Pequena Pie's ... On the Road Again: vacation station

hola ya'll! the last few days have been action-packed. here's the haps in buenos aires.

saturday morning, i took a cruiser through the neighborhood and came across some interesting stuff. por ejemplo:

neighborhood:

interesting stuff:

these dudes are all over town walking 7-8 dogs while chatting on their cellies. the chatting-on-their-cellies part may explain why i have to dodge poo piles every 8 steps i take.

later, as promised, i headed to a bar to watch the argentina/peru game. needless to say, it turned out that the only people in buenos aires who go to bars to watch soccer games are drunk american study-abroaders or old men. so i peaced.

i wanted to do something low-key and close by, since it was both pouring rain and lightening, so i went down the street to my parents' old stomping grounds, the sofitel hotel, for a glass of wine and a chocolate souffle.

as usual, i got some you're-here-alone? stares, particularly from the man and woman you can vaguely see in the picture above to the left. little by little, the frequency of their stares increased, until the man ultimately stood up, walked over to me and asked, "what's a young girl like you doing here by herself?" to which i responded "traveling." he then so sweetly invited me to sit with him, his wife, and son for dinner.

the family was the cutest. their son, roy, a law student in israel, had been traveling for several months all over south america (hari, maybe you walked on volcanoes together?) and they flew over from israel to spend some time with him at the end of his trip. it turned out roy was also a huge party animal, and he invited me to go out with him and his traveling companion, ofir, for the night.

here is how the night unfolded.

stop 1, 12:22 a.m., roy's hotel room to pick up super-fly leather jacket, cannot party without it.

stop 2, 1:48 a.m.: pick up ofir from hostel.

stop 3, 2:17 a.m., chat with brazilians staying at hostel.

stop 4, 2:24 a.m.: have brazilian felipe take my scarf and strut on the hostel runway.

stop 5, 3:30 a.m., head to discoteca JET ...

and baila...

until walk through apartment door at 6:33 a.m. i am officially a real argentine girl now!

after that loca night, i woke up at 1 p.m. and headed to san telmo for their weekly outdoor flea market. here's what it looks like:

street art

tchotchkes

tango dancers

and papa, i found gustavo! before i left for buenos aires, my dad told me to find an amazing guitar player named gustavo. that was all the information i had. when i got to san telmo i heard this really pretty music and decided to come back to buy my parents a cd. i asked the musician, "como te llamas?" and what did he say but gustavo :) que suerte!

after the market, i headed back to my neighborhood to meet agustina, the daughter of the man i sat next to on the airplane and the sweetest person ever. here we are at another outdoor market...