Sabado

I knew if I could only find a real pub here in Buenos Aires, I could better connect with the folks here. Serendipity can be fun.

After a day of walking around downtown giving myself a Lonely-Planet-guided tour of notable monuments and a big pasta lunch, I wandered over to San Telmo for a cup of espresso. After that I craved a beer at a real pub with real people sitting at a bar... a tall order here since most bars here just have tables and no bar or bar stools. But that's what I wanted, so I walked up and down some streets peeking in places to gague each one. Nope, empty... nope too loud... nope crummy lighting.. nope nope nope. Then on my way down Calle Peru, I walked past an Irish pub. It had a bar with bar stools AND people sitting on them. I kept walking on by, mainly out of habit.. usually there is a nope in there somewhere... Then I turned back and peeked in. There are no nopes here! I plopped down at the bar and asked the two English guys next to be which beers on tap they had tried. "All of them. We are regulars". They both have lived here for ten years and were happy to give me some tips of places to hang out back in Palermo as well. They had actually tried and failed to open a bar of their own, some years back. Now one of them runs the Buenos Aires chapter of Time Out magazine. After a healthy session at the bar one of them says "Hey I am supposed to go to a party at some French girl's apartment I don't know very well. Want to come?" Uh... Yes.

So we head off to Sofia's trendy flat on the edge of barrio La Boca. It's a hip crew of folks, about half of them porteño and half English or American, all very friendly, and as it turns out celebrating Sofia's birthday. Later on my English friends left, and left me behind at the party. Ha! Am I even supposed to be here? They announced that the party was moving to Shamrock, a club across town, for some dancing and I think a merger with another birthday party. They swooped me along and I partied like a porteño until about 5 am fueled by an armada of vodka and Red Bulls. I haven't even been home since this morning!

I returned home to my Palermo neighborhood still going fairly strong. Plaza Serrano, about a block from my apartment, is a traffic circle with bars all the way around it and tables out front. Some of the bars were shut, but two still had most of their tables full. My goodness. Time for me to go to bed.

Fun random night though. As my friend Heather would say, "Whoop whoop!".