The ridiculousness of the series of events that occurred last night cannot go undocumented...sooooo a few of us decided that we wanted to go out last night, because I hadn't done much all day and felt kind of boring and they had all gone to Uruguay and just laid on the beach, so we were all a little antsy. I met Jared, Liz, and Elise around 1AM and we walked to the bus stop to wait for the good old 152. The bus system here is slightly ridiculous. Buses are called colectivos, and they're all owned by private companies so they're all different, but you can pretty much find one that will get you anywhere you need to go in the city. The problem is that they only accept change (monedas), and each company hoards the monedas because no one has figured out how to redistribute them. This has created a pretty obnoxious situation in Buenos Aires and Argentina in general, because it appears as though there's a moneda shortage and you always hear about some mafia that takes them all for one reason or another. Either way, you can't go to any store, supermarket, or kiosk and ask the attendant to exchange your 2 or 5 or 10 peso bill for monedas, because those monedas are freaking coveted. Even when making a purchase, they'll try and bargain with you to avoid having to give you your change in monedas. The whole thing is quite obnoxious and creates some very interesting situations (my host mom is friends with my friend Jared's host mom who has a house in the country...one Saturday they both told us that we were going to her country house the next day, and that we needed 10 pesos in monedas to get there. We were informed of this on Saturday, when banks aren't open, and Jared and I were forced to wander around the city for the entire day contemplating where the heck we would each get 10 pesos in monedas before 8AM the next morning...)
Anyways, last night we all came prepared with our 1.20 in monedas and waited at the bus stop for 20 minutes while we watched 3 buses zoom past us because there were SO MANY people on them that the drivers wouldn't stop to let us on (mind you, this is at 1:00 in the morning). A 152 FINALLY stops and lets us on, along with about 6 other people, and then we had the bus ride from hell. Why the other bus drivers were just fine with ignoring us because there were already enough people on their buses but this bus driver stopped for EVERYONE that flagged him down, I really could not tell you. We were literally on top of each other for the longest bus ride ever to the Alamo (this kind of sleazy American bar where my best Argie friend Rocio works), where we finally got off and could BREATHE (but not for long). We go into the Alamo, get our huge pitcher of beer, which Jared is forced to cradle and carry around while we wander upstairs and down for another 30 minutes trying to find SOMEWHERE to sit.
We finally end up making friends with some Argentine and Brazilian boys, who all didn't believe me when I told them I wasn't from Buenos Aires, and we sat down at their table. I got to practice my Spanish, which is always good, and the Argentine did a bunch of magic tricks for us, which was also ridiculous, but there was an obnoxious group of Americans sitting/standing at the table next to us (who also all thought I didn't speak English, so Jared and I played it up for a while). Anyways, they kept yelling and singing and 2 of them fell right into our table, almost killed me, and nearly spilt all of our beer. It was when one of them puked all over the floor right next to us, that we decided it was probably time to call it a night. Totally not worth my 20 pesos, plus my 1.20 monedas! Things like that seem to happen on a very regular basis here, and I can't help but laugh at how absolutely ridiculous this city can be sometimes.
Anyways, last night we all came prepared with our 1.20 in monedas and waited at the bus stop for 20 minutes while we watched 3 buses zoom past us because there were SO MANY people on them that the drivers wouldn't stop to let us on (mind you, this is at 1:00 in the morning). A 152 FINALLY stops and lets us on, along with about 6 other people, and then we had the bus ride from hell. Why the other bus drivers were just fine with ignoring us because there were already enough people on their buses but this bus driver stopped for EVERYONE that flagged him down, I really could not tell you. We were literally on top of each other for the longest bus ride ever to the Alamo (this kind of sleazy American bar where my best Argie friend Rocio works), where we finally got off and could BREATHE (but not for long). We go into the Alamo, get our huge pitcher of beer, which Jared is forced to cradle and carry around while we wander upstairs and down for another 30 minutes trying to find SOMEWHERE to sit.
We finally end up making friends with some Argentine and Brazilian boys, who all didn't believe me when I told them I wasn't from Buenos Aires, and we sat down at their table. I got to practice my Spanish, which is always good, and the Argentine did a bunch of magic tricks for us, which was also ridiculous, but there was an obnoxious group of Americans sitting/standing at the table next to us (who also all thought I didn't speak English, so Jared and I played it up for a while). Anyways, they kept yelling and singing and 2 of them fell right into our table, almost killed me, and nearly spilt all of our beer. It was when one of them puked all over the floor right next to us, that we decided it was probably time to call it a night. Totally not worth my 20 pesos, plus my 1.20 monedas! Things like that seem to happen on a very regular basis here, and I can't help but laugh at how absolutely ridiculous this city can be sometimes.
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