The Cruise

Chris left to go to the airport after our last post. His plan was to fly to Bolivia, spend the night there, then go to Peru and hike Machu Picchu.

We spent the rest of the afternoon just hanging out. Luke, Butter (the girl from Turkey) and I went shopping in Palermo and first stopped at one of our favorite cafes. Luke and I just got some empanadas (they are like small calzones) and spent the afternoon checking out some shops and helping Butter find some art. Then we did the BsAs thing and sat at a table drinking around massive crowds, just chatting. I showed the picture earlier of Luke spitting on foreign culture with our Budweiser. We got home and napped for an hour or so.

That evening, Hostel Suites Obelisco was throwing an apology party, called "Failure Party", because most people were upset they spent 140 pesos on New Year's for a sub-par party. This was a free party with free booze held at our first Hostel, so we got a gang to go to it. We got there at about 11:30 and the place was going crazy. When we walked in we thought there was a fire from all of the smoking that was going on, but it was awesome. We bumped into Gi, our French friend who we continously make fun of just because we are American and he is French. He is smug and smokes like a Chimney and is really funny. We also saw people who work there that were great to us. At this party, there were a ton of Brazilians. This whole trip, we have met more Brazilians than Argentines but they are extremely friendly people. You just go up and say hi and they start talking and asking you all sorts of questions. I gave one guy my e-mail because he plays baseball in Sao Paolo, and apparently gloves are very hard to find and he wanted me to mail him one. Why not. They also taught Luke and I drinking chants and some awesome inappropriate Portuguese. Actually, earlier, some of our friends wrote down for Luke to say (to a hooker) "How much for your services? Do you have AIDS?" and so we he was showing off this knowledge, and everybody he asked laughed hysterically. We are now confident that our next trip has to be to Brazil.

The party started to die down around 1:30, so we tried to get everybody to leave but ended up getting split up. I took a cab back to Hostel with some of our friends to meet Norway and his Jamie, then possibly go out. Instead, we drank and played cards at the Hostel with people there. For me, it was a pretty quiet night. Here is Luke:

So I got split up from mike/our hostel group and I ended up going to crobar with the brazillans I just met. I was hanging with them in the club and they said they were leaving. Somehow I lost them in club on the way out and I was stranded. I was thinking ohh crap, I am all alone and not miguel to save the day. So I left the club to find my way back to the hostel. Everything looked different at night and I was having trouble finding my way. In some areas that looked sketchy I ran down the street preparing to sprint if things went south. I was solicited by four hookers on the way to the hostel but did not use my new found brazillian lines. The last hooker that approached me I asked in spanish where the hostel was and how to get there. Just as I said this, a police car pulled up. Me talking to hooker at 3 in mourning looked pretty bad. They called me to there car. I asked them in spanish where the hostel was. After the cops helpful directions, I made it back to the hostel with all of my organs. After getting back to the hostel I told everyone my story .

Since we had to get up early to check out, it was another night of 2 hours sleep. I got up before Luke, posted those four pictures, ate breakfast, packed up and checked out. We met up with the Brazilians, Norway, and Jamie because we wanted to do one last tour before leaving. We all happened to be leaving that day. For whatever reason, the Brazilian girls LOVE Mcdonald's and the rest our crappy American fast food, and everyone decided to have lunch at Mcdonald's, and Luke and I were apprehensive, but then we realized that it would be pretty funny. We decided to give everyone there a treat by being walking stereotypes. We both ordered supersized big mac meals and Luke ordered a Mcflurry. When we got the food, the mcflurry wasn't there and so Luke asked for it. Apparently here, you pick that up after you are done eating. The girl looked at him and was like "You want it now?", like it was the strangest/dumbest thing she had seen. Luke didn't get it, but Norway almost peed his pants laughing at him. We ate and I almost wet myself from laughing at our jokes, we all were just brainstorming ideas on how we could be more stereotypical. We decided that if we were all fat, wore sweatpants, had southern accents, were any louder, and crashed through the wall in an H2 to park inside the eating area, that we would be the most extreme Americans ever! The food at this Mcdonald's was way better than the US. The beef was better and more of it, and the presentation was jsut like the pictures.

We then went to the zoo, which sounded like a lot of fun and normally would have been, but it was super hot out and everybody was tired and dehydrated. The zoo itself was pretty cool but we all noticed some things that were funny and sad. They dont seem to take too good of care of the animals there. We saw this polar bear that was just standing in one place with his head dropped, like he was too hot to even move. Every once in a while, he would look over at us sadly, then put his head back down. At first it was funny, then we all though it was really sad. The rest of the park was a pretty standard zoo. We got back to the Hostel, called a cab, and said a sad goodbye to all of our friends. Luke, in the meantime, must have caught something nasty because he had to quickly dash to the toilet and Dumb and Dumbered into the toilet. He thinks one more second of waiting and he would have crapped his pants. Then we got into our cab, went to port and got into our boat. The check in was longer than that, but boring so not really worth mentioning.

Luke and I were so tired we basically just napped when we got to the boat. Around 7 we got up and toured the boat, then ate dinner. Luke was still feeling kind sick, so he spent some time in the room and I went to the gym to have a much-needed workout. That evening, we went out around 12 to see what was going on and nothing was. We are starting to realize how crazy our Hostel stays were and that the ship will probably not be like that at all. We'll just have to make friends with some elders and completely re-arrange our eating/sleeping schedule.

Right now we are ported in Montevideo, Uruguay. It's a very pretty city but being ported for a few hours does not give us a lot of time to check it out. I bought a Mate, a Bombilla, and Yerba Mate so Luke and I can experience this crazy South American drink.

Overall, we are a little thrown off with the cruise. The people are predominately South American, it's mostly families, and hardly anyone our age. With the Hostels, everybody stays there because they are outgoing and will go out of their way to meet you and invite you places. The nature of being in a Hostel makes everybody social. The cruise is different, so far. People are not as aggresive at being social. This will just be a slight adjustment for us. So were going to some events this evening to see what's up, and are totally looking forward to being able to see some great cities and scenery in South America that this cruise provides us.