Mullet City
Buenos Aires,
Argentina
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
With so many things in their favour, chocolate, ice cream, steaks and beautiful places, there has to be something on the con side of Argentina, and that con is hairdressers. Brace yourself, I feel a Sex and the City esque rambling coming on.
The Mullet
There is no way you will catch me going into a hairdressers here. I am scared that I will end up with a mullet, and don`t be shocked, femullets are just as common as the mullet. Does this prove that women also look to David Beckham for fashion advice? Most frequently, the mullet can be viewed in tandem with a mohawk, hair gel and clubbing sunglasses.
I thought that we had a mullet problem in Australia, but it is nothing compared to the mullet plague here in Argentina. In Australia they tend to be found on the ultra cool metrosexual or the big time bogan, but in Argentina they are on the young 20 somethings. Seriously, the mullet in Argentina (called a "cubano" to make it seem cooler) is on the same epidemic proportions as the "Rachel".
Teamed with sunglasses in the nightclub and singlets and often a tatt or piercing, the mullets look like they are here to stay. Seeing a femullet is very scary. These girls are scary in their attempt to be punky like Pink (but more angsty) and I just can`t imagine having a femullet for a friend (Fergo, your primary school mullet doesn`t count, I understand that that was a parental decision). The girls also attempt a Marky Mark Calvin Klein pose with their undies hanging out the top of their jeans. I just don`t fit, or get, the picture of Argentine cool.
On a side note, we all know that latinos give the cheek kiss greeting, depending on where you are it is either one or two cheeks, but here in Argentina, the boys kiss each other in greeting. It is rather unnerving to see two boys with mullets, nice arms, tattoos, sunglasses and pink shirts, kissing each other in greeting. It kind of goes against the machismo that they have and the Australian boys would be very frightened of this.
A Night of Randoms
My first night out in BA started at the yawning time of 1am, and that`s only the time we left the hostel. I was curled up on the couch and needed to be prodded before my bag got slung over my shoulder. Why can`t they be normal and go out earlier?
The club was called Club 69 and apparently it`s the best place on a Thursday. Our 10 peso entry got us greeted by part of what I dubbed the Sex Doll brigade. They were thus named for their style of dancing, which I could only describe as "sex" and then towards the time of sunrise they were redubbed the "Dirty Bitches" for their blatant dry porn on stage. This includes the women in tutus and bra tops and the men in sequined hot pants. It was very hard to tear my eyes away from what was happening on stage and I felt like a pervert.
I spent a lot of time being drawn away from the other 3 from the hostel in what was like a giant washing machine on an aggressive spin cycle. This wasn`t such a bad thing. I found out that you don`t need to worry about making subtle moves on Argentinian guys, they will happily initiate a conversation. And when they discovered that I was from Australia, almost all of them started to speak to me in broken English, which I was very impressed with as it never happened anywhere else.
I managed to shake a couple of guys off and then got sucked deeper into the crowd and in the path of Sebastian who turned out to be confused between a kiss and a lick. In my definition, licking someone`s whole mouth like you would lick a drip off the bottom of your icecream cone is nowhere near kissing. So I did a pash and dash and ran back to Tej who said she was going home. No sooner had she turned her back, Daniel came up to me and started with the questions. He kissed me and was also a bad kisser, but this time he puckered up his whole mouth and then pushed his tongue through the cat`s bum-like aperture. I allowed myself to be sucked back into the crowd away from him very quickly.
I spent some time moving through the crowd until I came across Javier. I can`t even remember why I initiated the pash and dash escape route, but I think it was an overambitious kiss. Come to think of it, I can`t even remember what he looked like, although I do think he was wearing sunglasses, but I would have remembered if he had a mullet....
The dancefloor was clearing a bit, revealing the rubbish and Red Bull cans covering it. The porno show had finished and I was now almost right at the stage and admiring the shirtless boys with nice arms around me. Now why do boys without shirts on get kicked out of the pubs back home? It is, on the whole, a beautiful sight. Wondering how I could snare myself a shirtless, nice armed, tattoed and sunglassed (without mullet) boy, I had Gabriel say something to me. He fit my "Wanted" poster and I was willing to overlook him being the same height or a bit shorter (hey it`s not the first time in my trip or life that the height issue was negotiable). He was also a good kisser, nothing amazing, but he was redeeming the Argentinians as I was prepared to write them all of as bad kissers.
The club wound up at 8am and it was well and truly daylight outside. Gabriel walked with me to the subway and we squashed ourselves onto the peak hour train. It was weird being on a train full of work-bound people again and I was very conscious of being in my clubbing clothes, smudged mascara and smelling like an ashtray (Argentinians smoke a lot, and they also smoke a lot of weed on the dancefloor).
My Internet Friend
I started emailing a girl who I "met" through the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree. We found out that we would be in Buenos Aires at the same time so we arranged to meet up. After some botched jobs, we went out on my last night in BA. I met a guy in her hostel that I had sold a mine tour to in Potosi about three months before. He had a broken leg, a result of being hit by a car in BA in a hit and run accident. He was very lucky that he wasn't further across the road.
Amy and I went to dinner and then to a tango bar with the people from her hostel. It was fairly subdued and tango was the only dancing happening. Since neither of us could tango we went to another bar which I thought was supposed to have a dancefloor, but instead there were just a zillion pool tables and tables and benches filled with students. It reminded me of a uni night down the pub, but it was a cross between the Canada and Waterloo.
I had walked about 5 metres into the place when a guy grabbed me and said "Mi amor" and gave me the hugest bear hug. Unfortunately I was more worried about Amy keeping on going without seeing that I had been waylaid, so I laughed and tried to untangle myself, but didn't see his face, which is a bit sad cos it was a nice hug.
We then got talking to a Spiderman's best friend lookalike and his friend who were funny guys. During this time a medical student came up to me and started talking, but I played the bitch when he couldn't remember my name and used that as my excuse to escape. However, whilst Australian boys will maybe make one last ditch effort to a cold shoulder, or otherwise call you a cow and walk off, this guy was persistence to the last e and required walking off before he finally got part of the message.
The club closed at about 4:30am and Amy and I had a coffee with the boys at a servo before catching the first subway train back into the city.
What I Did in BA
As my hostel wasn't the massive party I kinda hoped for (shoulda gone to the Milhouse for that) and I was in another of my jaded moods, I spent the whole week wandering the streets and looking for things to buy when I come back after Christmas. Boring I know. I didn't see any sights, but I figure I'll probably go back one day with my Mum, so then I'll do the tourist trail.
Things I Learned
* The Pentax in Pink is very sick and requires lots of time and money to be well again. She will be able to wait until coming back home to be sent off to the spa resort Pentax Australia and given TLC there.
* All I want to do is shop.
* You don't need to try to pick up in Buenos Aires - the boys put in all the effort (a welcome change!!!)
