the design of his restaurant and how modern the whole area looks. He fills our glasses to the top. I finish them to the bottom. I decide he is my new best friend.
After the fireworks show from across the border in Paraguay starts, my newfound family starts telling me about the shitshow that is an outdoor Paraguayan electronics market. “There you can get anything you want. Even devices that you thought, ‘you’ll never find it—they stopped making it years ago,’ they have it in Paraguay.” I tell him I’m gonna have to jump across tomorrow and get my hands on the original Nintendo so I play some Duck Hunt up in this bitch. I don’t think he understands.
For some reason the old man keeps speaking in Portuguese despite my singular use of castellano. He starts talking about his travels throughout the south of Brazil and Porto Alegre. I tell him of my introduction to the city, when I stumbled into a bar where the local gauchos were watching the Gremio-Internacional game. He’s not impressed. My girlfriend tells them about life in Rio de Janeiro. They eat it up. I am no longer the center of attention. I become very sad, and sleepy.
I am awoken from a short snooze to the sound of glass shattering. Eyes wide open, I look around. Perhaps the local banditos did a hit and run? Nope. It was my own glass that fell out of my hand when I was sleeping and dreaming that I was still the most interesting person in the room.
We say goodbye.
After a fifty-foot walk away from the restaurant, one thing is clear: the same street that was deader than dead a mere two hours before is now jam-packed with Argentinos looking to get loose. I walk to the convenience store, all eyes on me like Tupac, basking in the fact that I’m the only foreigner for miles. “Do you think that everyone is staring at us because we’re foreigners, or because we’re drunk?” my girlfriend asks.
“Probably both.”
The place is absolutely packed. We walk over to the river and scout out some potential targets to give us free alcohol. “Porra,” my girlfriend starts, “here nobody hooks up with anybody? I don’t see anyone kissing.
“Yeah, they do, it’s just that here the concept of despacio is important.”
“Em Brasil nao!”
“I have some news for you.”
“Yeah, yeah—I know. We’re not in Brazil.”
“Isso.”
“So, are we gonna go in the club, or are we gonna sit here all night?”
“I’m pretty content. Why don’t you go talk to that group over there?”
“Which one?”
“The one with the cooler full of champagne and whiskey.”
“Why don’t you go talk to them?”
“Because I don’t have tits.”
“Keep eating those empanadas and that statement might not be true for much longer.”
“Vai a merda.”
She walks over. Ten seconds later, the whole group is waving me over and a glass full of whiskey is slammed in my hand before I can say “Hola.” Life is good.
“De donde son?”
“De Rio de Janeiro.”
“Rio de Janeiro!!!!!”
“Brasil-il-il-il-il-il!!!!”
“And what brings you to Posadas?”
“Estamos on the way to Buenos Aires and wanted to see your city.”
“And what did you know about Posadas antes de tonight?
“That you have a nice riverfront and that it’s easy to get a visa to visit Paraguay.”
“Jajajajajajaja.”
Whiskey morphs into champagne; champagne to Red Bull. It’s 3 in the morning—the night is young.
A young Argentine with slicked back hair walks up to the group and tries snaking his way into some free alcohol. I guess it takes one to know one. Glass in-hand, he walks up to the foreigners and opens with “voces da onde?”
“Rio de Janeiro.”
Right as he hears this, he spreads his arms wide, mimicking the pose of the famous Christ Statue in the “City of God.” I glance over at the cooler; then quickly turn to my empty hand. It’s times for a refill. When I come back with some fresh Moet Chandon to clear my pallet, my girlie’s laughing.
“Que foi?”
“When I told him I had a boyfriend, he asked me “are you happy?”
“So?”
“Tao directo!”
“Welcome to Argentina.”
One hour five glasses later, I decide I’m tired. We try and grab a taxi but the only cars passing by are drunken motorists. I jokingly put my thumb out to hitchhike. A 20-something Argentine sticks his head out the window.
“A donde vas?”
“Por la Plaza 9 de Julio.”
He turns to the driver. He sticks his head back out the window. “Get in.”
“De donde son?”
“De Brasil.”
“Brasil!”
The guy in the passenger seat passes back another glass of champagne. Despite feeling like I’m gonna vomit, I sip from the glass and watch in horror as the driver slams on the gas despite the three empty bottles on the floor of the front seat.
“Is it alright if we drive around a little, you know, dar una vuelta?”
“No, motherfucker, “I wanna say, “I wanna go home and get to sleep you son of a bitch. Take me home now!” Yet when I consider the alternative, I tell him “sure, todo bien jefe.”
He pumps up the music. Before I know it, the whole car is in a trance and we’re all dancing and making it clap like Sean Paul. The champagne keeps flowing like we’re sitting below the Hoover motherfucking Dam.
Then, the impossible happens: we arrive at a police checkpoint. “Sucks for this guy,” I think, congratulating myself on the superhuman insight to not have driven tonight despite the fact that I don’t have a car on this continent.
“No va a pasar nada,” he says, confidently handing me his glass which I throw down like Lebron. He rolls by the checkpoint, does a quick u-turn and turns up the music while we re-enter our trance and jam the rest of the ride home.
Bienvenido a Argentina.
