First night out on the town

By Tuesday, I had cash again and could go out and have a good time. I met another American, Aaron, online in a chat room before leaving the US. He was planning to come here for a short vacation and his stay would overlap my arrival, so we said we'd arrange to meet. He phoned on Tuesday and I invited him to join me and my Argentine friend, Ulises, for dinner.

Before dinner, I went to visit my Colombian friend, John. While I was on the plane to Buenos Aires, John had an emergency appendectomy here. I almost thought he was pulling my leg when he told me, he'd been fine when we'd spoken a couple of days earlier. He's doing well now, recuperating at home.

Aaron, Ulises, and I met at Toronto on Avenida Santa Fe, a very bustling popular major street. Toronto is a tenedor libre, a kind of all-you-can-eat buffet but much better quality food than most similar places in the US. Dinner here begins late. Restaurants are typically deserted prior to 9 PM and reach their peak between 10 and 11 PM. We started at 9:30 PM and stayed until midnight.

Aaron, who had seemed pleasant in chat, turned out to be a terrific guy. I had a great time during dinner. Since Ulises speaks English quite well, we mixed up the languages and talked non-stop for 2.5 hours, switching back and forth between English and Spanish. Aaron wanted to continue the evening (his last night in BA) so Ulises suggested going to a nearby gay club, Search.

Search is a small place, literally an underground club, as many of them are here. You walk in the door and then go down below street level to the club. It was packed but we managed to get a tiny table. The night's entertainment was a drag show. I have no idea who the drag queen was, and my Spanish isn't good enough to understand more than half of her rapid-fire delivery, but it was very entertaining nonetheless. I stayed until 3 AM and left the boys to continue without me...they said later they'd stayed until 4 AM.

I saw Aaron again the next day before he left for the US. Just as I had warned him in our online chats, he fell in love with Buenos Aires and is already talking about coming back. I hope he does, he's a great guy, a lot of fun, easy to talk with, and I'll look forward to his next visit.