The Best Weekend Ever: Thursday

The past week has been filled with midterms, long days at the center doing research broken up by quick trips to the gym, and catching up on sleep. Nothing too exciting, but that’s because two weekends ago I had the best weekend of my life in Buenos Aires. I packed my days with tons of unique new experiences and everything I did was incredible. I spent a lot of money and I didn’t get a lot of sleep, but I’m already planning another trip back in June because I had such an amazing time.

I flew into the city on Thursday as soon as I finished class in the morning. Crossing the Andes by plane was beautiful—ruined only slightly by the man sitting next to me who insisted on leaning over me and videotaping the entire view. The cab ride from the airport to my hostel in the city center took about thirty minutes, and for a while it seemed like the city would never appear out of the suburban landscape. Finally, the apartment complexes rose up, the buildings got more dense, and I saw old cathedrals out of my window. As we drove up Avenida 9 de Julio (Argentine independence day), I saw the city on both sides of me with the wide boulevard stretching out in front of me as the sun began to set. I stayed at a hostel right near the famous Obelisk, a complicated intersection that we were forced to stop at for a while. I marveled at the obelisk itself and the street performers on stilts promoting safety week from the crosswalks. We turned onto Avenida Corrientes, where my hostel was located, and it felt like New York City—lined with theaters, restaurants and neon signs. The hostel was located inside an old apartment building with narrow winding marble staircases and an ancient, slow elevator. I settled into my room, laid out with three bunk beds which I shared with five other students from around the world.

After meeting three kids from Ireland and a girl from Argentina, I headed out to find dinner and a tango show. We ended up going to Café Tortoni, built in the 19th century and known for its history as a literary café where Borges, Storni and other great writers used to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee. We were led into the brick-walled basement of the café for a tango show, which ended up being well worth fifty pesos (about 17 US dollars). The show featured some incredible tango dancing at different tempos, as well as a little bit of theater, amazing drumming and some traditional Argentine ballads. The band, made up of a piano, violin, string bass, and accordion, was extremely talented and even did a few numbers alone. After the show, we went upstairs to have a coffee and take in the café a little more, which was decorated with drawings and photographs of its glory days. Of course, there were mostly tourists in the café that night, but I was happy to know that I was sitting in the same place that Borges once frequented.

We returned to the hostel around 11:30pm, leaving us more than three hours to get ready for the clubs (nothing opens or gets going until 2 or 3 am in Buenos Aries, or Argentina as a whole, especially not on the weekends). We relaxed in the hostel for a while, met some of the other guests, and then took a taxi to a massive club that had 2 levels and a disco ball shaped like a camel, for some reason. The club was packed and we were continually showered with confetti, silly string and foam throughout the night. All in all, we had a lot of fun and without even realizing it most of our group stayed out until 6am.