Not the smartest thing I´ve ever done

Yesterday, I had a two hour and a half hour day. I got up at 6pm, washed my face, brushed my teeth, walked to McDonalds, ate a Triple Mac combo while resisting the urge to hurl with each bite, walked to the internet cafe, attempted to write emails but couldn´t cause of a lack of coordination, walked back home and went to bed at 8.30pm.

I blame this crappy day on myself. I am a retard who doesn´t listen to his own body telling me that it is exhausted and doesn´t want to go out partying.

So my Saturday starts out fairly uneventfully, I do the same thing I always do in Cordoba, the same thing I always do in any new city......wander around aimlessly......well, not quite aimlessly, cause I was fucking hungry and in search of food. My wanderings took me to a modern looking mall tucked away somewhere. I think it´s in between the city centre and the student area of town. Anyway, all of the other places I´ve been to in Cordoba were old and quaint looking, like what Cashel Mall used to be. I was beginning to think that Cordoba was a city stuck in time and free from crass modern consumerism. I was wrong. This mall was like every other modern mall I´ve ever been to. Think of it like a Riccarton mall but a little smaller, that serves ribeye steak in the food court. I guess maybe it did have slightly higher end stores as well. Anyway, I decided to go for a cheesesteak from a place that had an official stamp that certified it as being ¨typical food¨of Argentina. It was aight. In a strange twist of fate, I randomly met up with my fellow classmate Jamie, an Englishman, and the two foreign students that he shares a homestay with, a Japanese guy and a Brazilian girl. Lucky bastard... I have a 19 year old American kid named Chase...... who is exactly what you would imagine a 19 year old American kid named Chase to be like. Also, I´m staying in a house owned by an old lady, that smells like old and faintly of catpiss (although I´m pretty used to that by now). I don´t hate my current homestay situation, I´m just jealous that Jamie has two cool roomies and an actual homestay ¨family¨ who takes them out to do stuff. Anyway...man I sound like a whiney bitch.

I spent the afternoon hanging out with three other Spanish-learning foreign students. We went to the Parque Sarmiento, which is the biggest park in Cordoba. It was a little disappointing, cause in my mind, I kinda expected it to be a bit nice. I keep forgetting that Argentina, while one of the most developed and wealthiest countries in South America, is still in fact part of South America and is not a developed country. So when, we turned up to the lake in the middle of the park and it was a disgusting slimey green colour and full of rubbish, I shouldn´t have been surprised. There was also a huge swarm of ducks and geese....massive, enormous creatures. Not surprising too, cause nearby there was a roast nut and popcorn stand, where a bored looking lady kept tossing out what I think was like dried corn kernels or something. Anyway, yeah......the park was alright. We went a saw a crappy little amusement park in the middle as well. Man, I´m sounding like an arsehole. It was a crappy little amusement park though, with rides similar to the ones you get at the Agricultural show in Christchurch. I´d say that the riverfront park in Jinzhou is of comparable level to this one, and believe me, that´s not a compliment. I guess if I was in a better mood, I would say that it was quaint and charming.

Anyway, I get invited out to a bar and club that night. We would meet at 11pm outside the mall we had lunch in. I was tossing up whether or not to go. 30 hours of Spanish classes during the week really sapped my body and mind and I was still a little fatigued at that point. Basically, my daily routine has been going to class, going for a post-class walk to clear my mind, coming home, having dinner and then sleeping.....that´s it. So this was my chance to do something fun, to party in Argentina and to dance to cool latin music. After much deliberation, I decide to go......hey, if I feel tired I can always go home early. They arrive half an hour late, which isn´t surprising, but still a little nerve-wracking cause I didn´t know if I´d gotten the right place and I don´t have a Argentinian phone cell number yet. We then head off to a smallish bar somewhere in Nueva Cordoba (which is the student area), which conveniently had a dance club above it. Lisi (the Brazilian girl) had a female Argentinian friend (who appeared to be a bit of a town skank) join us and we started off with some Argentinian beers. Conversation was a bit tough with the language barrier, but we managed to communicate to some degree. At times it did degenerate into me talking to Jamie in English about sport, Lisi talking to Ivana in Spanish and poor Yusuke sitting in the corner looking bored. After, a few beers the ¨chicas lindas¨that Ivana promised would be joining us, joined us. They were pretty far from lindas, I´d have to say. When she asked if we thought that they were lindas, me and Jamie both pretended not to understand. Ah, the advantages of being a complete noob.

We then head upstairs to the dancefloor. Jamie and I get a couple of big plastic cups filled with Fernet and Cola. I think this was the start of my downfall. These drinks were pretty strong. Fernet is a liquor made from herbs that tastes like Chinese medicine. These drinks tasted a lot of Chinese medicine and not much of coke. So everyone started drinking these. We start dancing, and the music is great. I love latin music. We drink more Fernet and coke and dance some more. The place was pretty dark and dingy and sparsely decorated. It kinda reminded me of the old Bush or a shitty student bar down in Dunedin. It got pretty packed later on as well, there wasn´t a whole of room to move. Things start to get a bit blurry for me after a certain point. I remember feeling fine and great, then oh shit what the fuck. So we leave the bar around 5am and I somehow walk back to my place. I don´t know how I managed it, cause I have enough trouble finding it during the day while sober. In retrospect, it probably wasn´t a great idea considering I´ve been told that it isn´t particularly safe wandering that area at night. Having said that, there were a lot of people out and it was well lit the whole way. But yeah, I get back around 6am, rip off my clothes and fall into bed. I should have probably gotten myself some water to drink cause I had a pretty fierce hangover the next day. I think it was the combination of mixing beer and liquor, plus having that liquor being of weird herbal origin. I was fucked up and I won´t be doing it again. I think I´m not going to get drunk again on my South American trip. It´s just not worth it..... I lost one complete day and I feel like crap even two days later. I´m too old for this stuff. The dancing to latin music was fun though, and next time I will do that sans alcohol.