corazón tan doloroso

who's that boy? gazing out from the balcony of a 6th floor apartment in the middle of the night, watching the lights of the argentine capital blink and gleam before slipping back into the embrace of fresh white argentine sheets, a gentle argentine breeze, strong argentine arms and vivid argentine dreams? who's that boy? sitting in those argentine cafés reading about argentine love, or listening to argentine words from argentine mouths whilst staring into argentine eyes? and who indeed is that boy? draped in that rainbow flag chatting to MPs and transvestite prostitutes at an argentine political protest? drinking in the bars of buenos aires, dancing shirt-off in the foam of a nightclub or running pants-off through the town centre? that was another life, another time, another ondrej...

*my first ever foam party. i was in the middle under the foam where i couldn't breathe: panic attack!*

the grace and the tragedy of travel is that you can live many lives. with some local words and an access point, any new area will open up like a flower whose intoxicating scent cannot be ignored. the privilege is to see so many different flowers in our garden; the tragedy is knowing that one cannot smell them all. thank god i'm back on the road.

first stop on the current fuck-the-environment intercontinental bonanza was buenos aires, and i did something that i've always wanted to, but never have: to just turn up and see what happens. i didn't get a guide book, i didn't discuss with other people what they recommend i do, and i didn't search on the internet for good tourist activities. when i know about famous tourist sights i get this stupid feeling that i have to go or i'll be missing out on something (lose/lose situation), so i knocked the problem on the head by not finding out what there was to do in the first place, and hey-presto i had one of the best city visits of my life!

from an airbnb.com rented room in a local's apartment, i logged onto some chat sites, put the word out that i wanted to do local things with local people, and before you could say "fuera ingleses de las malvinas", my week of exploring buenos aires with a cattle-call of beautiful argentinian boys had begun :)

*christian and i. couldn't fit my fat arse behind the famous mafalda so look like a giant*

not sure that there's much to say except that i'm smitten with buenos aires. smitten with the kind argentinians that bend over backwards to help you, smitten with the beautiful city, smitten with the bookshops open until midnight, the buses that run every 10 minutes at 3am, the wooden metros, the hidden cafes and icecream parlours, the theatres that show plays until the early hours of the morning, and especially smitten with those beautiful, beautiful argentinian boys. can one of them please just marry me? ouf! i'll be back :)