Guess what happened to me.
Trip Start
Aug 03, 2008
1
22
23
Trip End
??? ??, 2008
Buenos Aires,
Argentina
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Time for the weekly edition of "Brad Gets Robbed"!
Actually, I thwarted this attempt. Here's the story:
A field trip for my class called "Cultural Icons" required us to go to the neighborhood of La Boca. Why they didn't arrange transportation for us is beyond me, as they made sure we understood after our city tour that we should not go to this area.
So, having severe problems accessing my money (looong story, all the result of my first robbing and subsequent credit card company errors) I decided to take a city bus with some friends, totally legit.
After about a 40 minute bus ride, we got to our stop in La Boca and got off. It was about 4 blocks in between the bus stop and the museum/thing that we had to go to. And it was 2:00 in the afternoon.
La Boca is poor, but bustling. Old women walking around everywhere and stray dogs and kids and everything. Actually, it's kind of a fun atmosphere. But then, enter the 3 blonde American students. There was a guy, about my age, well dressed and relatively harmless looking, sitting on a box about a block ahead and across the street. As soon as he stood up, I knew I was screwed. When we got within about 1/3 of a block, he just started sprinting at us. He just cornered me and let the girls go (chivalrous!) and said, in very good English might I add, "Give me the money, give me the money, give me the money".
I looked around and of course there was nobody on the street because I'm Brad and that's my luck. So, he yells at me some more, I snap out of it... and realizing that my life is ridiculous, I just said, "UGHHHHH NOOOOOO!" pretty loud. He was surprised. Then he repeated his wishes, and I responded by just saying "No. No. No." every time. He probably thought I was nuts because he was a lot bigger than me. Anyway, my no's must have been pretty loud because after about 10 seconds of demanding my money and fishing in my pockets (YEAH SECURITY WALLET!!) he pushed me and said, "Just go!" and ran away.* Then, I chased him down, and beat him up and said, "Now you tell all of your friends in this country to STOP ROBBING ME" and he begged for forgiveness. (Please note, * denotes the beginning of embellishment)
It was funny because I wasn't saying "no" to trying and alert anybody (which would've been smart), I was just seriously being like, "noooo way this is happening!"
I just had to laugh my ass of afterwards. What are the chances? The girls were a little bit more shaken up.. you know, cuz it's scary walking away from somebody getting robbed!
Other than that, life has been pretty good guys. I had 2 finals today, which I'm sad to say I bombed. I think the fact that I devoted exponentially more time to traveling and having fun than I did to class may have had something to do with it. Only young once right? I always have my trust fund to live off of.. oh wait..
It has been hot as.. really hot here. It was 83 degrees when I woke up at 8:30 this morning. It got hotter. Haha, it totally sucks the energy out of you, and makes me sweaty and gross, but I'd still take it over the frigid temperatures of Minnesota's winter any day. It's going to be tough to go back to.
Nothing else interesting really happened in the last week... hmm..
-I got another tattoo... this one says "Buena Onda", which is a very popular phrase that pretty much means "good vibes". I like it.
-I went to an amazing boliche (club) over the weekend and made it until sunrise yet again.
-Despite the weather, I'm really excited to come home... but I'll miss this city, even if it's full of people that really want my money.
-My last final is tomorrow, in Spanish, which will be fine. I won't have class for over 2 months after!
I leave for Peru on Sunday night at midnight. The chance of getting robbed is twice as likely there, so just imagine how I'll do! I'm extremely excited though.
Wish me luck kids, hope all is well.
HAPPY DIA DE PAVOOO
