Friday night, we decided to go out to a
boliche (nightclub) in Buenos Aires because boliches are as much a part of
Argentinian culture as bars are in Wisconsin.
EVERYONE goes to the boliches at night, regardless of what day of the
week it is; Monday through Sunday you will find the clubs packed with people
and young adults (my age) are considered really weird and anti-social if they
don’t go to boliches at least 2 times a week.
And here’s the kicker… people don’t go to the boliches until 2am!! A
typical night schedule is as follows: nap for a couple hours before dinner,
then dinner from 10pm-midnight, going to a bar from midnight-2am, dancing in a
boliche from 2am-6am, having a second dinner from 6am-9am, and then you finally
return home at 9am to go to sleep. In short, everyone here is nocturnal or they
just don’t sleep, I haven’t figured out which yet.
Unfortunately for us, we are still trying
to adjust to Argentinian time so we woke up at 7am Saturday morning even though
we didn’t return from the boliche until about 4am which is considered extremely
early to leave a club. Rodrigo, the
Argentinian that we sat next to on the plane, recommended a club in Bario Norte
that was holding an electronic music festival which turned out to be more like
trance music. Matt Pitts you would’ve loved it.
Clubs in Argentina are very, very, VERY
different than clubs in America; here, you don’t see the normal “bumping and
grinding” that you do in the U.S.
Instead, the dancing is much more elegant, and the men actually have to
work for a chance to dance with a girl. A man would never ever just walk up to
a woman and start dancing with her.
Instead, he is expected to give the woman a kiss on the hand, introduce
himself, compliment the woman, and then politely ask if she would like to
dance. Then the woman can decide if she wants to say yes or no. The men in
Argentina respect women much more than anywhere else I’ve lived or travelled,
and it’s a refreshing change! You can’t
help but feel cherished and beautiful everywhere you go. Anyway, the dancing is much more like salsa
dancing than anything else; it’s considered impolite to have full body contact,
usually the man only puts his arms around the woman and you sashay from side to
side like salsa dancing. I have no idea how they move their hips so fast, it’s
like I’m watching people dance in double time!
Along the same note, PDA is not only
accepted but encouraged here. For
example, the youth here will go to one of the many parks and sit for HOURS
kissing their significant other. It’s
also common to see couples kissing during classes. The same goes for clubs –
when a man and woman are dancing usually they kiss the entire time. Kissing is much more casual here and not seen
as intimate or romantic; it’s perfectly ok to make out with a random stranger
in a club for hours at a time. Needless to say, it was quite shocking when we
walked in to the Salon Real (the club in Buenos Aries that we went to) and saw
everyone kissing.
I met my Argentinian mom last night; she’s
a divorced señora and has two daughters.
One is studying to be an opera singer and the other is a nuclear
engineer in France. She’s extremely
upbeat and has about three times as much energy as me – she’s always happy and
smiling and ready to do anything and everything. She has two jobs; the first is a german
professor and the second is a building administrator for flats, houses, and apartments
en Mendoza. Last night, Graciela took me
out for sushi with her mom and OMG SUSHI IS AS CHEAP AS DIRT HERE. Well, all restaurants are cheap here. 50 pieces of sushi plus and a ceviche appetizer
and a bottle of wine only cost 150$AR pesos which is about $30 US dollars!!! It’s
so ridiculously cheap it’s unbelievable.
Also, wine is cheaper than water here in
Mendoza. Let me say that again for you
guys…..WINE IS CHEAPER THAN WATER here in Mendoza. How ridiculous is that? These people drink wine with every meal.
I also discovered that Graciela is what
Argentinians call “vegetariano,” or vegetarian, but it doesn't hold the same
significance as it does in the U.S. Here, being a vegetarian means you don’t
eat beef but you eat every other type of meat.
For those of you who don’t know, Argentina has a lot of beef cows and
Argentinians eat beef every day, all day. I have had a steak at least once every day, if
not twice a day, since coming here. I felt like a carnivore
in Buenos Aires – if you ordered beef in a restaurant they would give you a
giant steak with 2 or 3 pieces of spinach and tomato on the side. It’s
crazy. Anyway, since Graciela is
vegetarian we don’t eat beef at the house, but she does have a lot of fish in
the freezer thank goodness. I couldn't live without fish for 5 months, I would probably go through symptoms of withdrawal.
I also learned what a tomato is supposed to taste like. I have no idea how tomatoes in America got so shitty - they're so different that they should be given a different name. There are a lot of influences from Italy here, especially in the food. We're eating a lot of pasta, basil, tomatoes, garlic, pizza, etc. The desserts are heavily influenced by the French however, and we're eating flan, gelato, tiramisu, and bread pudding all the time. Not only are Argentinians addicted to beef, but they're also crazy about their ice cream. Apparently it's normal to walk from ice cream parlor to ice cream parlor until you're so full you can barely walk.
I know earlier I said the driving was bad
in Buenos Aires…but it’s WAY worse in Mendoza. Mendocinos (people from Mendoza)
cannot drive worth shit. There is no
such thing as a speed limit, no one follows signs or traffic lights, people
park on the sidewalks, and people randomly stop their cars in the middle of the
street to pull out a map and look at it.
I’m surprised there aren’t more accidents. Oh, and pedestrians think
they own the street; they will actually casually walk down the street between
cars, in front of cars, etc. It’s
terrifying!
The weather here in Mendoza is beautiful –
usually it’s in the 80s or 90s during the day and 60s or 70s at night. It’s dry heat unlike the insane humidity of
Buenos Aires, which makes it that much better in my opinion. I don’t have any pictures yet, but asap I’ll
post some pictures of the city, it’s absolutely gorgeous with the Andes
Mountains in the background.
Graciela has a maid to cook and clean and
apparently that’s really common here which means the maid does my laundry for
me twice a week! I feel so lazy because
I don’t have to cook or clean anything.
The best part about living with Graciela is
that she’s a language teacher, so she knows how to speak with students learning
a second language – it makes learning Spanish so much easier for me. So far, this blog is the only English that I’ve
spoken or written since coming to Mendoza and, actually, I started writing the
blog in Spanish!! I take that as a good sign :D
Well, I’m going to take a siesta because
that’s the only way I can keep up with this nocturnal lifestyle. Chao!
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