and now ... the end is near

all i have to do is practice
my dance moves and i'll be
ready for carnivale!

hello my poor forsaken blog readers ... oh how i have ignored you.

sadly, due to a family emergency, my time in argentina has been cut short.  but before i move on to my misadventures of readjusting to life on strong island, i have a few more stories up my sleeve ...

first off, you can't leave south america without going to one last parade.  so we took a bus to gualeguaychu for carnivale for one last parade hurrah.  the plan was simple ... get drunk on the beach, watch carnivale, and then take a bus home at 4 am.  simple.

for those of you who don't know about carnivale, the town of gualeguaychu celebrates carnivale every weekend from january to march.  they close one of the larger streets and set up bleachers on both sides, making a long runway of sorts for the paraders to parade down. it's the largest carnivale celebration outside of brazil.  apparently, HUGE amounts of money go into the elaborate floats and costumes, and a lot of time is spent practicing dance steps.  typically the parade starts at around 11 or 12 at night, and goes on until about 6 am.

but sadly, somebody (your truly) had a bit too much to drink and ... well ... i believe i slept through a large part of carnivale.  i seem to have a large chunk of time from midnight to 2 am where no pictures were taken and i don't remember much.  but luckily i do have some photographic evidence that i was there!

scantily clad carnivale dancers

i liked these older ladies and their more regal costumes

dancers atop of a float (with dance handles for safety)

i'm not quite sure what this guy is supposed to be ... but i like it

i love a parade ...

oh dear blog readers, it's been such a long time since we've seen a good old fashioned south american parade.  it used to be that we were welcomed to town by a parade wherever we went.  well, luckily the other night while we were walking around san telmo looking for a cheap parilla, we stumbled upon this parade of sorts.

so it all started off rather normal with music and dancing and shiny costumes.   good stuff.  then we noticed that there were a large number of precocious children running around spraying each other with what looked like white silly string.  fine.  i'm all for merriment.

soon the bolshevik and i were lost in the crowd and wound up getting split up.  it was around this time that i noticed men selling spray cans of nieve or snow.  what was this stuff?  was it like the fake snow people spray on christmas trees?  well, that's kind of charming then that a culture where no one has even seen snow wants to have a snowy parade.  how cute.

but it all got malicious rather quickly ... apparently the nieve is really just a special type of shaving cream good for spraying at people.  as soon as i entered the crowd i was getting hit everywhere.  at first by punk ass kids, and then later by adults as well!  wtf?!  i was just an innocent bystander!

the bolshevik covered in nieve
moments before spraying me

by the time i found the bolshevik again we were both soaking wet, covered in nieve.  as i approached him, thankful that we could finally leave this crazy parade, the bolshevik shot me!  enraged by what was going on, the bolshevik had bought his own can of nieve for self-defense.

so then we both re-entered the crowd, hoping to get our revenge.  but man, those kids were good.  ultimately, we left the parade having inflicted way less damage than we would've liked.

buenos aires: everyone shall have ice cream, and everyone shall have a maid

it's been quite a journey, dear blog readers, but we finally made it to buenos aires!  (la paz was rather boring and unworthy of a blog post)  you're probably asking yourself, "self, were miss dewey d and her bolshevik greeted with a parade to welcome them to argentina?"  well, dear blog readers, the answer is yes.  (if by parade you mean upbeat political protest). 

anyway, as soon as we arrived we hit the ground running (after a day of napping), and began the search for an apartment.  who needs to find a job first?  we need to live somewhere, no? 

it seems that in buenos aires there is a huge number of furnished apartments that are rented out on a weekly/monthly basis, so that was a bit of good news.  and the rent prices cover all utilities, including electricity, internet (usually wifi), cable, local phone ... some apartments even come with a cell phone that you just need to add money to.  what luxury!  nyc could learn a thing or two from buenos aires landlords.

apartments here also seem to include maid service.  at first, being the members of the proletariat that we are, we looked down upon this.  surely we don't need maid service.  we will gladly pay less money and clean the apartment ourselves.  but this turned out to be an impossibility.  even the cheapest apartments come with weekly maid service.  at one point the bolshevik asked a prospective landlord if the apartment came with a maid, and the landlord looked at us as though we had asked something really obvious like "does the apartment a door?"  si, claro!  of course there is a maid!

now apartment hunting is hard work, so often we had to stop at freddo between viewings.  it's a rough life, dear blog readers.   for those of you who have never been to Bs As, freddo offers a variety of delicious fresh ice cream flavors, and typically you get two flavors per cone.  the bolshevik and i have decided that not only will we make it our mission to try every flavor available, but we will also rank the flavors and try to determine what the best flavor combinations are.  in the week that we have been in buenos aires, we have already had freddo 4 times. we're off to a strong start.  

in the first weekend we looked at about 10 apartments.  we found a rather tiny place in a very nice neighborhood, and decided to set up shop there.  it's a loft of sorts, with one small room with a kitchen, table and chairs, and bathroom on the bottom floor, then a spiral staircase to a bedroom above.  there isn't much room, but there's a cozy charm to it and it's super cheap. 

we have already found our "it" apartment (more details to come), but we don't move in until mid-july.  but do not fret dear blog readers, because both apartments come with maid service.  phew!

shhhh . . . we're resting

in typical south american fashion, we have been welcomed into cusco with a parade.  this one had less fanfare than our welcome to lima parade, but it did involve a couple of men in monkey suits, so how can we complain?

one of the big things about cusco is that it is at an extremely high elevation, and land-loving gringos like ourselves often get altitide sickness, or soroche.  so in order to fight off a potential soroche outbreak (does one have an outbreak of soroche? an onslaught perhaps?)  we are taking it easy.  we have been told not to exert ourselves or do anything strenuous. we played cards, ate lunch, had a quick stroll about town, and now we're back in the room .... resting ... as advised ... it's a little boring.

a regular parade

when i was a kid, i spent a lot of time with my grandparents at their house out in hampton bays.  one summer day we were driving through town and we happened upon a parade.  there were baton twirlers and marching bands and guys from the local elks club, etc.  as we watched the parade go by we started to wonder what the reason for the parade was.  it wasn't memorial day or 4th of july or any of the other typical parade-inducing holidays.  then when my grandfather asked a passing policeman "what is this parade for?"  the policeman said, "oh you know, it's just a regular parade."  then the rest of the day we pondered what a "regular parade" was.

you may find it hard to believe, but every time we go to a south american country, the bolshevik and i are welcomed with a parade.  true story.  for instance, when we went to buenos aires last fall we were awoken the first morning by singing in the streets.  when we looked out our window we saw thousands of people parading down the main avenue, throwing flowers on the ground as they passed.   later we found out it was actually a funeral procession for a beloved folk singer who had recently passed away,  but why get caught up in the details?

anyway, today was our first day in lima and we had breakfast on this cute little garden cafe on the roof of our hotel.  we could hear marching bands parading down below.  when we walked to the main plaza we saw all these different groups of dancers and musicians in various costumes.  obviously, they knew we were coming.  south america hearts us.