locapalooza

Last week was Amanda and Abbie’s last week in BA before they moved to Lima (Peru…not Ohio) for the remainder of the semester. Every night of the week we managed to have an adventure of some sort to commemorate our amazing two months together. Monday night we went to Sálvame María, a local favorite of ours (in Belgrano) that serves an amazing chocolate mousse cake as well as our favorite Malbec, Santa Julia (hey stewn!). We usually come to Sálavame once a week and enjoy sitting outside until one in the morning (or later!) just chatting and enjoying the still fairly warm night breeze. On Tuesday we met up for a night out in Palermo, starting at Sugar Bar and eventually making our way to Kika Club. Paloma and I managed to stay out until 7:30AM…a true accomplishment coming home in broad daylight. Inevitably the next day was a first-class struggle, but we survived.

In fact, we still managed to pull ourselves together for a night of margaritas at another favorite restaurant, Xalapa. Read up, seriously the best margz in all of BA. Their enchiladas poblanas are also unreal. We ended the night very…happy…and proceeded to have extremely deep conversations on the Colectivo ride home, followed by a mood-lightening photoshoot that resulted in me missing my bus stop. Oops.

Our last night together was Thursday night, as I left Friday morning for Santiago de Chile. We went to Club Aráoz, a boliche that has hip-hop/reggaeton nights los jueves. The music is always great, but it’s a tradeoff for the kind of people the boliche attracts. Let’s just say that this isn’t exactly where I’ll find my novio porteño. We still had a blast, staying out until about 6:30AM. I have definitely fully adjusted to the nightlife horario here in BA. Before coming here, I never could have fathomed staying out that late under ANY circumstances. (What could I possibly be doing that late?!) However, after being here two months, I have gotten used to everything running later—dinner starting around 10 or 11, people heading to the bars around 1, and to the clubs around 3—so staying out that late doesn’t phase me anymore. Sorry Mom and Dad!

BUT, I did have my flight to Santiago the next morning. Luckily I had packed the night before because after coming home at that unacceptable hour of the morning, I pretty much only had time to shower and get changed...without a wink of sleep. As soon as I got on the bus to the airport, I was immediately hit by my fatigue and was left essentially non-functioning for the remainder of my travel day. In an attempt to wake myself up when I got to Ezeiza, I went to McDonald’s and got an egg and cheese sandwich on a bagel. Best. Decision. Ever.

It was when I was sitting outside of McDonald’s, incredibly sleep deprived and inhaling my egg-and-cheese when I realized that I had NO idea where I was going once I got to Santiago. Yes, I had the address of my hostel, but that was IT. I had no map of Santiago or anything, and I was on this flight alone and had planned on meeting up with my friends at the hostel. I somehow managed to hack onto a non-secure WiFi network in the airport to figure out an ideal bus/Metro course and crossed my fingers that all would go as planned. Well, somehow it did. I arrived at the hostel in one piece, and collapsed in my bed IMMEDIATELY. I woke up five hours later to the smell of a tasty, smoky asado. For 5,000 pesos we were able to have unlimited amounts of asado and cerveza. (Disclaimer: in Chile they used fake, Monopoly-style money, where about 500 pesos is equal to one US dollar.)

We woke up the next morning and immediately rallied for Lollapalooza. Getting our tickets from will-call was a bit of a frenzy (in fact, the most inconvenient, not-thought-out process I ever witnessed first-hand), but we managed to figure out how the “sistema” worked (shoving yourself to the front of the mass of people and sticking your passport through the bars until someone grabbed it), and were out of the mess in under an hour. We returned to the hostel, changed, prepared stir-fry for our late-night dinner, and left for the festival.

The weather this weekend was amazing. Eighties and sunny, it was perfect for Lollapalooza. We arrived around 2:30PM and bounced from show to show pretty much until the festival ended. The definite highlight of Saturday (and Lollapalooza in general) was Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros. Seriously, if you have the chance to see him…DO IT. He was INCREDIBLE live and he brought this adorable little boy onstage which pretty much made me die inside, it was so precious. We came back to the hostel after a long day of Lollapalooza-ing to our delicious stir-fry that we had prepared before we left. Great decision.

Sunday we arrived to Lolla early so we could see Devendra Banhart. Kiley, Alex and I did not realize how much of a sensation he is in South America, because it was a true locura getting into that show. (We should have expected it though, considering he is Colombian…) Seriously, RIOTS. People were climbing the fence; Chilean soldados on caballos were keeping the crowds back…I have NEVER seen anything like it before. We BARELY made it into the show, but I’m so glad we did because he was amazing. Definitely one of the better shows of the weekend. Other amazing shows this weekend included Cold War Kids and Kanye West—who I had seen in 2008 (LOLZ CT chongz!).

Sarah and I had the whole day in Santiago, as we were the only ones whose flight back to BA wasn’t until the evening. We spent the day exploring the nearby neighborhoods, having lunch at a French/Chilean fusion cuisine (weird, I know), and hiking La Virgen del Cerro San Cristóbal. (I use the term “hiking” loosely; as we were too worn out from our Lollapalooza-ing to actually hike it we took the trolley up instead). The view was amazing and looks over all of Santiago. Santiago is such an incredible city and turned out to be so much different than I thought it would be. I was expecting it to be polluted and dingy, but it turned out to be a much cleaner city than BA (which really isn’t that hard), with a beautiful landscape as it is nestled in the Andes. We were so grateful to see some of the city before returning back to BA, since we traveled all that way for just the weekend.

As for this week, I have been bed-ridden trying to fight off the post-Lolla gripe. A true struggle let me tell you. Next adventure on the agenda: Bariloche (in ten days!!).

Chau,
audgentina.