Jan 14

Patricia was the only one awake when I rose at two this afternoon. She was totally unaware of my coming to Buenos Aires until Lukas called her. Nekro, it turns out, is with Tomy on holiday for the week, many hours away. I checked my email and saw a message from Tomy; it read, "Where you are? We wait all the day at the airport! Call me if you are here porque we leave for la playa tomorrow morning!!!"

The message was left yesterday so I called the number. Tomy’s mom explained that Tomy and a friend had spent all yesterday at the airport, but because of all the construction and lack of signage, they probably wound up waiting on the other side of the airport. She said they assumed I missed my flight, or decided not to come after all. She also informed me that they left this morning for a week at the beach, returning right about the time I’ll be leaving.

While I passed today away by watching home videos from bands all of over South America, Patricia made a call to a 20 year-old named Emilio. Emilio comes from a town called La Plata where, much to my surprise, my goofy band is quite popular. She asked me if I wanted to go out to his place for a day. She assured me he wasn’t going to rob or rape me, only feed me, so I openly agreed. Plus, I was pretty curious to see what kind of town would actually like my band.

At 1am four guys between 18 and 20 showed up. Emilio and his friends introduced themselves in the traditional Argentine way: one by one we kissed each other on the left cheek. (At the risk of sounding fruity, I love this kissing thing. No matter who you’re meeting, boy or girl, big or small, it is customary to kiss them. It’s beautiful.) anyway, we bid the She-Devils good-night and I was stuffed into a small car with the four La Platains for the long ride back to la casa d’Emilio.

On the way I was taught remedial slang with special emphasis on phrases pertaining to farting and masturbating. In doing so, I noticed many words sounding similar in both Spanish and English, but which mean radically different things. Emilio kept talking about what great "bitches" Argentina had. He meant "beaches." Patricia kept calling people "wieners" when she meant "winners." Conversely, I kept asking where I could buy some bananas ("plantanos") to eat. Nobody could figure out why I wanted to eat pants ("pantalones").

Emilio’s house was grand, leading me to think that his folk’s must be very well-to-do. I could tell by their toilet paper. He set me up with an after-midnight snack and made up his sister’s bed for me, all the while asking me band trivia. After an hour of grilling me he sensed my tiredness and let me sleep.