Mental problems, non-seedless grapes & Bush bashin

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  Buenos Aires, Argentina
Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Jan 22 Tuesday

I walk around some parks that have lakes (ponds) and crap like that.  It`s another perfect day outside although a bit hot.  Nothing too interesting happens.  I do get a cheeseburger from a sidewalk vendor and the wind picks up and blows my ketchup packet, my napkin and my fork (why I need a plastic fork to eat a cheeseburger is beyond my powers of comprehension) in like three different directions so I run around for like 2 minutes trying to pick this crap up and people are looking at me running around like a tard.  Wow, that was the most interesting thing, slow day.  I go to a gym and get in everybody´s way.  I go to the supermarket to get some shit and realize you can buy really cheap milk here but the drawback is it comes in a bag.  I have never seen milk in a bag before (not counting a tit bag.  What would you do if you were getting on a chick who recently had a kid, you are sucking on her cannons and milk comes out, I mean would you like get grossed out and jet?  Personally, I would probably just go get a bowl of cereal and fill er up), but the price is right and I decide to buy it.  Problem with milk in a bag is that when it sits in the fridge you have to do some propping up of the bag so the milk doesn`t spill out and I realize the pain is not worth the 1 peso savings in price.  Lesson learned.  Putting milk in a bag is odd though, that would be like putting self control into Lindsay Lohan or a weiner into a lesbian. 

People in BA have a lot of mental problems or so they think ( have I written about this yet, damn it, if so my bad).  1 in 3 females in BA have a psychiatrist.  It`s almost as though needing a pychiatrist is so culturally ingrained into the society in BA that the residents don`t even question the fact that maybe they don`t really need one.  It`s as if it`s just a part of life like getting up and going to work.  It`s just something you have to do.  Talk to any female over the age of 21 who`s family can afford it and there is a good chance she sees a psychiatrist.  Men go to psychiatrists also but not as frequently as females.  In most places in the world you see a psychiatrist only when you have a significant and specific mental or behavioral problem that needs to be dealt with and is too big to be handled on one`s own, but not in BA.  People simply assume that you need a psychiatrist to function normally and be happy.  Psychiatrists must flock to BA once they get out of school.  It would be Heidi Fleiss working with Charlie Sheen, you know there will always be a demand for your services. 

Stuart and I split a bottle of vodka and we head out along with Coleen to some club.  Not exactly the type of place I had in mind since it is filled with Internationals and hardly any locals.  The scene is a bit odd with people from all over the world sans Argentinians.  It`s interesting though since I get to meet so many people in a short time frame from so many different places.  I start talking to this one chick and her boyfriend or whoever this dude is comes walking up from who knows where, gets jealous or whatever and totally cuts in and cuts me off and puts his arm around her and starts whispering in her ear for like 2 minutes.  Dude, that`s a good way to get your ass kicked but there are so many people here to hang out with, who cares, act like an envious little bitch.  Coleen keeps trying to dance with me and she`s hammered and I want no part of that so I sort of blow her off.  I end up talking to this smoking Brazilian chick and we are sort of leaning up against a wall and out of nowhere this dude comes up to her, doesn`t say a word and just starts making out with her, hah, what the fuck is going on around here.  Ok, well then, apparently this place is full of more cockblockers than the entrance to the Vestal Virgins`s sanctuary in ancient Rome.  I end up meeting a chick from Pittsburg of all places and she sucks pretty bad.  I know three people now from Pittsburg and they all blow (just playing Padovan and Champ).  Lucy shows up and I end up making out with her, hmmm, probably not a good idea but fuck it.  I`ll be leaving BA soon enough.

Jan 23 Wednesday

I go to the bus station to buy a ticket to Rosario for the next day.  Rosario is the birth place of one Che Guevara.  I sit down at this makeshift foodstand place near the bus station which is an interesting area to say the least and I take a seat at the counter and order whatever it is I ordered and some old dude next to me with one tooth who I nicknamed Chopper starts talking to me in garbled Spanish.  Sweet.  He is a super nice guy but he keeps losing food out of his mouth and spitting bits of it all over me.  He gives me a piece of his whatever it is he was eating (I think it was some sort of breaded beef with cheese) and I look at it and I`m just like wow, I have to eat this now after it was probably in his mouth and fell out of it back onto his plate and he didn`t even realize it.  I don`t know how this dude can eat with one tooth and I assume he probably only actually gets to digest at the most half of whatever he orders.  I understand very little of what he says but I just say whatever phrases I can think of in Spanish and we have a very nice, basically non-existent, food laden conversation.  When I leave (I ate as fast as I possibly could) he gives me a very gratuitous handshake and thankfully he doesn`t kiss me on the side of the face.  What a sweet dirty old man.  And once again I notice nobody will drink out of a bottle.  In all my time here I don`t think I have seen one South American drink anything out of a bottle including beer.  They use straws or usually pour it in a glass.  I find this strange.  I take the metro back and I purposely get on the wrong line (the A line) because it still uses the same wooden cars from the early 1900`s.  It`s unbeliveably cool.  Everything inside the car is made of the original wood which is dark brown in color with some woodwork done to it and the lights which are fake candles are turned down really low and it definitely transports you to a time none of us have ever experienced.  I can`t believe they still use these cars and the experience of riding this metro was much cooler than it sounds. 

I don`t do much today as I stayed out pretty late last night and got a bit perved.  I need a day off and I`m actually looking forward to not drinking tonight.  So I see Stuart later on and I ask him where he ran off to last night since I didn`t see him later on and apparently he got violently tossed out of the club.  He had the biggest bruise on his leg (I`m assuming that was the point of impact with the pavement) and no recollection of why he got tossed.  All he remembers is being manhandled by like 4 bouncers and simply picked up and thrown out onto the street.  He says he didn`t do anything and he doesn`t understand why he got brutally bounced.  Now I`ve known this guy for about 60 hours and I can tell you without hesitanting one second that he definitely did something and whatever it was that he did he probably deserved what he got.  He explicity denies accountability but that`s just he was so blacked out he doesn`t remember.  This dude`s brain doesn`t work quite right and I would bet money that it was entirely his fault.  Anyways, pretty funny. 

I go buy some fruit and shit because I think my body needs it and I realize that there are no seedless grapes.  I have never seen a seedless grape in SA.  I mean have they not figured out the necessary hybrid process to produce seedless grapes?  Somebody should really show them how.  I`m sure they can be found but I have yet to achieve this monumental task.  Two brazilian dudes show up at the hostel and ask if I`m French.  I`m like hell no, that`s the worst nationality you could have guessed (btw there was a French dude sitting right there when I said this).  These two brazilians are politically conscious and holy shit do they hate Bush.  They are definite pacifists so that is one reason but stil they are very passionate about their dislike for him.  It is truly amazing the amount of time and effort people all over the world put into keeping updated with US politics.  Everywhere I go people have opinions on US foreign policy and US politics and US economics and US this and that.  You never hear a German discussing politics in England with an English chap.  Never.  I have to put up with a little US bashing and I start to get a bit annoyed.  Here`s the thing, how can anyone possibly think they have even the slightest idea of what is really going on with the US.  The US has to be so impossibly complicated with so many moving pieces (if we do A then we will upset B, but C will be better off but we have to be careful with D and so on and so on if you get my drift) that nobody on the outside with limited information should ever make a judgement on US policies especially on a specific level.  I understand having opinions and thinking you know what the US should do in a general aspect but nobody can possibly know the complicated scenarios that the US government must deal with on a daily basis.  Oh, I know the US fucks up and sometimes they only do things for it`s own self-interest, but I also understand that decisions have to be made with sometimes limited information and no matter which decision is made it will be the wrong one in the eyes of some.  You can`t please everyone.  At least America is always on the side of good.  We may be really bad in execution sometimes but at least our intentions are Usually (not always) good.  If we are to blame for anything than blame us for being really really bad at nation rebuilding.  Anyways, I try to defend the US to the best of my abilities.  They weren`t beligerently badgering the US but being pacifists they were especially steadfast in their hatred for the war, yeah well, join the majority of US citizens.  On another note, my package still didn`t show up.  Fuck

Fin

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