Ummm, ¿hola?

Let me begin by saying a sincere sorry to the actual Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They allowed me to choose a url, and the first thing that came to mind was the honorable justice´s name. Justice Ginsburg, if you´re reading this and plan on starting a blog soon, we can arrange something.

Now that thats out of the way, its time to make an attempt to sum my life up for the past few months. In true hotelie fashion, I´ve decided to use bullet points in lieu of a ^Powerpoint plug in.

• I came back from Calistoga (represent) and coasted for a bit till after thanksgiving.
• After la dia del pavo, I started searching for jobs in the wine biz, to keep that momentum going
• I decided that Boston is a pretty sweet place so I took a few trips there to find a job.
• In boston, I had interviews at a bar and a retail wine shop, as well as contacts in the distribution industry. By January I had one offer that I did not care to take. Have to pay the bills somehow.
• Crashed on Alex´s couch a lot, where I got to meet his deadbeat roomie as well as a gay stalker who lived downstairs. If I do move to boston, Brookline is out of the question.
• Got a job offer in New York with a sketchy wine shop uptown. The interview made me feel dirty, so I knew i´d hate that place.
• Gave up on jobs for a week and instead ordered a rolling rock quarter keg with kenny. Took us two weeks to complete, but it was an accomplishment.
• Skied a bit, freelanced for dad, and made a bit of cash.
• On Dec 28th, jokingly jabbered to my mother that I´d like to learn spanish in argentina. She said ok, I called her bluff, and January 3rd I was scheduled to leave.
• Flight was delayed but I got 18,000 bonus miles. Booya
• Arrived in Buenos Aires (now and forever, BA) on the 4th, ate at Aromi with grandmama, and slept in a familiar twin bed.

Bullet points rock.

Anyway, my first few weeks here have been pretty sweet. First few days I hung around with my grandma, registered for my class (nivel 4!) and was shown the way to class by my mothers friend´s son´s cousin, or Maximillien. I take the 80 bus (called a colleción here) to the subte Linea B, which I ride all the way downtown.

First day of class met a lot of fun people. I´m taking español para extranjeors, which is spanish for foreigners. Initially our class was comprised of 4 americans, 1 englishman, an australian, two swedes, a german, 2 frenchmen, two brazilians and an iranian. The following day saw a switch of 1 american for a frenchman, which diminished our domination. These things happen.

Class in general has been fun. The mix of opinions and experiences is quite amazing, and I couldn´t hope for a better mix of students all speaking an unfamiliar language but getting along. Makes me think if the world adopted a language no one really knows (Quechua, por ejemplo) we´d have less fighting. We talk about everything from religion, to machoness, to tango, to reparations (seriously) and transvestites. Almost always a blast.

I´ve also made some good american friends here so far. The first day in class I met a girl, Amanda, who is enrolled at UF. She expressed a desire to see the game and of course I wanted to see the BCS championship. We met at a place called the Alamo which proclaimed it was the only bar in BA that was playing the game and got away with chargin us 50 pesos a piece to enter. They did provide a freely flowing fountain of beer several times throughout the night, which mitigated the damage, but it still hurt. We got drunk, UF won, and I got to see a bunch of bummed out buckeyes. I ended up passing out on my couch and woke up with a lovely hangover. Good night.

My other good american friend is Jessica, who is a Brown alum here with her BA boyfriend, Ignacio. Along with amanda the four of us have been hanging out and taking in the city (mostly the drinking part of the city). For example, the other night we went to a place called Opera B, or something like that, but my rainbows were not proper dress attire, strange for such a casual city. After an attempted Bribe which the Bouncer claimed was ¨menos¨we went to a place in Palermo (a barrio in BA) called Acabar. At the time I thought it was just an innocent pun because Acabar means to Finish. But much to my delight it also means to finish, sexually. Clearly, I´ll have to start using the word a lot more. Drank lots there too!

One of my favorite activities is chatting with cabbies. If I go out to the center at night, it usually warrants a return trip with a cab, since subtes close at night. Usually is a 15 20 min ride by 4 am, so I get home fast. However in my drunken state any inhibition I house to speak the language disappears. We talk about a lot, how life has improved in BA, how Bush sucks, what wines are good, drug addictions and so on. Never fail to interst me. One of the cabbies that my family usually contracts also remembers Eric from when he drove us to the airport 4 years ago. Porteños have crazy memories about people, and he calls him the Chino (which isn´t racist). Didn´t mention Shiran though, even though your asian too, technically.

I´ve been hanging around a lot with my grandmother, and she couldn´t be happier. She´s very old fashion, so she doesn´t let me do much in the way of preparing food or cleaning up after myself. Can´t say I complain much, though I help around in other ways. We eat dinner together a few times a week, drink a lot of maté together, and watch this one japanese guy on the argentine food tv. The dude is roughly 20 stones, speaks spanish fluently, cuts with insane precision, and makes traditional japanese food you never see in the states.

I´ve also met up with my argentine friends from the past. Federico is a wild and crazy guy who is the son of my Mom´s best argentine friend, Virginia. The two go way back and have known each other for like 40 years... something I can´t begin to fathom. Anyway, the first night I went out with them we got drunk off wine filled penguins at a restaurant La Dorita. We had proveletta (straight grilled provolone cheese, crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside, all around yum) as well as a mixture of meat. Federico is crazy funny and knows enough english to joke around with a bunch of words. We spoke spanish for the most part and I talked about my travels, he spoke of his travels, then about all the hot chicks in the restaurant, then about the wine, then more on hot chicks and so on. The kid had no shame. In the car we saw a voluptuous female cross in front, and, in front of his mother no less, commented on the curvature of her ass while banging on the window and howling. Its quite a common practice in BA, but he´s managed to take it to a different nivel.

This is getting pretty long but that sums up the last fortnight fairly.

As for last night, the Brazilians at the school decided to throw a party at their hostel with tons of meat, lots of music and lots of people. I had a blast, got drunk, recovered from my cold and best of all, I was able to be an asshole. On our way out I noticed a blasted brazillian passed out on the couch, shoes on. Using my quick wits, I swiped a black marker behind the hostel desk that smelled of paint and began to draw on his receding forehead, much to the protest of one of his friends. However, upon seeing the word penis drawn haphazardly, she insisted it looked like Japanese and implied I should draw it again, so I did. After a quick escape and a failed attempt to find another bar, I went home. This morning, after much scrubbing, the black marker I accidentally got on my hand is still here, so somewhere in BA, there is a poor soul with two penises on his face.

I´m too content right now, its terrifying.