Half Day Fridays

It is Saturday and I feel like its Sunday because I had yesterday off. Life can be so lovely sometimes.

On Thursday night my fellow workmates and I went for half-priced drinks at the Fat Black Pussy Cat. I ordered two Fat Black Pussycats and, as usual, was ruined. In the good way, though, wherein drunkenness makes you honest and unable to walk in a straight line and somehow infinitely more charming than you are when sober. After much drinking and giggling and trying to fit our bodies inside a weird Egyptian sarcophagus that was near our couches at Fat Black, we headed East to grab some of the best pizza I've ever had before seeing The Cloud Room play at Mercury Lounge.

My friend SM from Boston is currently the keyboardist for the Cloud Room, which is a band that is currently approved of by Hipster Nation. It was nice to see SM and very exciting to see him play again:





We then went home because we are old, although I think I could have stayed out for many more hours.

Yesterday was mostly sloth and then a trip to Williamsburg:



I was afraid that I'd get nostalgic, but the combination of heat and my heavy bag prevented me from really experiencing anything other than discomfort.



I do, however, miss the view:



Gasp.

We walked around a bit and could have spent hours looking through books and CD's and for a couch for D, but instead ate dinner at Anytime, which I miss but not as much any more, and didn't get knishes at Pita Power because it has closed! Ridiculous.

We then headed to Rooftop Film's presentation of the Found Footage Festival. If you have the opportunity to see this where you live, please, do yourself a favor and see it.

It's found videos - from absurd promotional insurance videos to home movies to the Wendy's instructional rap video on how to properly cook hamburger patties. There was this really old Arnold Schwarzenagger video in which he goes to Carnevale and engages in all manner of gross womanizing. There were a bunch of silly exercise videos from the 80's (a Playgirl one and one featuring Patrick Swayze and his mother and another one with Angela Lansbury talking about post-menopause sexuality!), a, gasp, penis pump video, various local access type shows and this hilarious man who wrote songs about all of the zodiac signs and then performed them while wearing a tuxedo while some girl interpretative danced behind him while he sang "P...p...p...Pisces!." The best was a seamless edit of outtakes from a Winebago sales video in which the salesman curses nonstop that had me in tears. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

And now I am catching up on home projects like CD burning and blogging and nail painting. I love having an extra day.

Until the week...

Drosophila

I rented Laurel Canyon from Netflix last week.

I rented it to have further time to gaze upon the beauty that is Christian Bale.

The movie is about the relationship between an aging record producer and her extremely uptight son.

To illustrate that her son and his fiance are smart and uptight, the writer decided to have Christian Bale be a doctor, and in the case of the fiance, played by Kate Beckinsale, an MD/PhD student!

There are many examples of Kate's being "smart" in the film, such as when she beats Christian Bale at Scrabble and how she looks orgasmically at some Drosophila codons and then chrystal structures as she writes her dissertation.

She may be the smartest girl in her class, but when asked in what she is getting her PhD, she responded with:

"Gene-aw-mics."

If she's so damn smart, why can't she pronounce "Genomics?"

And more importantly, if she is studying the Drosophila gene-awm, why does she say "Dros-oh-FEEL-a?"

Yeah.

Also, Natalie Portman is going to be in "V for Vendetta," and she's apparently British. I am already horrified. I am even more horrified that there were petri dishes in the preview.

OK.

I'm not working tomorrow.

Have great weekends!

YEAH!

Bills

I awoke from a dream last night at 4:30 am. In the dream, I was living in this really sweet, gigantic apartment, to which I'd just had delivered three new refrigerators and two new bookshelves. I was distressed, in the dream, because I'd just lost my wallet and there was no way I was going to be able to pay for the refrigerators. "I only need one of these!" I declared to my friends (fictional), who'd been angry with me earlier in the dream for not telling them I'd moved to such a grandiose apartment.

As the dream wore on, I started organizing things rather minimalistly, and made my apartment be about 10x the size I thought it was. I was very, very excited!

Then the maid showed up.

The maid?

What?

I was like "Excuse me... what are you doing here?"

"I'm the maid for the apartment complex."

"What?"

"I clean everyone's apartment."

"What? You've been cleaning my apartment?"

"Yes," she chuckled snidely.

"Really? It doesn't look like anyone's been cleaning it."

"Well, I haven't been doing a very good job."

"Am I supposed to leave you tips? I swear I didn't know there was a maid."

"Yes. You are supposed to leave me a tip. This is why I've been doing a bad job."

"Shit. I'm sorry. I swear I didn't know. How much am I supposed to leave?"

"Well, on average, people tip $30 a week, but usually more."

"$30 a week!?!? WHAT? That's $120 a month! I can't afford that! Is this maid service optional?"

"No."

"So you've been coming in here and not cleaning... what have you been doing?"

She insinuated that she'd been doing sketchy things, and I was livid.

"I can't afford to pay you not to mess with my apartment! If I'd have known that this place was going to be $120 more a month than I thought, I'd never have taken it! This is absurd! How dare they? Especially given that I have to pay insane money in health expenses..."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I jolted awake then, reminded of the "health expenses."

Earlier that evening I'd received an extremely distressing notice from my insurance company indicating that I owe an obscene amount of money to someone. Obscene. Obscene obscene obscene.

I guess I didn't allow myself to think about it when I opened the mail. It's far to upsetting.

At 4:30 am, I was thinking things like "With that amount of money, I could have:"

- taken 16 photography classes
- bought 4 or more really nice new cameras
- taken 2 really awesome and exotic vacations
- bought 20 keyboards off of Craigslist
- paid rent and all other bills for two months
- have divided the money up over a year and have gotten a huge gigantic apartment
- bought 15 pairs of new glasses

I was up until about 6:00 am, tossing and turning and doing math.

I can't stand the thought of seeing my savings torn apart because of health insurance.

I hate that its basically like losing money. Like you wake up one day and boom! It's all gone.

I hate that, here, if you spend that amount of money, you can't ever make it back. It's literally gone. No amount of lifestyle altering could get that money back in even 5 years of living in New York City. Yes, I have it, but the only reason I have it because I was able to save it in Boston. And I didn't save it for this.

The good news is that my money is most likely not going to vanish. I called the health insurance people today and pointed out the issue, and they were like "We have no idea - we will look into it - it looks like we billed it incorrectly, so you most likely won't owe anything."

I am going to operate under the assumption that I won't owe anything and will live as normal and will go to MA and Philly and VT in the next month and not worry. I may take buses instead of trains, though. I was thinking "I can't go home! I can't afford it! I can't go to VT! I refuse to go to Philly for the baby shower! I am going to have to move out of my apartment! Maybe out of New York City! I will definitely have to leave my job because how can I work for a company with such an absurd insurance plan? What if something else happens to me? I will be screwed! For the love of god why do I pay for health insurance if they won't cover anything!?"

Yeah.

So I'm a little tired.

But relieved.

And suddenly feeling like I have options.

Buenos Aires - Saturday - The End

This is my last Buenos Aires post. I swear.

You don't need to read this. These posts are really for me and my future most likely nonexistent children and grandchildren who will say things like "What were you like?" and I'll be all "I wonder if my blog is still floating around out there...you can read it... and see pictures!"

Or, maybe I'll still be writing My Mundane Life in Song when I am a retiree, when I will have plenty of time to write songs to appease my readers.

I digress...

D and I awoke about four hours after we returned from the wedding, feeling ill and hungover and delirious and exhausted and sad. We'd had an argument the night (morning) before. All week I'd been saying "D, I really want to get room service. When will we ever be able to afford room service? This is a great opportunity!" M and A got room service and said it was good. D thought this was a great idea, so when we were filling out the room service card the night before he was all "What do you want?" and I was like "Scrambled eggs, toast, juice... everything!" He checked off everything I wanted and that was it. I was like "Aren't you going to get anything?" and he was like "I have stuff here. You know. I have the crackers and the cheese and candy I bought. I'll eat that."

We had a small fight, where I yelled "Why do you have to be so cheap?" and he yelled "Why do you have to be so judgmental? I'm just being efficient! And not wasteful!" and I yelled "It's like 30 cents of waste! And it's the last time we will ever be in Buenos Aires! I think it would be nice to have the last meal together here and have it not be crackers!" We went to bed not-mad, and I still have never ordered room service in my life.

I decided, instead, that I'd get lunch with M and A that afternoon after we checked out, because getting room service alone while there someone else in your room is depressing.

After packing, we headed down to the lobby and checked out at noon.

The four of us deliriously headed down to the Recoleta in search of a restaurant, and ended up at the Design Mall. Again. I was so hungover and dehydrated and tired and insane. I said "Dudes, all I want is some scrambled eggs. I would kill for some scrambled eggs. How awesome would scrambled eggs be?"

M agreed. There was a Hard Rock Cafe in the Design Mall that we'd made fun of earlier in the week, but it now seemed really appealing. "Dudes," I said, "I'd eat at Hard Rock right now. I bet they have greasy fabulous American brunch. What do you say?"

On our way to the Hard Rock, M noticed that this cafe that we'd eaten at earlier in the week (where we had an amazing dessert) had a sign claiming to have eggs. We decided to eat there, since eating at Hard Rock is cheesy, even when you're starving to death.

It was freezing out (freezing! so not only was I hungover with a headache and starving and dehydrated and delirious, I was shivering) so walking into the restaurant was a relief. The hostess, however, sat us outside. I have no idea. Everyone else was sitting inside the restaurant. We were literally the only people sitting outside in this shelter thing that was allegedly heated but wasn't really warm. Because it was winter. We sat for a while, wondering why she'd put us out there. I was really cold, and trying not to be bitchy about it, but kept saying "Why are we out here? Why us? Why did she make us sit here? Why does everyone else get to sit inside? I'M COLD!" D talked to her and she was apologetic and brought us back into the restaurant. We still don't know why she made us sit out there.

Inside, we were served bread with a nice cheese spread that we inhaled.

M and I both ordered scrambled eggs, and D and A ordered the same omelette. I asked for a diet coke, and the others ordered coffee and orange juice. D also asked for more of the cheese spread.

The coke and orange juices arrived, but no coffee. No cheese spread.

Half an hour later the waitress appeared and we asked for water, which never came.

In the middle of this, some guy yelled at A in Spanish about leaving his camera on the floor and put it on a chair at the end of our table.

Half an hour later the food came and we were psyched! They brought it out, covered, and placed it behind D and A. We were even more hungry than we'd been. When they opened the first platter, M and I were like "Man, they really messed up your omelettes!" It was a pile of mystery food - maybe there was a total of one egg in it - and ham and peas and potatoes or something. When they placed it in front of M, we were confused. They opened the second platter, which looked more like an omelette, and gave that to A. And then the second omelette to D. And then the second order of "scrambled eggs" to me.

OK, folks. Scrambled eggs. Scrambled eggs should HAVE EGGS. Scrambled eggs is not a pile of stuff involving ham and vegetables and no eggs.

I was livid. Not only did we not have cheese spread or water or coffee, not only had we waited for hours for our food, not only was I starving to death and dehydrated and about to lose my mind before this even happened, they served me MEAT!

A traded his omelette with M, because M really had her heart set on eggs.

I just sat there, pile o' meat in front of me, trying not to explode. I'd have ordered something else, except that it would have taken another hour and I really didn't want to be there for another minute.

M ended up being My Hero, because she, for whatever reason, had a yogurt with her in her purse.

No good. Moral? Please do not order scrambled eggs if you ever visit Buenos Aires.

We waited for what seemed like eternity for the waitress to reappear and asked for the bill. She seemed unphased by the fact that none of us had eaten much of what we ordered. D explained to her that "scrambled eggs" had obviously been mistranslated, but she didn't care. We asked for the check. It didn't come.

Someone else finally brought it to us a hundred years later, and it wasn't our check.

So yeah. Mind almost lost, but all was remedied by our finding a cute little cafe about an hour later with the sweetest waitress of all time. I had a sandwich and felt sane.



We went back to the hotel, grabbed our luggage, and hopped a car to the airport.

I slept through take off because I was so tired. I literally woke up, mid-flight, having no idea what had happened.

I think I slept for 8 hours on the flight home.

My feet were swollen again, but I didn't care.

We hopped a shuttle back to Manhattan, I said "good-bye" to D after my super buzzed us in (she is too cute - being awake at 7am on a Sunday looking out her window), and I fell asleep for another three hours.

At work I was met with "You look great!," so I guess it was a good vacation.

And now I am here, and now you will never have to read another post about Buenos Aires again!

Finis.

Singles Gang

In celebration of the one year birthday of My Mundane Life In Song (yes, folks, I've been so scattered lately that I forgot my blog's birthday!!!), I am going to resurrent some really old songs that I never finished because I ended up moving to NYC and not having any time to do anything.

Please pardon the quality - this song is a MESS. I don't have time to really make them good, but whatever. It's the best I can do right now, so deal! ;)





Title: Singles Gang
Genre: No idea - this one is an anomoly
Date: Last June-ish

Description:

True story - shortly before I moved, a couple of friends and myself went to Redline to get some drinks and realized... gasp... there was dancing! RR and I, of course, were game for dancing, but we had to coerce our other friends to join us. MS (aka "Brad") had just gotten out of a relationship, and wasn't quite ready for anything, but then this bachelorette party showed up and... well... it's easy. That's what this song is about. It *should have* been easy.

There are some awesome quotes from RR in the song.

Also - the mix - HORRENDOUS. There are like 14 different piano tracks on this for some reason and I can't redo them because I am sans keyboard. So the levels go up and down and I don't have the patience to fix them. There are all sorts of other problems - its very dry, but it will have to do.

You asked for music, so here's some really BAD MUSIC! YEAH!

Lyrics:

Brad's back in the game
For a long time he's been away from things
Yeah I prefer it this way
Selfish, yes
But I like my friends
Welcome back to the singles gang

The girls from the ugly sorority are celebrating
The marriage of Sister Muffy
The memo said "pink!"
Yeah, Brad have a drink
These bachelorettes are ripe
Things couldn't be easier tonight

Brad's amidst the bunch of girls
Inspired by Bel Biv Devoe
The chicks are in a frenzy
Brad's feeling elation
His white man's dance effective
Suddenly Buffy's on the ground

She's wailing, she's freaking out!
She's screaming "fuck!" at the top of her lungs
The sisters swarm
The dancing stops
Brad's 30 seconds of confidence are up

She's stealing Muffy's thunder
the sisters begin to wonder what to do

They disappear
Brad feels responsible
He's sullen so he steps aside
It's all so traumatic
I feel bad for him
And that girls' knee
but not for me
Cuz now there's more room on the dance floior
And a noticeable lack of pink

Brad's back in the game
For a long time he's been away from things
Yeah I prefer it this way
Selfish, yes
But I like my friends
Welcome back to the singles gang

And Yet Another Weekend Has Passed and I Still Haven't Worked on Music

But that is ok, because it was a really good weekend.

Because I really feel like I live in NYC.

D and I went on a date on Friday night. We went to this pretty lame exhibit at the Spanish American Society, but luckily followed it with a trip to the Whitney, which has the most amazing exhibit ever. It blew my mind. I feel as though I am suddenly into art. Maybe I was just waiting for my world to be shaken. When I saw these paintings, I literally gasped.

The Whitney rules. You should all go there. Often.

After a small break in Central Park, we headed back to my apartment where we cooked dinner and watched "Thelma and Louise," which neither of us had seen before. Overrated, but cute anyway.

On Saturday I went to see "The Aristrocrats" with E after playing piano for a bit and not making any phone calls. That movie is fun-neeee. I highly recommend it. It was vulgar and profane and original and entertaining and a fabulous laugh. Go see it!

I then headed to D's for dinner. He made Vietnamese crepes. We then went for a walk along the river and then started watching "Short Cuts," which is one of my favorite movies of all time. Needless to say we didn't make it through the entirety of the film, given that its very very very long.

On Sunday I met R for brunch at Cafe Juanita, which serves brunch and FOUR ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES for a mere $15! It was good. We got good and drunk (readers, I had only one peach margherita and I was ALL SET) and had a fabulous conversation about how we will be better New Yorkers from now on and force one another to live the lives we thought we'd always have here. R and I have much in common and it makes me very happy. We then met up with D, who was selling and buying CD's. D and I were supposed to go to P.S.1 for more art, but instead D invited us over to R's for a cold beverage.

We ended up drinking lemoncello (yes!) and getting more drunk, while we waited for R's girlfriend J to turn up.

D and I then headed to The Bronx to have dinner with LL and some of her friends at an Italian restaurant.

It was a busy weekend, and I accomplished nothing, but I don't really care, because it was much fun.

And here are some photos from this weekend:

Buenos Aires - Friday - THE WEDDING!!!

When we arrived, people were already drinking and eating.

A few moments after we arrived, music started playing and N and P arrived by boat! So cute.

The ceremony followed. I was very honored to be part of it, even though all I did was stand there. M and I had the easiest bridesmaid job of all time. When N arrived, P's mother gave us flowers and said "Go stand there now!" so we did. N had to be like "Umm... guys? Can you fix my dress?" "Right. Yes. OK..." and we did. And then we were done with our bridesmaidsly duties. M and I looked adorable in our coincidentally matching dresses. Despite the fact that my feet were absolutely killing and I thought I was going to fall over onto my face during the ceremony, it was lovely:



After the ceremony, there was more food and drink. Sushi, breads, cheeses, appetizers, etc. M and I sat down for a bit to nurse our aching feet, and then quickly hit the wine.



We socialized, ate, drank, and soon it was time for the salad course. The tables were in a room separate from the dance floor, which is where the appetizers were served.



The salad was delicious, and I was pleased and grateful that they had a vegetarian version for me! When the salad was finished, music started to play and that was our signal to regroup in the other room.

A waltz started to play, and N and P danced with each other and then their parents, and then with each other's parents, and soon everyone was dancing. It was adorable.

When the waltz ended, we were stunned to find out that there were tango dancers there to entertain us! This was the best wedding moment of all time. We'd been sad that we'd been unable to go to a tango show or take tango lessons as planned, but we no longer cared, because how much better was this?:







We then had the main course, which for the others was apparently lovely meat and for me was awesome pumpkin-filled ravioli with all sorts of vegetables on top. So freaking good.

After the main course, we recongregated on the dance floor where we were treated to a photo montage of pictures from N and P's first wedding. This was nice for those attendees who hadn't been able to be at the wedding in Gloucester, and was awesome for me because they set the montage to "Everything I Do, I Do It For You." That's right - Bryan Adams, from the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves soundtrack, in case you forgot. AWESOME! Even better was that the second song was "Against All Odds" by Phil Collins, which isn't the, ahem, most appropriate song, but whatever. It was still very cute.

Following the movie were more dancers! These dancers engaged the entire crowd in group dances and got everybody onto the dance floor. It was great fun to both participate in and to watch!!!

We then returned for to the dining room for the ice cream course, which was followed by MORE DANCING!!!

The dancing was so much fun. It was nuts. N's parents were going nuts. P's friends were lifting him up and parading him around the dancefloor. People were being spun around. It was pure bliss.

As the dancing progressed, everyone was given a felt hat to wear:



I have no idea. Apparently this is something that happens at weddings in Argentina.

I danced like crazy. I was glad that I'd decided to bring a change of shoes with me to guarantee that I could dance like crazy for hours upon hours upon hours: (photo credit: M)



More dancing:



This is what dancing feels like at 2:30 am while drunk and wearing a hat:



We danced to Spanish dance music - ska, dancehall, and club type stuff, as well as some American songs and wedding standards such as "Y.M.C.A," "It's Raining Men" and "Celebration." Apparently you cannot escape the Village People. They will be played at every wedding, in each hemisphere, everywhere, for the remainder of time.



Everyone, American and Argentine, was distressed at around 3:00 am when the "Grease" medley was cut short to cut the cake.

The cake was served, along with billions of other desserts - strawberry shortcakes, lemon squares, chocolate volcanoes, and every other dessert imagineable. We ate what we could, and started to fade. As did the rest of the crowd.

We left and got back to the hotel after 5am, when a bunch of people were checking out. Weird.

Amazing wedding.

Congratulations, again, N and P!

Buenos Aires - Friday - Getting to the Wedding!

D and I took a nap.

And did some other things.

And didn't start getting ready when we were supposed to.

I'd planned on giving myself at least an hour and a half to get ready for the wedding, but realistically I wanted two hours to look bridesmaid-like and to deal with the new, unpredictable, unchartered haircut.

My shower took the predicted amount of time, but man. THE HAIR. I had no idea what to do with it. New haircuts are great, but it takes a while to figure them out. I was frantically trying to dry it, trying to figure out what I needed to bring to the wedding, trying to match my jewelry to my dress, glasses to my dress and jewelry, then every possible glasses/jewelry/hair combination.

I think D wanted to kill me.

When M called me frantically and said "I need help with my hair! A doesn't know. Can you help?" "YES! I need help too." "Should I come up?" "YES!!!"

M came up, frantic, crazy, saying "Look at this! LOOK AT THIS! What am I supposed to do with this!?" She too was having new-hair anxiety. "I wanted to leave it curly, but then I blew it dry, and now it looks like this, and its terrible!"

It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't bridesmaid enough. Neither of us had been prepared to be in the wedding, so we were both suffering from the same anxiety.

"What should I do?" she asked.

"I don't know!" I didn't know. I was overwhelmed by our bad hair. "Look," I suggested, "Why don't you try to blow it dry?"

M didn't want to because what if it looked worse? I said "Worst case scenario its bad and then you wet it again and let it dry naturally and then it will be curly and gorgeous."

"OK," she said. She went back down to her room and I told her I'd meet her down there, with my flat iron, as soon as I was finished ironing my own hair.

Of course my hair took forever. Forever. Because I have far too much of it. And because D was helping me iron it and I kept saying "D, is that on? Are you sure? It doesn't feel very hot..." It was not on.

I turned it on, and within 1 minute of having turned it on it blew the adaptor. We weren't surprised, as the directions said that one should not use the adatpor for battery charging or hair helping purposes, which were the two purposes I needed it for. I'd used the flat iron and the battery charger on numerous occasions prior to this wedding crisis, but of course the thing chose to blew when I needed it most.

I was going nuts. "I look awful! I am hideous! I cannot go to the wedding looking like this! Which glasses!?!? I DON'T KNOW!!!"

D and I threw some stuff in a bag and headed down to M and A's room with all of my jewely and hair accessories for M to try.

M had miraculously fixed her hair, and we were ready to go.

On our way down, I said "Wait! I forgot the address in my room!"

M and A said "That's ok! We have the address!"

OK!

We ran downstairs. Our estimated time of departure had been 8:00. The wedding was scheduled to start at 8:00, but N told us that as long as we were there by 8:30 everything would be fine. It was about 8:15 when we got into the cab.

We said "We need to go to the Buenos Aires Yacht Club which is at dock 4."

"Where on dock 4?"

"Just dock 4."

"Do you know where it is?"

"No. Don't you?"

"No." By this time the cab driver had already started driving and we were a few blocks from the hotel.

These was much discussion of "Should we get the address?" "Will we just find it?" "How hard could it be to find? We'll just go to the dock!" "Won't you know, Leah Lar, where we are when we get there because you wrote down the address?" "How could you forget the address?!"

Right. Because there was any chance in hell I was just going to remember the address. Right. All I could remember was that one of the cross street's had a woman's name in it, and I thought it had an "O" in it.

If only that stupid brat hadn't flustered me so! I could have looked at the map!

I really really really wanted to just get the address from the hotel.

But we opted to just go to the dock, because we were already en route.

And we got lost. Real lost. We had no idea where it was. Nor did the cab driver. He kept stopping and asking people for directions. I kept saying things like "Wait! I think I saw this street on the crappy map!" and "Wait! Olga!!??!? I know that it was a woman's name with an 'O' in it! This must be it!" and "Or maybe not, because Olga doesn't seem right - but wait! Maybe I saw that street on the map?"

M and I were getting really nervous, since we were, after all, the bridesmaids.

I kept saying "I am getting an ulcer."

M kept saying "I wish we just knew that they won't care. Like they probably won't care? N said that things are really chill here and nothing happens on time. They probably won't care. But I just wish we knew that."

We knew we were near it. We knew we were behind it. We'd seen it from across the river earlier in the week. We knew it was nearby.

And suddenly the cab driver turned onto a street called "Victoria O'Campo," and I felt like the biggest idiot ever, because it had an "O" in it and also it happens to be my sister's name.

Right.

I really did turn out to be the idiot of the night.

We sauntered in at about 8:50 and, of course, nobody cared that we were late.

Buenos Aires - Friday - Pre-wedding

The wedding! The wedding! YAY!

D and I tried to sleep in. We did our best. We got up at around 11:00 and decided to go to La Boca for the day since we'd missed the excursion earlier in the week.

D had perused the guidebook and decided it would be nice to have the cab take us on a scenic drive to La Boca so that we could see some things we missed. I took some photos from the cab.

The buses in Buenos Aires are Mercedes:



The guidebook said that this "castle" was very impressive, but we figured it would be just as impressive from the cab as it would be if we actually got out and looked at it up close:



After our brief car tour of the city, we ended up in La Boca:





Most of La Boca looks like this:



To attract tourists, some of La Boca looks like this:



The experience was very touristy. We were harassed millions of times by people trying to get us to eat at their restaurants and watch their tango shows. We were not interested.



We just wanted to eat and go to the museum there and get to the mall to pick up D's suit and perhaps do a little last minute sightseeing.

D was finally satisfied with the meat he ate, and I inhaled my pasta with tomato cream sauce because I will still starving from the day before.

I wanted to buy some souvenirs in La Boca for my family, as it was my last chance and up until that point I'd been a deadbeat and hadn't bought a single thing. I wanted to buy them some art that was being sold on a small walkway in La Boca, but as D pointed out, buying them original artwork would cost more than the entire trip to Buenos Aires, so I couldn't rationalize it. I ended up bringing back zero souvenirs. D, at least, bought postcards. I suck. I know.

We went to the mall, picked up the suit and not a new shirt (the original had lipstick on the collar from N and P's previous wedding - my bad!) and not a new tie and not fabulous pink argyle leggings for yours truly because it was going to be too complicated.

We headed back to the hotel, where I stopped by the internet business station to look up the address of the yacht club where the wedding was to be held.

I was having a difficult time finding the information, but finally got the yacht club's website to load. There was a small map on it that was hard to navigate. While I was doing this, there was an obnoxious little girl standing in the doorway, hovering, aching for me to stop using the computer.

I didn't want to indulge her spoiled behavior, but when she started clearing her throat and making coughing noises, I decided the best thing for me to do would be to leave the computer room entirely so as not to throttle her.

Brat.

I hurried away with the address in hand and ran up to the room to try to get a nap in before the wedding.

Buenos Aires - Thursday - aka "Sexy! SEXY!"

OK.

Thursday.

I woke up in time to enjoy continental breakfast in the hotel for the first time. I was exhausted. I hadn't slept well the night before and was dead tired. We had to get up early to eat breakfast because M and I had hair appointments at 12:00 at the salone that P's mother goes to.

The continental breakfast was nothing special. We watched the news of the London bombings while I attempted to ingest the worst scrambled eggs I have ever tasted. I ended up having a bowl of sort-of-frosted-flakes and a small piece of bread.

N was supposed to meet us at the hotel to take us to the salon and to hopefully assist us in translating our hair needs to the hairdressers, but she was unable to due to her friends' flight being delayed. She was stranded at the airport, so we hopped in a cab and headed to the salon.

When we got there, we realized that explaining our haircuts wasn't going to be easy. They showed me some photos, but none of them really represented what I wanted - a shaggy fun haircut with better bangs, with roots dyed black so as to blend my hair better, and then blonde streaks and chunks throughout. Funky. How do you say "funky" in Spanish?

We weren't getting anywhere, so M tried to call P's cell phone to get him to help us explain what we wanted done with our hair.

I'd been having difficulty throughout the trip getting through to P's phone from mine, and this day was no exception. M was frustrated, but luckily the hairdressers got P on their phone!

P, once again Our Hero, got on the phone and tried to understand what I was saying. "Bangs, P, bangs! I want BANGS!" I'd hand the phone to the hairdresser and there would be talk and shaking of heads and then I'd be handed the phone and P would say something like "They said that they may not be able to dye your hair blonde because its so dark... are you sure?" "Yes, I am sure. I want it to be, like, shaggy." "Shaggy? What is shaggy?"

Yeah. It was fun. And funny. I think we eventually both gave up, unfortunately before M had a chance to have P explain what she wanted to the hairdressers.

I decided to just chill out and not worry about what would happen to my hair. I trusted them, and figured it couldn't look worse than it already did.

OK.

So we got there at noon.

We left at, like, 5:00.

5:00!!! IT TOOK FIVE HOURS!!!

It didn't have to. It was inefficient. There was a lot of waiting around when nothing was going on. There was not enough multitasking. I didn't really care, though, given how inexpensive it was. I only cared because I was STARVING TO DEATH because all I'd eaten was a bowl of cereal at 10am.

Incidentally, before I was starving and moody and insane, I was psyched when Patrick Swayze's "She's Like the Wind" was played on the radio. How rad is that?

The hairdresser was AWESOME. He didn't speak much English, but he knew enough to exclaim "Sexy! SEXY!" while he played with my hair before he cut it. The cut is absolutely spectacular. I love it. People at work have been saying "Man, that really is a good cut."

The colorist was nice as well. Bleaching my hair took, like, an hour, which was overkill. I've had this done before and it's always worked and has never required the length of time, but I had no way of explaining this to anyone. When they finished the bleaching, they gave my hair some mysterious treatment that I've never had. I was lying over the sink and they put something on my scalp that burned. It hurt so very much. I was just sitting there, head draped over the sink, for half an hour and I had no idea why. Above me, three separate people looked at my hair somewhat quizzically, somewhat concerned, never enthusiastically. Every so often they would touch it and shake their heads. I felt rather Alien Autopsy about the whole thing. Like they were doing things to me that actually hurt but I had no idea what they were doing or saying. I was dreading what was going on with my hair. I was actually afraid to see it. P's Mom, who showed up because she was nervous about what my hair would turn out like, kept saying "I think it will be ok..."

It did, of course, turn out to be more than ok.

Here is M getting her hair cut:



Her hair ended up a little more blonde than she'd anticipated, but it looks awesome. It will just take some getting used to.

My hair turned out awesome as well - my roots are now in order and I have lovely and perfectly placed streaks of blonde in strategic places.

And guess how much it all was! Three things - dye my hair black, awesome haircut, and then blonde chunks etc. - all for 120 pesos!!! That's, like, $40 American. Yeah. Awshummmm.

P's mother, again concerned about our safe return to the hotel. was extremely sweet and gave us a ride. I think it was about 6pm by the time we returned, and M and I were both ravenous. I was starting to border on bitchy. I inhaled a bag of chips when I returned to the room and yelled "D! WE HAVE TO EAT NOW!!!" We headed to a restaurant that A had found earlier that day and inhaled sandwiches. We were still hungry afterwards, but we had to go back to the hotel to get ready for the Philharmonic.

At the hotel, D said something like "Man. You were grouchy when you got here. You shouldn't be like that." I think the Women of the World have to an issue a statement to the Men of the World to explain that women go NUTS when they haven't eaten. Why can't men just accept that this is a physiological issue and that there's nothing that can be done short of eating!?!?

Anyway, we had our very own box at Teatro Colon. We were seated in the box next to this extremely grouchy man and his son, but we didn't mind because the Philharmonic was awesome. Here is a view of the theater from our box (photo credit: M):



The members of the Philharmonic were casual. Are philharmonics usually casual? Some of them were wearing jeans:



We headed back to the hotel afterwards because we were wiped out from our day of sitting around. I had no energy. I wanted to get a good, long night's sleep because the next would be... THE WEDDING!

Buenos Aires - Wednesday - aka "In Buenos Aires, The Cars Pull The Cops Over"

On Wednesday:

M and A went to the airport and managed to track down their clothes at customs. Yay!

B fell ill - he was taken out by some sort of terrible flu.

This resulted in - Date Day 2!

D and I started off the day having lunch at Not-So-Fancy Mall. We walked around for a bit hoping to find some sweet clothes bargains, but came up empty handed. We did, however, walk around the top floor of the mall which was for kids - a bunch of rides and video games - D wanted to play but I, as usual, was starving and not wanting to be around children:



We ate lunch at a fancy-ish restaurant in the mall - we sat in the mall but had a waiter and got to eat nice food. D ordered risotto that was less than acceptable, and I had the best salad ever. It wasn't really the best salad ever, it was just that I was aching for something nutritious and was thrilled by grilled vegetables and couscous! Completely satisfying. We then ordered... drum roll... a chocolate volcano! Mission accomplished:



After Not-So-Fancy-Mall we headed to the National Art Museum, which was pretty cool. The top floor was art from Argentina, and ranged from classic art to fabulous contemporary pieces such as this:



In Buenos Aires, we encountered this interesting soap method in public restrooms which was comprised of a round piece of soap on a stick for everyone to share. I experienced it for the first time at the museum and had mixed feelings about it:



We then went to the MALBA, which was extremely crowded and mostly awesome. I got in trouble for taking this photo:



I don't really see what the big deal is about taking photos of the structure. It's not like I'm taking a picture of artwork and am going to make money off of reprints.

There was another guy in the museum taking photos (apparently people with big fancy cameras are allowed to take photos - although I suspect that this guy was press of some sort), so I sort of walked behind him and took photos on the down-low:



When we returned from the museum, we freshened up and headed to P's parents' house, off the map, for a party!

We were excited for the party, because we were certain that P's parents would throw a good one. We were also curious about their house, and also honored that they invited us over. I was mostly excited to see N's parents! It's sad, though, because I know that I'll most likely never see them again.

I met N and her parents on my first day of college! N and I were roommates, so I hold a special place in my heart for her folks. I've spent time at their house in MA, and ate out with them in Cambridge before moving to NYC. Sniff. OK. Not going to get sentimental... not going to get sentimental...

When we arrived, we were greeted with kisses from P's aunts and parents. We met P's brother's girlfriend, as well as some other family members.

The house was gorgeous, the food was splendid, the company was lovely. We spent a few minutes ironing out the non-details of the wedding (M and I found out that we would be bridesmaids! Woo hoo!), I had a fabulously awkward moment when N's Aunt J asked if D and I were married and we were both like "Uh... oh... ummm... GOD NO!," and I started to feel very emo after I drank too much wine and started considering the probable odds that D and I will not ever be married.

When it was time to leave, P's mother, ever concerned about our getting back to our hotel safely, called a car service for us.

B and E left before us since B was basically on his deathbed, so M, A, D and I shared the car.

This story is all a little foggy given the drunkenness and tiredness and emoness, so I won't even try. M can probably tell the story better, so I am just NOT going to tell it and you will all have to wait for M to do a guest spot. But trust me, it's funny.