Sunday, February 15, 2009

the argentine way

last night, saturday, i went to a salsa party (yeah salsa!). the party was thrown by a friend of a friend who also invited my friends. (ya follow?)

at midnight i met my friends at the colectivo stop a couple blocks away; there were 6 of us total. on the colectivo ride to the party we passed a restaurant that was packed. people were outside, in line, waiting for a seat (it was 12:15 a night!)

after we got off the colectivo we walked the rest of the way to the party. on the way we picked up another friend. at 1AM the 7 of us ARRIVED at the party. i'm not kidding when i say this, but we were early. around 3AM majority of the people arrived.

the apartment was on the second floor and there was a huge patio where everyone was dancing. i had a really good time. i got to dance and spend time with the people i'm closest to here.

at 4am we left the party. me and a friend just wanted to go home, the rest of the people went to a club to go dancing. so, at 4am they WENT to the club. i still can't believe how crazy that is, but it's starting to feel normal.

my friend and i caught a cab and i was in bed by 4:30am.

at 10am i woke up and went rollerblading in the park with my neighbor and his wife. i really wanted to speak spanish with them but my tired brain just couldn't do it. i'm surprised english came out.

after some rollerblading they treated me to lunch at a cafe

i was home by 2pm and back in bed for a siesta.

3 comments:

Nancy said...

Just curious... when do they eat breakfast & lunch? And if they are up so late, do they snack all day long? Is there an obesity problem like there is in the town I live in?

Anonymous said...

We have also bumped up our hours later into the evening than we are used to in the States, but still aren't even close to "the Argentine way." I still can't figure out when anyone actually sleeps, and have wondered if the many inexplicable problems with infrastructure and the economy here might be related to having a population suffering severe sleep deprivation? Any time I do not get enough sleep, especially deficient by hours, I spend the day feeling jet lagged. My work suffers dramatically. Do Argentines have some special genetic code that allows them to function at work after sleeping, at best, a couple of hours?

The other side to your salsa party is anyone living next door or above or below. Our Argentine neighbors, with whom we share a wall, had a party Friday night that began (early I suppose) at about 10, and was still going loud and strong at 4, when I finally passed out from exhaustion and finally fell asleep. When I had to wake up at 7 to make an appointment that morning, I felt like I'd just flown the red eye from Berlin to Los Angeles. The day was wasted and I didn't feel like a human until I managed to get a one hour siesta in the later afternoon.

So we got to share in the party, too, from the other side of the wall, lying in bed listening to what sounded like flamenco dancing to rap music.

Can't tell you how much fun we had sharing their party.

yillabean said...

I still haven't figured out the time schedule yet. i know when dinner time is, but i'm not sure when breakfast and lunch occur. no one is over weight like in the states and i REALLY can't figure this one out because it seems like everything has tons and tons of sugar in it. (my dessert the other day was sprinked in sugar) i'm not worried about my weight as much as i'm worried about my poor teeth! it's still a mystery when the argentines sleep and how they still have all their teeth.


donigan, you know, i never connected the poor infrastructure with the argentine insomnia! i think you're on to something!