Condition: Green

¡Feliz Año!

The next day B's bunk is taken over by M, oddly enough another engineer from Manchester, this time chemical. Also very friendly. Also very talkative. Yet, my day is dull, spent mostly on the computer trying to arrange longer-term living arrangements without much luck and missing B's bubbly presence something fierce.

However, come suppertime C, M, and I walk to a nearby plaza and find a table in an outdoor restaurant with an accompanying flamenco show. I have the veal schnitzel, which is merely okay, although generously sized. Ah, well. You can't hit it out of the park every time and the place is a little touristy. Also, and perhaps more importantly, it completes my culinary tour of the Axes of Evil™--and at least it's cheap and mediocre, which is more than you can say for most tourist destinations. But the weather is gorgeous, we're outside, and the dancing is downright wiggity-wack, so the fact that the food is just regular wack is no biggie. Plus, I really heart flamencos.



After the show ends we have another round, enjoying the sensations of the city after dark--the hippie kids out to see and be seen, the vendors hawking their blankets full of trinkets, the cool night breeze with its occasional yet distinctive waft of illegal substances, not to mention the talented troupe of Brazilian street musicians and dancers who begin sambaing their way through the square after all the other shows shut down. The flamenco crew, who have since taken up residence at a neighboring table, seem to especially enjoy the buskers and hoot and holler and clap contrapuntos enthusiastically through several numbers. The time passes very pleasantly indeed.

But it's not a late night for us and the most exciting part of the evening (aside from M picking up the tab) comes with our decision to go out walking after midnight the ten blocks home through our iffy neighborhood--something not recommended by either guidebook or local. However, in the end nothing comes of it and we are left unmolested. In point of fact, no one even looks at us funny. I suspect this is probably because no one of us has dunked any body parts into giggle-worthy condiments.

*sigh*

Saturday day is spent in more of the same--searching for living arrangements--this time with some moderate success. I manage to set up two appointments to view rooms for the next day. At one point, and with no set agenda for the evening, I step out on the patio to grab a smoke and introduce myself to N--good-looking, charming, well-traveled, not single, and newly arrived from Portugal. He speaks about as much English as I do Spanish and we fall into that common pattern of beginners whereby he addresses me in Spanish and I him in English, yet we manage to make something like a conversation out of it. He tells me that there is a big tango competition happening downtown tonight, which sounds like good fun to me and as I know C and M have it in their hearts to drop in on a well-known ex-pat pub--also downtown--it has the makings of a plan.

Per usual, before dinner we sit, visit, drink some beer with the Portuguese contingent as well as a young couple--we all presume--M and A, who turn out to be from Savannah, GA and Germany, respectively. And not a couple--or so they say--but just friends who became part of a larger group when they all realized they were doing the same hostel tour on more or less the same schedule. A encourages me to take tango lessons despite my worries about my complete lack of dance background because as she says, "Tango made me love this city." She also gives me some excellent advice about shoes. And M and I find we know a number of places in common stateside and are able to reminisce about our favorite eateries, etc. thereabouts. (There is some poetical waxing on the topic of The Crab Shack, for example, also a certain small college town of my recent habitation.)

Eventually M, C, and I grab a taxi and ask to be taken to the main square anticipating the big fun, but when we get there it is completely deserted. They both wonder, understandably, if I have got the address right--to which I wittily retort, "No clue, Spanish very tricky" and so we decide instead to wander in the direction of the pub. On the way, however, we hear music and discover that the competition is being held just off the square, as opposed to on the square itself (providing a perfect example of how a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing and misunderstanding a preposition set the entire meaning of a sentence on its ear). But no harm, no foul.

The competition has closed off a main artery leading from the plaza, at one end of which is a concert of sorts and at the other, a stage for the dance competition itself. In the blocks between, pedestrians wander, café patrons gawk, and dozens upon dozens of locals dance in the street (and on the sidewalks and, basically, anywhere there's room and a few places where there isn't). It's quite the scene--young and old, tourist and local, dancer and voyeur and everything and everyone in between all co-mingled in a barely-contained riot of easy-going bonhomie--and characteristic of one of the most appealing aspects of a city where arrogance and courtesy, pride and graciousness seem always to come in equal measures. And the undisguised pleasure in showing off is so often accompanied by a smile, an invitation, an outstretched hand. Tonight, it's impossible to find it anything but charming--for me, at any rate. C and M are moderately less enthused.

We luck upon some empty seats near the competition proper and M and I invite ourselves to stay, while C goes in search of libation. I try to maintain a charitable silence about Australians and their beer--as C has just this very evening been opining that he finds this an ugly and unjustified stereotype. Unfortunately, I fail and poor M nearly falls off his chair. And yet, after a while, we all wind up in a pub around the corner with a giant Guinness sign hanging above the door, where we make ourselves at home for a few rounds and a basket of fries before calling it an evening once the crush and din become too much for our elderly ears. On the way home, we realize we completely forgot to eat dinner.

Later that night I wake up because I need to use the bathroom and note that A & M (who are in my dorm) are sharing a bunk. Pshaw. Not a couple, my Moster Esther. J'accuse!

*accompanying finger wag*

So, one of the many things discussed during the tying-one-on while-waiting-for-supper portion of evening last was B's near violent desire for a mani/pedi and my own somewhat desperate need of a haircut. As such, the two of us decide to make an afternoon of it and after breakfast head out in search of a salon. We find one without much trouble and I embark on a somewhat worrisome adventure in haircuttery, attempting to explain in Spanish what I hope for to my stylist, who speaks no English at all (although her hair does look fabulous and that's always a comfort). As it turns out, I get exactly what I want--all the more impressive when you stop to consider how unlikely the possibility that that's what I actually ask for. And I even learn a few new words along the way--un recorte ("a trim") and en capas ("in layers").

While I'm waiting on B's mani/pedi to finish up, I decide to pass the time practicing my Spanish and pick up a dog-eared copy of Cosmo, which actually turns out to be kind of fun because most of the sex words are not in my little pocket dictionary and I have to keep inquiring of B's manicurist what the various slang terms mean--highly entertaining for her, apparently, and very likely everyone else within earshot, one imagines. Also of note, the woman uses an actual power sander--like the kind of thing you'd use to refinish furniture--to attack B's foot calluses. And, just FYI, apparently it tickles.

Anywho, our beauty needs met and it being mid-afternoon by this time (it took about three and a half hours, beginning to end), we decide we are in need of some luncheon and, on the street, debate which of the six or seven restaurants within view looks most promising. While we do this, a man standing just outside the doorway of the nearest place hands us a daily menu flyer from the pub across the way and, as B admires his cheek, we decide to check it out. It turns out to be very nice--all polished wood and table linens--so we stay. She has the garlic chicken, I have the gnocchi (of which I can finish only half), we split a small bottle of white wine. My part comes to approximately $6.

Now sated, we have two small errands to attend to before we can return home. B needs more wine--as all we've drunk in the last two days had been intended as a gift for a friend of hers and she needs to replace it before she flies out tonight--and I am newly although not direly in need of tampons.

***Warning: mildly entertaining anecdote about buying tampons to follow***

Apparently, tampons can be notoriously hard to come by in certain parts of Latin America, or so at least all the guidebooks tell you. And even in the big cities you can't necessarily expect to find them with the ease and regularity of home--sometimes the grocery stores carry them, sometimes you need to make a special trip to the pharmacy, etc. Anywho, we stumble across a Farmacia in short order and make our way to the back to ask for what I want from the chemist (as everything is kept behind the counter in most pharmacies).

Picture it, Sicily, 1929: the chemist is inquiring of me in Spanish what size, how many, etc.--all the questions you would generally be allowed to ponder in your own time and without an audience back home (did I mention the tininess of the room, the armed guards, the several old men milling about for no apparent reason, listening and watching with keen interest?) and I'm doing my best to answer, also in Spanish, despite all of this distraction and embarrassment. But I grin and bear it and, in point of fact, she brings me what I want más o menos with very little difficulty. So far, so good. BUT. THEN. You don't pay for your purchases there--oh, no--they get passed up to the register in the front room, also full of armed guards and old men, and tossed on a counter to be inspected and discussed again before you are, finally, allowed to escape--free at last. Egads. I don't even want to think about what buying condoms will entail. (Will I need my passport, do you think?) I must say the mind boggles at the very prospect.

Of course, pr0n appears to be widely available for effortless purchase from most any corner kiosk--not that there's anything wrong with that. *fights urge to sing Tammy Wynette songs about unfairness of life, woman-being, etc.*

Anywho, onward. Next on the agenda is el vino and so we wander into a small corner grocery with a few bottles on display and after discussing the possibilities with the proprietor are directed to a real bodega down the street. It appears to be closed, but luckily for us, the owner is merely tardy in reopening after his siesta and unlocks the door as we're still standing in the doorway, asking the time from a passing pedestrian. Inside it's quite posh and B asks for a few recommendations in the $10 range (although, it should be said, very, very drinkable wine may be had for less than a quarter of that price hereabouts) whereby the owner points in the direction of an ominous looking stairwell. As we make our way down it, B turns to me, by way of translating and chirps, "The owner says if I come down into the basement with him I can get all my wine for free!" And...for about a half a second she has me.

Ha. Such a card, that one. *slaps knee*

Turns out, there's a wine cellar at the bottom of said ominous stairwell--who'd a thunk it?--about six times the size of the storefront, as well as about a bazillion very nice bottles of wine in our price range. So nice, in fact, that at one point, the owner gives B lengthy directions regarding how to deal with the silt in one of her selections. I buy a bottle, too, figuring it's long past my turn to chip in for some of our daily bacchanal. Classy gal that I am, I make my final selection based on the name--Del Fin del Mundo--a pinot noir from someplace I've never heard of, but apparently named after a popular brand of sporty clothes. Whatever. To each his own, I say, not in the least bit weirded out that my underpants and my wine are so similarly appelled. (And also, though the pinot noir is good, I feel I should mention here that the only serious oenophile I meet during my hostel sojourn drinks exclusively malbec--which I have yet to try--but I won't learn this until later in the week.)

Errands accomplished, B and I wend our way homeward, stopping in at an art gallery, at one point briefly getting lost, but otherwise without incident and begin what has become the nightly ritual--sit, talk, drink wine, make dinner plans, pick up strays, etc. Sadly, the handsome, blue-eyed Spaniard has moved on, so tonight it's C, an Australian guy who's been TOEFL-ing it around the world for the better part of a decade, most recently for three years in Brazil and, as R has plans with friends in town, it's just the three of us for supper.

B has a yen for sushi, I'm indifferent, and C will be happy so long as there's yakisoba he says, so we decide to be trendy and check out a Japanese place recommended by ye olde trusty "lonely planet" guide in the most fashionable part of town. The food is excellent--it always, always is--and I'm especially impressed with the misoshiru, my favorite part of any sushi dining experience. But the highlight of the evening comes when, while awaiting our food, B recounts all the good-looking, charming, well-traveled, single men to be had back at the hostel and my--according to her--plans to go through them all alphabetically. Whereby C chimes in with absolutely perfect timing, "Damn that Armenian!" Which--and maybe you just had to be there--absolutely cracks us all up in the moment (although I think B actually means by name, not nationality--not that it matters, I suppose.) Cackling ensues, heads turn, tears are wiped away.

After supper we walk to a nearby club which is supposed to have a "raunchy drag show" on Thursday nights, but when we arrive everyone is watching giant screens with some sort of silly, puppet-y skits playing and I'm really wishing I understood more Spanish--especially when the one featuring Laura Bush, Gandhi, and Gary Coleman comes on. But, soon enough, this is replaced with a live band--the name of which I do not catch, but will forever remember in my heart as "My Grampa's Golf Pants" for reasons I'll leave you to surmise for yourselves. The lead singer, the only drag queen I can see anywhere, is apparently dressed as the not-so-prime-of-Miss-Jean-Brodie--seriously, it's as if the Church Lady went as a librarian for Halloween--and the show itself couldn't be farther from raunch if it tried. But, the music is alright, the G&Ts kicking in, and I'm having a good time anyway.

After the opening band comes a human beat box act, which is actually none too shabby, but we can't stay late because B flies to Ecuador at 5 am and needs to be back for her taxi to the airport. No doubt the raunch, as with everything else here in deepest, darkest Peru, is only to be had fashionably late. *disappointed finger snap* Oh, well, she says, there's always next time. [Editor's note: I read later that the show proper doesn't begin until 3 am.] At any rate, in the cab home, B power naps with her head on my shoulder and her bare feet hanging out the window, and I'm feeling a mite misty-eyed at the prospect of her imminent departure...and also just a smidgen worried about the safety of her feet. But as it turns out they come to no harm and, as we arrive home, I point out the ladyboys to C, one of whom serendipitously flashes his/her ass as we drive past.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, C goes straight to bed, but R, returned from his evening out, and I decide to wait up to make sure B doesn't fall asleep again and miss her flight and we three proceed to have one of those funny 3 am conversations about everything and nothing--shaving, TMJ, Ecuadorian box wine--at which point, R invites me to the lake district for the holidays, where he will be staying with a friend. Of course, people in hostels say things like that all the time, never expecting that you might actually take them up on it, so--who knows? On the one hand, I have absolutely no extra money for travel at the moment and if I do decide to go, I may not eat come February as Raman noodles are are actually quite pricey down here. On the other hand, I've always found abject starvation to be an effective means of garnering pity while panhandling in the streets retaining one's girlish figure. (It worked very well for me in New York once upon a time--really, it's a win/win when you think about it...)

Ah, decisions, decisions. So, I equivocate and he gives me his email address, just in case, as he leaves the next day, too. And then, sooner than I'd like, B's taxi shows and she's off for parts unknown and R and I turn in for the night, but already mi vida loca seems a little less colorful. Who will buy my wine now? Who will introduce all the good-looking, charming, well-traveled, single men into the orbit of my charm and loveliness? Who will dip her bosoms into the tomato sauce?

No one, I suspect. And, unfortunately, my own bosoms don't reach.

*sniff*

Days two rolls around and I out of bed at the crack of oh, I'd say about eleven o'clock, to find the complimentary breakfast still set out and that I'm not even the last to rise--imagine that. The toast is cold but the coffee isn't as yet, the sun is shining, happiness and sobriety are mine for the asking, life is good. After this leisurely, if inauspicious start, I take another pass around my trendy-yet-scruffy neighborhood, remarking among other things the family that has set up housekeeping under a nearby underpass complete with home furnishings including a dining table and chairs upon which they can be seen daily lounging--drinking coffee, reading the paper, one supposes--looking quite snug, in point of fact. *feels paradigm begin to shift*

I window shop for a few hours; locate the grocery, the post office, other places of interest and necessity before heading back and doing some work on the computer wherein I am constantly being pestered by a good-looking, if slightly older Frenchman who, unfortunately for him, speaks only French and Portuguese and is a bit of an odd-man-out in the hostel today when the English and Spanish speakers are dominating (of course, that ratio fluctuates). Upon discovering that I understand a bit of French he insists upon trying to make conversation with me which sets my midwesterness at war with itself (Must be civil, must talk! Am taciturn, can not do!) and I am thrilled beyond words when the far-more-gregarious B finally returns from her Christmas shopping to shoulder the burden of conversation with me. The three of us proceed to have a rather entertaining round-robin whereby she asks him a question in English, I butcher it into French, and he responds in a pidgin of French, Portuguese, and very occasionally English or Spanish, which we all then try to parse before beginning the process all over again.

Among other things we ask him how Brazil--whence he is immediately arrived--is for women traveling alone. He says, we think, that one is far more likely to have one's wallet lifted than to be subject to any particular physical jeopardy or harassment in the streets. Good to know. (As a certain someone I don't know IRL who lived in Japan for a number of years once remarked: it's amazing what you can communicate with the help of charades; it's also amazing what you can't.) He and B also discuss the politics of being a Falkland Islander, a topic with which she gets impatient, understandably, I suppose. At one point the day clerk, a lovely student of political science joins in and although all is friendly, afterwards I notice that whenever B and I are out and about together and get de donde nacio'd, she responds "los Estados Unidos" and then wanders off and leaves me to chat about the finer points with whomever. Possibly, the only time in all my travels I've ever seen a non-American find it handy to pretend American citizenship. In return, I explain the old, "infamous pseudo-Canadian ruse" to her which gets a good laugh, as her parents are Canadian.

At one point, when B excuses herself, the good-looking, if slightly older Frenchman tells me I'm beautiful and charming--gee, thanks, dad--and as I never know how to respond to that, I mumble "merci." He laughs at me and I hope to heaven he's not in my room (which he isn't--thank you, baby Jesus--as variations on this theme will become a constant refrain during our mutual stay and that gets awkward). But then B reappears and with her the wine, the handsome blue-eyed Spaniard, and R, a tall, redheaded civil engineer from Manchester. I tell you what, I don't know if y'all have picked up on this, but good-looking, charming, well-traveled, single men are growing on trees, ripening, and then L-I-T-E-R-A-L-L-Y falling into my lap. In fact, it's happening with such frightening regularity at this point that I suspect I may well be malarial and hallucinating.

Anywho, the good-looking, if slightly older Frenchman wanders off at some point to chat up a lovely Portuguese girl half his age and the four remaining repeat the activities of the night before, if somewhat more sedately and with slightly less potential for arrest and subsequent incarceration. During the primping stage of the evening I emerge to find only R in the lounge, at which point he says by way of greeting, and I quote, "You're lovely!" (Did y'all also catch how this is the second time in as many hours that a good-looking, charming, well-traveled, single man is moved to spontaneous outburst of appreciation for my person? No? Because, I'm beginning to feel distinctly as if I've fallen into the rabbit hole or through the magic wardrobe or something and landed in a place where all is topsy-turvy and stout, middle-aged curmudgeons the rage. It's disconcerting, I tell you!) Anywho, B and the handsome, blue-eyed Spaniard return and along with them more wine, cigarettes, and song until about ten-ish, then a leisurely supper--this time pizzas, where we insist on ordering one each, despite our waitress's pessimistic, yet eerily accurate, prognosticating--followed by a few hours in an open-air bar with good conversation interspersed throughout.

Also and btw, speaking of open-air bars, the weather is lovely so far--a bit changeable perhaps, a little rain here and there, but mostly warm and muggy during the day and cool at night. And always, always there is a breeze; to be out-of-doors after dark is absolutely heavenly from the geoclimatic perspective, somewhat less so from the socioeconomic. Thusly, on our way to said bar, B gives our leftover pizza to one of the many foraging for their supper in the copious garbage which lines the streets--neatly packaged by day, strewn about by night--which more than makes up for the ignominy of having had our eyes proved larger than our stomachs and the knowing looks of our smarty-pants waitress. Although, I should say from all accounts, things are not so bad here as in any number of other places and absolutely no one is aggressive about begging--considerably less so, in fact, than a certain small college town of my recent habitation which shall go unnamed--there's busking, of course, and some panhandling, but no touching or threats or tirades. The most apt comparison is New York, I think (or would be if New York hobos had gracious South American manners). The locals do their darndest to put the fear of the living God into you with regards personal safety, but so long as you don't behave like an absolute imbecile, chances are you'll be just fine. Plus taxis are cheap--the average ride costs less than $3, often split three, four, even fives ways...

At any rate, once there, I try my first caipirinha and my first pisco sour, but most unfortunate, IMHO, no one orders the semen de pitufo, despite the repeated taunts and triple-dog-dares bandied about. We do, however, get a rather lengthy monologue from B about why real smurf sperm would almost certainly not be blue, so adding the blue curaçao is just silly in her humble opinion and she would infinitely prefer eponymous drinks be more accurate to the natural world they claim to represent, et cetera ad infinitum. Needless to say, her feelings being so violent upon the subject, we all nod our mute agreement in a gesture of support and international goodwill, while simultaneously attempting not to snarf our own drinks all over our laps. (By the by and apropos of nothing, I highly recommend, whenever possible, picking up a flirty, twenty-something Benny with passable Spanish and a propensity for hai-larious tomato-related social faux pas, copious wine consumption, and spontaneous compliments to pal around with on your travels...because they rock. One might even go so far as to say wiggity rock.)

Despite all these good times, however, everyone's drooping tonight--it's just possible we're all still recovering from the night before, but I prefer to think it's something in the air--and we decide to call it a day. I volunteer that I'm looking forward to my pajama pants and the handsome, blue-eyed Spaniard laughs and reminds me that I've only been out of my pajamas for a few hours. "Piffle," I say to him, "that's just the way I like it." (And now I suppose I ought refer to him as the observant, excellent-judge-of-character Spaniard...but it just doesn't have the same ring to it.) On the cab ride home, we notice some interesting goings-on right around the corner from the hostel, where several young people ("ladymans" according to the cabby) loiter about, yelling things at the passing cars--ah, home, sweet home. At any rate, we arrive and just before two, whereby the auditor greats us with a flurry of friendly Spanish, which may or may not involve the word abuela. *clutching my belly with the laughing so hard, mistersmartypantsnightauditorman, I'll show you who's a...zzzzzzzzzzzz*

Hwæt. To begin my trip with the beginning of my trip, I arrive after a reasonably easy, non-stop, overnight flight aboard a large South American airliner which whose country of origin has clearly not yet deregulated the industry--can I get a "woohoo" for hot meals, free booze, free everything in fact, AND three whole seats all to my little yoga-contorted self? Otherwise, not much to tell there except that apparently I'm going to be considered a big weirdo because I don't take sugar in my coffee. The flight attendant, with whom I try to converse in Spanish whenever I can (and who is very game about it), insists on repeating my order twice in Spanish and at least once in English every single time I ask for coffee with milk, no sugar--even though it's café americano and not espresso or anything Continental and overly diesel-like. Seriously, I nearly laugh in her face the third time we have this same exact, halting conversation:

"Café?"
"Sí."
"Con leche?"
"Sí."
"Y sucre?"
"No."
"No sucre?! No...sugar?"
"No."

You would think I'm asking for a steaming cup of delicious arsenic or something. (Also, wondering if sucre is the usual word for sugar in Spanish or if it's slang or if she was speaking to me in Portuguese the whole time and I didn't notice or something equally embarrassing.)

Anywho, a small snafu once I debark and my ride--who is supposed to be waiting for me with a white sign--is nowhere to be found. After milling about for a half hour just to make sure he or she hasn't made a run for the bathroom or stepped out to have a cigarette of something, I finally find/figure out how to make a phone call, but all I get is an error message en español, por supuesto, so I can't tell if it's me or them who's effing up the situation normal and I'm getting a bit panicky--have I exchanged all these emails with a company which doesn't really exist? But they have a little internet cafe in the airport and for a very reasonable fee, I get a half hour, send them an email, tell them I'm sitting in the internet cafe, waiting to be found...and I am, eventually and all is bueno. As these kinds of hassles go, it really is a mild one, but lack of sleep can really interfere with one's ability to remember rational things like that in the moment, she says, not feeling particularly apologetic for her brusque North American manners and expectations of timeliness. Harrumph. I suspect in the end the driver probably figures it will take me much longer to clear customs and immigration, etc. than it actually does, whereas all is very easy-breezy on that front.

So, a comfortable taxi ride later--comfortable, of course, being the operative word here as I would guesstimate that the driver spends roughly 70% of the trip straddling two or more lanes at a hundred plus miles an hour surrounded by a bunch of other drivers who all seem to think this perfectly acceptable behavior--I am dropped off at my hostel. Although, apparently, I get off easy as a guy from the UK with whom I dine later in the week tells me that on the way in from the airport his cab driver takes a detour down the very steep, grass median to avoid a traffic jam, in which endeavor he is joined by at least a dozen other cars--welcome to South America. Anywho, my driver is nice enough and even carries my heavy bags inside for me--and up two flights of stairs and I check in, have a quick bite to eat, stow my excessive baggage luggage, unpack-ish (as much as one ever dares unpack in a hostel) and am immediately picked up by B, the most adorably friendly twenty-something gal from the Falkland Islands--the Falkland Islands, you say?--yes, the Falkland Islands--who, as we chat, invites me out to supper and I'm all, like, "score" I've been here for less than an hour and I already have dinner plans. Woohoo! Things are definitely looking up.

The hostel clears out as hostels are wont to do about mid-morning and I grab a quick shower and a power nap and plan to go out and explore the neighborhood before supper (which is taken infamously late in these here parts). So, post-nap, pre-walk, I'm sitting on my bunk perusing my various maps and guidebooks and whatnots and decide to ask the handsome, blue-eyed Spaniard who wanders past and has the bunk above mine where he would recommend I amble (did I mention my room is co-ed?) and he graciously spends 15-20 minutes making helpful suggestions about things to see and do and the best-verus-easiest ways to get to them, while I try not to stare at him all moony-like and stupid, which is hard for me, as some of you can attest.

I'm still feeling a little woozy from the no sleep and a little vertigo-y, too, ever since the airplane, so I'm hoping the brisk walk will do me good, which it does. I get lost several times--one of which times brings me to the door of an excellent little used book shop for english language books. And when I say excellent, I mean excellent--I find a copy of "The Wife's Lament," for frak's sake, as well as James Joyce, Muriel Rukeyser, Don DeLillo, Harold Bloom, and more Brontës than you can shake a stick at. I don't buy anything, but I do take their card to better find them again someday...and soon, she says, hopefully. Then I look at some pretty and important buildings, poke around in a few antique shops, and people watch for a bit before heading back. I don't have a watch with me and so don't realize I have been contentedly wandering about for nearly five hours. No wonder my gimpy foot is twinging...stupid gimpy foot. Stupid old lady body.

Upon arriving home, I decide to spend ten minutes in a rational manner--Mr. Bennett would be so proud--reviewing my Spanish grammar. BUT. THEN. B returns from her day's adventures and invites me to join her in a nice glass of red wine. Of course, abstemious as always, I say "no."

Ha.

A nice glass turns into a nice bottle which, eventually, turns into three nice bottles, a handsome blue-eyed Spaniard and a couple from Australia. We all hang out, drinking, smoking, listening to some groovy tunes (Razorlight, Kings of Leon, Amy Winehouse) and speaking in hazy, indistinct terms of the possibility of supper, someday--but then we put it off for another two hours as it is still embarrassingly early, one might almost say gauchely so--only eight o'clock--and, really, one doesn't like to be gauche. Around ten the five of us head out to a restaurant recommended by our night auditor for carne and are a little taken aback by how fancy it is--literally chockablock with well-heeled, middle-aged locals--but some crafty one of our party thinks to discreetly check a menu before we're seated and figures out that the average entrée is about $10. So, then, of course, we're all like "this is going to be the greatest steak dinner ever!"

And it so very is. Although I don't have the steak--because I'm contrary like that--I have something that roughly translates as "breast of wild, young boar," which turns out to be short ribs and finger-lickin', fan-frakking-tastic ones at that. I do manage to snertch a bit of steak off of everyone else's plate, as well--nobody minds since all the steaks were two inches thick (two inches thick cooked, mind you) and they are all fantastic, too. In fact, the businessmen at the neighboring table order some sort of gargantuan roasty thing to share, which according to B looks "like a juicy, meaty loaf of bread"--an apt description, if ever there was one--and the waiter actually cuts and serves it with a spoon--a spoon, you say?--yes, a spoon.

In addition to this festival of meat, we drink a couple more bottles of lovely red wine, eat some salad-ish type items as well as some truly dreamy mashed potatoes and then top it all off with stewed apples and espresso. Seriously good food, and plentiful, for what came to just over $100 for all five of us, but the evening doesn't stop there--oh, no--somewhere amid all this feasting, B manages to dunk her ample left bosom into her tomato sauce (did I mention that her left bosom is currently ensconced in a tight, white shirt? no?) which leaves a small--tiny, really--stain the size of, well, the size of something 3-4 inches in diameter. At which point, we're all like, "Um, Diego?" (Diego is our waiter; otherwise that would be weird.) "Some help here?"

At first he brings her a towel to wrap around herself, which is rather fetching in its toga-like simplicity and she does wear that for a bit, but then, understandably, starts to feel a little conspicuous. Then Diego offers to lend B a tee-shirt, which offer she mulls over, but then declines as we have fancy plans for the rest of our evening (and everyone knows that fancy plans require pants to match). At which point he brings her out a bowl of secret, soapy magic water which, honest to Pete, takes the stain right out. Of course, there is a tiny bit of pulling and rubbing and jiggling that goes along with this lengthy laundering process, but then again the world is an imperfect place and who are we to complain? At any rate as some snarky person, who may or may not be sitting next to B pointing and laughing trying to be supportive opines, "It's like dinner and a show all rolled into one." And she's pretty sure the table full of businessmen sitting next to us agree.

Soon after, we all have a good laugh at the family who exits the restaurant at the conclusion of their meal with an adorable, sleeping four-year-old on the papa's shoulder...because it's after frakkin' midnight. And then we have a good laugh at the couple still waiting to be seated for supper...because it's after frakkin' midnight...before exiting our own selves and chortling our way through the taxi ride to some chic club because the streets are literally thronging with people. At 1 am. On a Tuesday night. And not just college kids, either, but old people, babies, dogs. Even our septuagenarian cab driver can't shame us into respectful silence when he helpfully informs us that there's no use in showing up anywhere at 1 am unless we want to be the only ones there (the "you silly, gringo hillbillies," is implied, I think, but graciously left unsaid) and yet we go anywho because sometimes, when in Rome, you just have to own your gaucheness. I often find that drinking helps with that.

The cover is $3, but it comes with a beer voucher--because otherwise, obviously, that $3 cover would so not be worth it. And, ftr, the place isn't completely empty (so there, taxicabdriverman! *shakes fist*), but it isn't exactly what you would call teeming, either. And it's house music--ick, not my favorite. So far, not so promising. But, about an hour later, things begin to pick up and the gentlemans of our party decide to invest in a whole, big bottle of rum, which unbeknownst to us all qualifies us for the VIP lounge. Now B and I have been making fun of the sorry lot in the VIP area for quite a while at this point, but as seats are getting scarce (it is after three, after all) and we are at that very moment getting hit on by some cheeky Algerians--en français, naturellement--we decide to give it a go and become sorry lotters very important persons. What can I say? The glam-coolness follows me wherever I go. It's a known fact.

So, as sometimes happens in these situations, buying a whole, big bottle of rum somehow--inexplicably--turns into drinking a whole, big bottle of rum, flirting with a bouncer, twirling about the dance floor like some sort of deranged færie, *coughing* and then drunkenly--one might almost say gauchely--burning a finger and dropping on the floor that which does not belong to me, and then, finally, stumbling cabbing homeward circa 5 am. We are, of course, first to leave as we are to arrive, but I am dead tired on my feet and no longer caring about this whole gauche issue--I am farmer, hear me roar!

Finally, we retire and I sleep like a proverbial baby--an intoxicated, exhausted, extremely well-fed proverbial baby.