In The Words of Jeremy Steele, "This Place Has Gone to Hell"

Buckle in and prepare yourself for an inexcusably long post: It's been two crazy weeks and there is plenty to tell. I'll start by introducing a new member of our convoy: Francesca. Bubbly and outgoing, she worked for the same company that I did in Philadelphia, but as a server in a different restaurant (Distrito -- insanely delicious and creative mexican Tapas). She lived in Montevideo for about a month in October, learning Spanish and preparing for her next couple of months in South America. After traveling around many different countries with another Distrito friend (I love the GRG network) she has stopped to take a break here in Montevideo. it looks like she will be working as a bartender at a new hostel and calling this quaint city her home for about two months until she does some more traveling. I have taken quite a liking to the girl. I call her Franchez, and we bond over the awkward catcalls so often thrown out there by Uruguay's finest gentlemen.

Enough about Franchez, back to the Christmas holidays:

Here in Uruguay, when the days get longer (it doesn't get dark here lately until 9 PM) and things heat up, a huge percentage of Montevideo's city-dwellers load up their coups and head "afuera," meaning "outside," to the many beach towns that dot the coastline east of Montevideo. We can beach it with the best of 'em, so when Andrea's Tia Adriana and Tio Cesar invited us to spend a little time in the famed Punta del Este, we didn't hesitate. We ended up spending Christmas Eve warming ourselves next to the fire of the parrilla in the beach house' backyard. I'll be honest here, Christmas ham in New Jersey is tasty and all, but Christmas chorizo, asado, and fireworks helped to easy the homesickness a bit. The highlight of the evening came when Papa Noel (read: Andrea's cousin Leandro) appeared at the house and divvied out gifts, mostly to the adorable 3-year-old Milagros, but no one left empty handed. It was a lovely Noche Buena.

Christmas day was spent with Andrea's other side of the family, her Tia Marta and Tio Raul, at a party in Montevideo. Again, we gorged ourselves on meaty goodness hot off the parrilla -- plenty of chorizo and tender bits of lamb. I also got to experience what it must feel like to be Martha Stewart, as my brownies were the stand-out stars of dessert. 10 pounds heavier, we left the party and returned home and prepared for my sister's arrival in Carrasco airport later that night. She arrived with minimal trouble (the previous sentence being an understatement, as she was even upgraded to first class for the whole of her travel time) and we quickly headed back to get some rest before heading out again the next morning for more beach time in Punta del Este.

A few days afuera, a few more tanlines, and we were back to good old Monty V. Before we knew it, it was New Years Eve and Andrea and I were squished into the 701 omnibus on the way to Carrasco Airport to retrieve our blonde amiga, Carolyn.

*Some Carolyn basics: She is blonde, she is giggly, she is smart, she has a highly-coveted wardrobe filled with flouncy flirty dresses, and she and I share a relationship filled with love but largely based on sarcastic jibing and unnecessarily cruel (though empty) insults. She will be heading out to Patagonia soon to backpack around for a bit with our other Penn friend, Noah.*

50 hellish minutes later, we arrived at the terminal and immediately found Caro with her trademark L.L. Bean body bag and little-girl grin. One cab ride later we were back in our apartment putting our faces on and imbibing champagne in the New Year's spirit. It should come as no shock that we lost track of time, and when we finally made our way over to Ciudad Vieja we were greeted by a Ghost Town. Apparently in Montevideo, the rambunctious crazy festivities come to an end in the late afternoon and people head into their homes to spend time with their families. After fruitlessly seeking out an open parrillada, we stumbled upon a Chinese buffet and decide to gorge ourselves on the South American take on lo mein and Kung Pao. The verdict? A little taste of home but a far cry from familiar. Food does taste better when you're drunk however, so who I am to complain?

The rest of the night was essentially robbed by alcohol-induced sleepiness, and we woke up the next day semi-refreshed and ready for our journey to Buenos Aires: The New York of South America, or so I have been told. It took us about 6 hours to get over to Argentina -- 3 hours on a bus, and 3 hours on a ferry that were made bearable by the presence of a beautiful man with an unfortunate hair 'do. He came to be known simply as Ratty, per the Rat Tail on the back of his head. Becky had to restrain me from charging at him with a pair of scissors and then proposing.

Buenos Aires was waiting patiently for us when we stepped onto Argentinean soil and hopped into the first legit-looking cab we could find. Our first surprise: The hostel we booked in Recoleta (a charming Buenos Aires barrio) was not in Recoleta at all, but rather a stone's throw away from the city's Red Light district and the streets where the homeless young people like to roam and, according to Becky (after she heard a dispute from said hostel's window), where they like to host their turf wars which often involve the flinging of glass bottles at one another. Sweet.

So after dropping our things in our room and double checking to make sure the door was locked, we hopped in a cab and headed over to Palermo to meet our friend Noah and his little brother Stuart for a bite and a sip. Palermo felt like another world compared to the neighborhood we were staying in (I don't even think it had a name, probably because the Porteños would just as soon forget that it exists) and reminded me of a sociable mix of New Orleans' french quarter, NYC's Greenwich Village, and Philly's Rittenhouse square. Noah informed us that Buenos Aires was one of the most lively cities he has ever seen, with some of the hardest partiers. The swarm of young kids buzzing around Palermo's central plaza are a fixture until 6 AM just about every day of the week, he said.

The next day was spent walking around the city and checking out the long stretch of shopping on Buenos Aires' Calle Florida, taking some photos in the famed Plaza de Mayo, and making our way over to Recoleta. We spent some time wandering around the barrios' morbidly beautiful cemetery (which is essentially a small city of mausoleums and impressively imposing statues), grabbing lunch on the patio of a restaurant just a few hundred feet away (my cesar salad would have been delicious had it not been drowned in delicious-but-far-too-abundant dressing), and then meandering through an art gallery and butterfly exhibit. After our time in Recoleta, we made our way to our NEW hostel (we decided to change locales upon discovering that the windows in our previous room weren't exactly "secure" and didn't exactly "lock"). This new place was much cleaner, brighter, had air conditioning, and came with a beautiful Australian that my sister and I managed to chat up for a few joyous minutes.

That night we got dressed up and ate dinner in Palermo again, essentially at the first restaurant we came across that seemed to have space to seat us. Pros: Squishy, comfy seats and a cool ambiance, a meat and cheese plate for the ages, pretty awesome desserts. Cons: Underwhelming steak and goat cheese pasta that was surprisingly bland (I'd think it's hard to achieve blandness when goat cheese is involved....) Thus, I am still holding Uruguay's steak above all others in the world. Rather than trying to keep up with the carousing Porteños, we decided to listen to our bodies and call it a night.

The morning after our food-fest we allowed ourselves to sleep in a bit before checking our the San Telmo flea market and navigating the streets of BA to make our way over to the colorful (though touristy) barrio of La Boca. Apparently all of the houses there were painted such stand-out and mismatched colors because that was the only paint available on the ships that docked at the port. In any case, the backdrop made for some fun photography and lively people-watching.

Please note: Before entrenching ourselves in the raw claustrophobia that is the San Telmo flea market, my sister attempted to buy a white chocolate frappaccino at a local coffee shop and was REJECTED: The 50 peso note she tried to pay with turned out to be about as real as monopoly money. Did we forget to mention that taxi drivers love to divvy out counterfeit bills to ignorant female tourists? Well, that is probably because we had absolutely no clue. What's more, we were told they do it often at the money exchange counters too. Swell. Upon closer inspection, it became obvious that the bill might as well have been made out of xerox paper with crayon writing. Live and learn.

After lunch in La Boca followed by a siesta at our hostel, we embarked on a short walk down to Puerto Madera, a cute little stretch of restaurants and shops all along the port, planning to have dinner there before catching the ferry home. No less than 10 minutes into our trek did I feel some alien liquid splash onto my lower legs and a droplet or two on my arm. Being of the philosophy that ignorance = bliss, I decided to keep walking and keep my mouth shut. Apparently, though, the man walking close to us at the time didn't think the same way. He started to freak out in Spanish, alerting us that something had fallen from above, out of the window of one of the apartments nearby. It was then that I realized that the liquid was puce, smelled terrible, and was sprinkled all over Becky -- on her backpack, on her dress, even in her hair. Carolyn and Andrea had apparently been hit as well, and promptly began cleaning each other off. As Becky started to panic and we both tried desperately to deny the fact that we were most likely covered in vomit, the man offered up his bottle of water and some kleenex to wipe off the goop. I got to work on Becky, while the man aided Carolyn and Andrea and tried not to vomit himself due to the stench. To improve the situation, a random woman came up to Becky and I and started yelling at us in Spanish, pointing at Becky's backpack and telling me to look at what was on it. I quickly became annoyed with her panic, as I was clearly aware of the problem and working on fixing it.

About 10 seconds later, after Becky was relatively vomit-free, I turned to our travel buddies, only to be greeted by Carolyn's face, completely aghast. "Where is my bag?" She said. Becky and I pointed to a black backpack on the ground, which looked suspiciously cheaper and less full than the one we had seen her toting around before. It was then that we notice that the man and the lady were gone, and a black car with tinted windows was speeding off around the corner. Shit. We just got played, big time. In all of the confusion, the man had managed to get Carolyn to take her backpack off to help clean her up, while the woman distracted Becky and I. Quick as can be, they then swiped the bag and hopped into their getaway car.

Now I know you're all thinking, "How could they be so stupid?!" But take a second to think about how intelligent of a con this was: What better way to totally disorient a group of young girls than to make them think they're covered in vomit? Personally, I can think of little that would be more disgusting. Frankly, I'm shocked I didn't freak out more or start to vomit myself.

Thankfully, they only got away with some of Carolyn's clothes, a necklace, and some camera connecting cords. Her passport, money, bus ticket, and credit cards were all in her purse and her shiny new Nikon was still safely around her neck. Still, she was understandably upset and mourning the loss of her belongings, many of which held priceless sentimental value.

So, when traveling in Buenos Aires, keep a couple things in mind:

-There are two Hostel Sols, one in Recoleta (yay!) and one in the godless zone of the city run by hooligan street gangs (nay!)

-Always check your money to make sure the watermark looks like it is supposed to. If your cab driver is taking a surprisingly long time to give you change, that is a clear invitation for skepticism.

-Being bathed in vomit is not worth stopping and cleaning yourself off in the street. Real or fake, get to a bathroom and clean yourself off there. And don't bother telling the cops, because if their concern is anything like that of the officers we told, you're better off saving your breath.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy Buenos Aires as a city. Then again, I didn't have my shit stolen. It's all perspective, isn't it?

More soon...or relatively so. Besos!