BEERFEST

Welcome back to scott talk. it´s a pleasure to have you. So where was I.....Beerfest......my first weekend in Argentina, and there just happened to be a beerfest. A match made in heaven. Mike and some buddies were going and they threw me an invite to tag along. That´s when I made my first mistake.....I assumed Mike had a clue as to what was going on. Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, shame on you, and fool me thrice, who knows. Mike tells me they are going to Cordoba for the weekend and then going to a town Villa General Belgrano for the fest on Sunday, the last day.....so i head to the bus station and buy a roundtrip tick to Cordoba and back to Rosario. Turns out Mike isn´t staying in Cordoba. He´s gonna be in Villa Carlos Paz.....roughly 35km from Cordoba or an hr bus ride more. This slight detail turned out to be a fickle beast. Nothing I couldn´t tame, and everything worked itself out as it always does, but I had to travel a little more, change my return ticket twice, and eventually ended up canceling it because I hopped on Mike´s bus for the ride back. Make sense? No? Let me get to the dirty dirty.....

After an all night bus ride and waiting in the hotel lobby for days, Mike and his clicka finally came back to the hotel.....They knew I was meeting them, and they ¨forgot¨their cell phones in the hotel.....thanks guys! I promptly took a nap with the rest of the crew, emerging from slumber in the late afternoon. Mind you this is the worst time of the day to try and do anything. Everything shuts down. We walked around the town, trying to grub, and found everything to be closed. Luckily there was a store open and we mobbed on salame, bread, cheese, and beer. We took our bounty back to the hotel and sat out by the pool, feasting and being merry. It really hit the spot.

Maybe around 10 or 11 we ventured back into town, hit up main street, and got some pizza and beer at a restaurant right smack in the centro. We were just biding our time, getting ready for the club. After dinner we walked to the club...a little hesitant about going in so early.....it was 2:30. Apparently you don´t go out until balls late in Argentina and spots don´t get crackin until 3:30-4. In the states people are asleep, things are SHUT DOWN and here people haven´t even gotten ready to go out. wild. I know, europe is supposidly like that too, but I´ve never experienced late nights like this. Back to the club, it was huge, just like she said, and just as we suspected, dead. It had multiple stories, two different dance areas, a patio-rooftop chill area, and couches scattered throughout. Now all we had to do was wait. Wait for the hordes of ladies to fall in love with our sexy American accents and our uncanny dance moves. Let´s just say when it rains, it pours. Side note- It was raining a shiza load and there was a spotlight that made the rain look sick from the patio-rooftop.

But you see the problem with the club was that it must have been an 18 and younger club. No joke. It was awful(for me). It was like a million high schoolers decided to all go out to the same spot, at the same time. Dios mio. My sole purpose was to find someone out of their teens, and the only ones who qualified were the americans that came with me. It got to the point where one of Mike´s friends was talking to a girl who was 13!!! THIRTEEN!!!!! One, what was she doing out at 4am, and two, why was I in the same place as her?!?!?!?! I couldn´t help from cracking up. Average ages, I shi you not, 13-17. I immediately ripped up all the numbers I got.......22 my ass! A NOT!!! I´m messing with you. It is also custom in Argentina to ask how old you are two seconds after meeting someone....so no way i´m getting bamboosled(sp?). Awkward to say the least.

I´m sure Mike got tired of me trying to bump and grind him all night long, not to mention that I killed his game. He and a buddy were dancing with a group of youngins, and as i enter the circle, red sea, all gone by the end of the song. I eventually forced Mike to leave with me.....I think we got back around 5am and the bus for beerfest was leaving at 11.....OUCH!

Tired as fuzz later that morning, we boarded the bus with nothing but thoughts of delicious artisan beer flowing through our sleep deprived heads. We drove through some beautiful countryside, and of course this was the weekend that it rains. go figure.....they´ve had a severe drought for months.....but who cares, we´re talking about BEERFEST people! anyhoo, we got into Villa General Belgrano around 2:30pm. It´s an interesting town. Story goes that it didn´t exist until after WWII, it was founded and primarily inhabited by German immigrants. The town looks like one straight out of the fatherland. Question- Didn´t a lot of Nazi´s flee Germany to South America? Yes. Didn´t they flee to places like Argentina and southern Brazil? Yes. Probably just a coincidence that we went to Octoberfest in German-town Argentina, right? You tell me.....

Trying to forget the sketch behind the fest, there was one undenyable thing. Beer gets you drunk. Fools were faded. Everyone was in a great mood, shocker, there was song and dance and plenty of beer for all. Too bad we only had three hrs to spend in the gated community of debouchery(sp?). Fooled me twice. You see Mike was part of a tour group where everything was planned to a T. I was just starting to get my groove on, and boom, it was time to go. I took a bus back to Cordoba to cancel my initial ticket I bought, and I spent 2 plus hrs trying not to throw up on the person sitting next to me.....curvy ass road + bus + beerfest = no muy bueno. While I was spinning circles and using every trick in the book to not say goodbye to the beer, I missed the party bus, kareoke, and Mike freestylin some USHER. Once I was back in Cordoba, I took another bus to Villa Carlos Paz.

By the time I got back to the hotel everyone was spent....it was 11pm and fools were asleep and some were out with honies eating dinner. Lucky for me the party bus turned into party hotel and people kept kicking it while the young guns slept. I met a group of peeps from Rosario who were btwn the ages of 25-30.....FINALLY!!! They turned out to be super chill and they took me out to a non teenage club. We left the hotel at 4am and got back after 7. That´s how the big boys roll....the party doesn´t get STARTED until 4 in the mornin. The group I kicked it with had two guys stay later at beerfest, which was allowed, you just had to find your own way back, aka go to cordoba and then to carlos paz. One of the dudes didn´t answer his phone, alex, and they were worried that he was face down in the mud somewhere. I wasn´t too worried and as 3am rolls around fool gets back to the hotel, completely tossed, with a huge smile on his face as he´s giving a bear hug to his 2 liter stein. He didn´t let go of the mug. And to sweeten the experience, he was enamored with Mike. Mike sat next to the group on the way up to beerfest and obviously made an impression because homeboy would just randomly yell MMMMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKKKKKKKEEEEE with a big ol smile, eyes half closed, with just a hint of drool posting up on his lower lip.....priceless. Not to mention the fact that Mickey didn´t understand a word he said.

All in all, a great time was had. Sleep and I are apparently not friends anymore, but whatever. It´s cool going to bed when the sun comes up.....and think what you like, but Argentine´s drinking styles are differen´t from Americans. Meaning there´s something I haven´t said...or something you´ll have to factor in...we weren´t that drunk! Did you hear that everybody? They said they're not that drunk! Cheeky bastards! Watch Beerfest and enjoy a cold one......on me!

I think I´ll have myself a beer......