Feliz Ano!

Como lo vee aca, felices fiestas! (As it is said here, happy holidays!)

Espero que eso email les busca todo bien durante la temporada de las fiestas (there’s not a direction translation for the holidays, so ‘we’ use ‘parties’ instead – how fitting?!). Lo estaba un rato hasta el email pasado, pero tomo las semanas pasadas mas facil que la primera – lo necesite!

ENGLISH: I hope that this email finds you all well during the holiday season. It has been a while since the last email, but I took the last two weeks more easily than the first week – I needed it!

Ok, enough with the funny business, here’s a little update...

The holidays here are pretty cool, as the summer has really just begun, so people have been out and about in Buenos Aires since classes ended; meaning there are a ton of high schoolers prowling the streets doing whatever it is that high schoolers do in the summer, during the holiday shopping season (weird). The City took on a noticeably different tone, literally, from the week leading up to Little Baby Jesus’ birthday, thru New Years Eve, as many of the local families spend the period of time from Christmas thru New Years at summer homes (still weird) with family. This is not terribly different from how we are accustomed to spending the holidays, but things are a little different when it comes to planning... Typically, nothing really takes place on Christmas Eve throughout the City, but families tend to have parties together to ring in the festivus occasion of celebrating the birth of the Lord Savior, cute Little Baby Jesus. Midnite mass and/or a gathering at a home is standard procedure, and I was lucky enough to be invited to a friend of a friend’s apartment for a get together. He, and his father, are Brasilian, so they shared their home with other BA transplants from around the world – literally!

I was invited to come by between 9.30-10.30p for some drinks and to make a toast, so in true latin time, I got there promptly at 10.30p. The whole nite was great, and as I was in the cab heading over (practicing Castellano with the driver – he recommended I visit his home town of Cordoba), I was both amused and nervous – I was heading to an apartment of someone I had never met, and presumably, would be required to speak only Castellano the remainder of the evening... Oh boy! Getting to the building and heading up the elevator, I started to schvitz a little bit in anticipation of what was about to happen – my first real Castellano only evening with complete strangers, on Christmas Eve!

So, I get in, and begin getting introduced... There’s a kid from Hawaii, three Israelis, four Brasilians, and a few more that roled in later from LA, Mexico, and Colombia... Needless to say, I felt a bit more relaxed knowing that If I got caught up like a gringo, I could always fall back to English to clarify a word or ask a specific question regarding a translation. It ended up being great, drinking a ton of great Argentine wine, sharing cachaca (Brasilian liquor, similar to rum), and sipping on the Argentine mixed drink – Fernet and Coke – all before we even popped the endless supply of bubbly to actualy celebrate... And then, we sat down for dinner around 12.30a. Fernet, if you are unfamiliar, is the Argentine version of Campari, a bitter (agriero), dry drink that really sucks all the moisture out of your mouth, which is why it is mixed with the sweet bubbles of Coke (or Pepsi) - it will also put you on the floor if you don’t watch out; I was fine, don’t worry... Yet.

Once we had Christmas down, the plans started to come together for New Year’ Eve, which I learned is a drastically different experience than what we do back at home – plan, plan plan, spend, spend, spend, drink, drink, drink, complain, complain, complain. Maybe it doesn’t always happen in that order back up north, but all of those components are in full effect on the last nite of every year – or so it seems... None of the friends that I’ve made down here were ready to pull the trigger, so on the 30th, plans came to fruition – a little asado (bbq) on the roof at a friend’s flat and then to a boliche (club) later. What differs the most, at least in my opinion, is the way in which things are celebrated... Here, people don’t go out to bars, clubs, etc, as we do in the states – here, people, go out between 2-3a, so the actual NYE celebration is done, almost in total, at someone’s house or apartment, whereas we’re always out at a bar, several drinks deep, by the time the ball drops. As I write this, I’ve come up with another thought – when the ball drops in Times Square, it’s 3a in Buenos Aires, so maybe that’s why things start so late... Tawk amungst yawselves... So, we had an absolute blast, making more friends, and identifying how small this world is – school mates’ friends’ college buddies’ girlfriend’s sister’s friend kind of stuff... Great nite, all around – dancing outside until the sun comes up, drinking the nite away without a care, and being with great people – feliz ano!

To backtrack just a bit, I have officially had my first ‘guests’ in Buenos Aires, and they were the parents of my buddy Steve Sotoloff (there it is, the first shoutout, happy?), as they were on a trip thru South America and had a few nites in Buenos Aires. They took me out to a cute little spot they discovered, and wanted to share it with me – it was a great nite, we shared stories, I saw pictures, we ate steaks and empanadas, we met the owner, and drank plenty of wine (we also got to meet the owner of the vineyard whose bottles we were drinking – he’s apparently friends with the owner of the restaurant)... They were also thoughtful enough to bring me a menorah, as it was the second nite of chanukah – lechiem! So, after this filling meal, I thought it would be prudent to head to the ‘Americano’ bar (El Alamo – is that fitting or ironic, or both?) to watch a little Monday Night Football... Da Bears v Packers at Soldier Field! No need to summarize, but it was the coldest game ever played (in recorded history) at Soldier Field, and the Bears won in overtime on a field goal. What was funny about the evening was running in to two sisters from Lake Forest who were there to watch the game – I guess Lovie lives up there, so... I have been back to Alamo a few times since then, the most recent being January 1st for a little Rose Bowl action – one of my buddies went to USC.. And, I got to watch the two teams that beat the Buckeyes this year... That said, I’ll be back there on Monday nite for the Fiesta Bowl, in full regale – Go Buckeyes!!

Now that you’ve gotten to the bottom, I wanted to let you all know that you can now follow the adventure on my new blog – so, I guess, I’m a blogger now?! The website is:

zeshinds.blogspot.com

The ‘Ze’ was a nickname given to me back in NYC playing soccer, so I figured that it would be fitting for me to adopt a soccer-related pen-name in the blogosphere... So, I ask that you go to the site, register (if you are so inclined) and select the option to become a “Follower” of the blog. This way, whenever I post something, youll be notified, probably with a link to the blog, so you can catch up. I have a slideshow of pictures that I can continually update, which I plan to do on a regular basis, so you’ll be able to see what it is that I’ve edited for your eyes, haha! Additionally, I’ll be ‘blogging’ more frequently and with more specificity within each ‘post’ so the emails will be fewer and far between, but will highlight what’s on the blog.

So, enjoy the blog – it’s title is Que Onda?! (more or less a casual way of staying “What the...?!” and do post and check it out.

Feliz ano!

Chau,
Adam