INT. BAR - FEBRUARY 2023 - Night
MARY has just explained that her flight attendant friend Sarah has gifted her with being her flight companion for the year—free flights, always standby, sometimes first class—and that whilst she was originally hoping to go to Buenos Aires, Argentina, due to a full flight the next night, is now pivoting to São Paulo, Brazil.
BEN
(In a British accent, genuinely interested)
Oh, so you are going to Brazil for Carnival! I've been before, you're going to have a blast.
Mary
(utterly confused)
A., I didn't know that Carnival was happening right now. And B., I'm not going to Rio—so moot point.
Ben
(looking at Mary like she is stupid and unprepared to embark on this journey)
It obviously happens all over Brazil—and in many other countries as well.
Mary
(letting the Good News sink in)
Huh. I need to work the whole time. That should be easy enough, right?
The next night Mary heads to the airport with a pep in her step. She gets first class, real silverware and all, orders all the gin and tonics, and falls asleep not knowing of the horrors that await.
I landed in São Paulo the following morning and had to start work as soon as I got to the hostel. Oh wow! I thought, I can work outside the whole time I'm here. Tremendous. I hopped onto my first call of the day only to have it begin pouring rain on me immediately (another thing I had not realized I was coming for: rainy season). I looked around mystified, but one of the hostel volunteers was already running to my aid; he led me immediately to a covered area (still outside!). As I walked over to my new office, my boss said, "nice shorts." Bubble. Burst.
I laughed it off, and she (kind of) did too, but, to be frank, they were quite short and had they been a foot longer, they still would not have been appropriate for a colleague to see me in them.
The rain subsided, and I settled in (with work) to watch the people get ready for the Carnival bloco of the day.
The hostel began setting up for a party, my work ended, and, overwhelmed by the amount of people that had descended upon the hostel (100+), I retreated to my (bunk) room to read and relax after a day of travel and work. I can do this, I thought. I can be the person that sits in the room while everyone parties. I need this. I want this.
Enter Sally (Canada). She stumbled in straight from the bloco. Drenched from the rain. High (on life). All the energy I was currently lacking. After a quick chat, I promised to join the party in a few. She rolled her eyes at my position on the bottom bunk under the covers with my book. "Ha. OK. See ya out there then."
I emerged from my 20-minute-long ride with solace feeling refreshed—and ready to smoke on the roof with my new friends.
Enter Cris Costa; a Sao Paulo native, recently unemployed—but upon meeting the naive tourist duo in front of her, immediately self-employed with the resume-building career of ensuring that Sally and I experienced only the best the city had to offer. After bonding over cigarettes and beer on the hostel roof, Cris, and her friends Ariel and Tiago, paraded Sally, Chad (another Canadian), and I over to Nosa Casa, a disco club that immediately became a blur.
Cris knows EVERYONE. Nosa Casa is a disco club with endless rooms with DJs or live music in each room. And Cris knew everyone in each room (according to my memory). When I think of that night, all I see is Cris grabbing my hand and pulling me from room to room and introducing me to everyone in sight. And there was dancing. Singing. Smoking. I think I was the first to go home. At 4am (work the next day, ya know).
Every club in Sao Paulo has the same system (one implemented at festivals, but I've never seen it so widely used). You don a bracelet at the beginning of the night, scan it whenever you order drinks, and then pay at the end of the night. Great—in theory. Except you have no idea how much anything is. And you have to queue up to pay at the end of the night. To be fair, upon checking her account the next day, Sally had spent the equivalent of $16 throughout our many hours at Nosa Casa.
Work at 10am the next day (not bad with the time difference). Long lunch with Sally and Chad to solidify our friendship after a night of dancing. Batman Alley—because apparently it's a thing to do. Cool murals. More work.
Coxinha (Brazilian chicken croquettes) for dinner. You can get these anywhere. Would recommend.
Cris comes back to hostel (by now we realize she is O de Casa royalty). Spoiler: we do not go a day without seeing her. Went to a rooftop with this German Artur in tow. Artur ... fit the German stereotype. Sally and I got street food this night. 10/10. If you're going to get street food anywhere. Get it in this city.
The next day, Thursday, shit gets a little weird in the dorm*.
*Caveat, I have since entered my 30s. I usually book private rooms now. When the below situation occurred, I was but 29, and had not yet considered the world of peace and privacy.
There was a man. A smelly man. That we tried to be kind to (since he was sitting on his bed staring at us). "Hey! Where you from?"
Man: "I don't answer questions about where I'm from."
"ooooohkay, cool, see ya later."
*Walk back into the room later*
Opera is on full blast. He leaps down from his top bunk, directly in our path, pretending to play the trumpet. You'd think he would be embarrassed (at least?) at being caught in such an act. But that trumpet played on and on. He danced through us as we gathered our things for the evening. We later saw him carted away by the police.
I decided to try my hand at beer pong this evening and paired up with a staff member, Tommy.
It can be a bit nerve-racking playing beer pong abroad as there seems to be a bit of a generalization that Americans played a ton of drinking games in university (will neither confirm nor deny if this was me). We slayed. At one point I sank a ball whilst perched on his back. We had to play with real beer (their rule, not mine); I realized later that I bought (well scanned, paid later) each round for Tommy and I. Ah. This tournament was a way for the staff to drink for free. Well played, Tommy, well played.
Added a few more to our crew and headed out to dance.
Being responsible (and now fully confident in walking the streets alone), I headed back to the hostel. From the entrance of the hostel to my dorm room is a short path. Less than 20 seconds door to door as this New Yorker walks. All it took was one, "Hey! Wanna smoke a cigarette on the roof with me before bed?" and my entire plan of retiring for the evening was foiled. Enter Jack, the Australian, who ~foreshadowing~ does not leave the story until I leave Sao Paulo. One cigarette turned into four (over a couple hours) and laugh laugh laugh ... I'm up until 4am again.
On this day, (Friday!), Jack sits and gives me a pointed look. "Well, looks like you're my best mate here now; everyone else left."
Me: "Jack, I can't wait to be your best mate. After 6pm."
Do you want to know what everyone would do while I worked? Nothing (well besides blocos). I know nothing about Sao Paulo. And neither do they. Great way to cure my FOMO.
Enter Myles (Canada); don't get attached. He does not remain in the story for long. Beer pong, then bar around the corner with Jack and Myles and, I think, a random Indian guy that was in their dorm? Sally and I then run off to meet Cris at Tokyo; she said we absolutely had to go whilst in Sao Paulo. (Sidebar: Cris–this place was OK.) Sally and I for some reason thought it was such a good deal to get a bucket of beer with a free large clear bag. In what world would I ever need a bulky clear (and quite yellow) tote bag???
We found Jack (obviously—my best mate!) and Myles and had our crew together for the bloco. This was the tail end of Carnival, so I can't say what it's like to be in the thick of it, but this shit was fun. Barely any photos due to the endless stories of stolen iPhones (Chad—who left by this point (bye, Chad!) famously had his iPhone stolen and was using my extra (iPhone7?) for the three days that I knew him). A big Carnival is supposed to be kissing all these hot guys around you. Let me tell you. I am not against kissing hot guys around me. I saw a lot of guys around me. They asked me to kiss them. They were not hot. I did not do much kissing at Carnival.
But, do you know what we did do? Buy sick sunglasses:
My sunglasses, Amae tá on, meant something to the effect of, "the mom is on" AKA "I am ready to party," according to Cris—reliable source!
Jack's sunglasses ... upon research after he bought them meant something to the effect of, "I have been scammed." Upon this realization, he quickly exchanged them for these ...
... which we promptly checked (before he agreed to the exchange), and it basically means, "party" (or something like that). (Sidebar: Cris– looking forward to notes on all of the things I got wrong.)
Back to the hostel (and probably a stop at the gas station en route) to regroup, smoke on the roof, make new friends ... who promptly invited us to a house party? Fun! We picked up Cris at some point along the way and headed to said "house party." Upon arrival, it was kind of weird ... they didn't have booze? And were trying to get everyone to pitch in for drinks? I never talked to the host, but like, why would you invite everyone to a "house party," and then be like, "Ok, so who is buying the booze?"
We left. Off to D-Edge. Hilarious that I had it in my mind that we didn't hang out with Myles. He totally came to this club with us. Maybe this is where we ditched him? Look, he was OK. But then was being creepy to Sally. Which, in my book, warrants a ditch. D-Edge was top of Sally's list for nightlife. It was techno and house music ... which, whilst not my vibe, was still a good time. I enjoyed chatting before it got crowded. Smoking on the roof. And dancing to the music... until I was over it. Jack and I left Cris and Sally to dance (never saw Myles again). A classic best mates night for Jack and I of smoking on the hostel roof and chatting with the random Indian guy from his room and this other odd English gentleman, Chris (actually, I can't say gentleman; I have never heard a more trashy English accent. I used to think all English accents were hot. Nope.)
Two hours of sleep, and then up for my last day (or so I thought *foreshadowing again*). Sally and I ventured out to somewhere that was not the gas station for food and a drink, and then started prep for the bloco right outside of our hostel.
The new receptionist became our makeup artist and ensured that we were bloco ready. She then handed the paint to Sally and I and told us to go wild with it ... which we did.
Now that we had voted Myles out of the friend group, it was Jack, Cris, Sally, and me ... enter Sean & Max. These two were great because they were the perfect audience for us to workshop all of our stories from the past week ... from the Syrian playing trumpet to other odd stories that are above the age rating that I permit for this blog. Suffice to say, our stories were landing, we were laughing, and I kept pushing off when I needed to leave for my flight.
"Ah, just one more cigarette."
"You know, I think I actually have time for one more drink ..."
"Ok, one more story ..."
"I'm going to need a cigarette while I tell this story."
"Actually may need a drink for Sally's story; this one is WILD ..."
I kept checking Uber, and it kept looking like I was going to get to the airport WAY TO EARLY. I was imagining myself at the airport way too early when I could have been on the roof above the bloco with my friends.
I finally pulled the trigger, planning to arrive at the aiport 90 minutes prior to departure; no buffer included.
Twenty minute wait ... whoops ...
A quick goodbye to all when the Uber finally arrived; with a joking, "maybe I'll see you when I miss my flight ha ha ..."
En route to airport, sitting in traffic, I start actually realizing ... "Oh; this is not a drill. I am going to miss my flight."
Does this look like someone who is going to make their flight?
I arrived at the airport with exactly 60 minutes to spare. When I had checked in for my flight earlier, it said that I had to get my boarding pass at the airport. I rushed to the kiosk, and when prompted to choose a seat, I thought, oh fun—thought I would have to pay to choose my seat. Before this rumination was complete, a message popped up stating that the kiosk could not print my boarding pass because I had not paid for my seat. I refreshed so that I could just do a random seat.
Upon entering my confirmation number again, the kiosk informed me that it was too late to check in for my flight. When I hit refresh, it went from 60 minutes until my flight to 59 minutes until my flight. If my brain had even been at 50%, I could have sorted it out. I have been in much more dire scenarios at dicier airports. But what did I do with my two hours of sleep and the roof beers in my system? Shrugged my shoulders and walked out of the airport.
Sally extended her stay as well—gotta keep the gang together. No spots available at the hostel. Sally snagged us a very cheap Airbnb around the corner. $18 per person. Oh. This is why people were staying at AirBnbs and just showing up at the hostel to make friends instead of sleeping in the dorms with crazy people who pretend to play the trumpet.
The gang was still together when I arrived back. Played some beer pong. Laughed and shrugged about my flight. Checked into AirBnb. Went out with crew from hostel. Went to a club. Hung out in smoking section of club. Jack and I went back to the hostel and were again accosted by Chris and the Indian guy ... unclear why they were always hanging around waiting for us. Went to my AirBnb with Sally at a semi-reasonable time and could not sleep.
This was for rather obvious reasons. Whilst I am impervious to a slew of things ... sleep anxiety is not one of those things (a real condition; I did not fabricate this).
After dozing for about an hour, I clambered out of bed for work on Monday, with no plan for where I was going to sleep that night, let alone which city. My best mate Jack had booked an AirBnb (purposefully) far from the hostel. With the work week at hand, this became the best option in my purview and I moved on in. We used their food ordering app, Rappi, to order some falafel. It arrived. Jack had to go down to the lobby to grab it from the driver. He brought my phone with him since I had ordered the food. He also brought his phone with him ... since it was his phone.
Five minutes go by. Then ten. I start getting worried. Driver must have gotten lost. 15 minutes. Jack's been attacked. 20 minutes. Kidnapped. 21 minutes. MURDERED. 25 minutes. I was the last person to see him alive?! 30 minutes. Besides his murderer?! 35 minutes. How will I tell his family? Wait. Who is his family?
Jack sauntered back in.
Me: OMG. You don't even understand what I just went through!!!
Jack: Ummmm. Let me tell you what I've been through ... outside of these four walls.
All I remember from his story is that he ran around chasing down the driver. I do think maybe the guy tried to steal our food. Or there may be a chance I messed up when I put the address in. Who's to say. You know what though? Jack walked through that door with our dinner in hand, and I did not need to recount the tale of his demise to his family that I had not yet tracked down.
With a newly-found fervent desire to remove myself from this murderous town, I booked myself a flight for the next afternoon. Buenos Aires, aquí voy!
My flight the next day landed at the wrong airport (right city though, yay). I took a deep breath, and settled in for my chill Buenos Aires tour (being serious).
Wednesday was a great work-from-hotel-pool day. The evening's plans consisted of a little Airbnb experience I had booked: Cocktail Tour of Buenos Aires. I envisioned an educational evening filled with delightful anecdotes about Argentinian mixology and history paired with well-thought out cocktails or wines. The reality? This woman (who I at first mistakenly considered a guide) wanted to party so much that her friends could not keep up, so she created an Airbnb experience so that she would have people to go to all of her favorite bars with her. There's worse business schemes. I did not have a bad time. I just very quickly had to tweak my expectations from "informative evening" to "small talk with desperate girl and two random people (one who's birthday it is)." Sooo same same but different!
Thursday's wholesome evening consisted of a night bike tour. With both English and Spanish speakers on this tour, it became a bilingual tour—which yes, made it twice as long, and yes, meant that I kept accidentally zoning out, but also attempting to remain engaged.
Guide: So, what do you think that building is?
Me: A bank!
Guide: No. That building is a bank, but this one is not ... as I just said ...
Me: *pulls bike helmet down further down face, thankful that only half of the people are aware of how obtuse I appear to be.
We went to these sick food trucks by the water. I think what I had is a Pan Choripan ... looks like this photo?
Friday brought me to the hostel that I was meant to be in for the whole week before my post-Carnival meltdown: Viajero. Surprised they let me in after the whiplash of cancellations and rebookings that I gave them. Great vibes to cross the work week finish line at.
Met Laura and Jo whilst dispatching my final emails of the day. Canadians. Invited me out to the Tango with them to celebrate Jo's birthday. Big Argentinian thing apparently (if only I had been paying attention that week, or in my defense, been going on more informative tours). I attempted to book the Tango for myself prior to our arrival. The host said to just come back at show time and they would sort me out.
Upon my arrival at showtime, I attempted to pay once more. He waved me off with assurance that we would sort it out at a later time. Saw our friend Dylan from the hostel en route to our seats in the back. He was seated at the front with a lovely couple that he had just disembarked from a cruise with. They waved us over, and we all sat together.
Turns out this was one of those month-long Nat Geo Antarctic cruises (apparently Argentina is the jump-off point—duh). Dylan works for Nat Geo and apparently they get to choose one cruise a year that they go on for free, and he (right so) chose the longest and most expensive one. Suffice to say, this couple was traveling in a bit of a different manner than the four hostel ruffians.
I never paid for the Tango. If they are searching, the evidence of my deceit lies here.
Went directly to a bridge party post Tango show. Paid $3 to get in and for some reason we made a big stink about it. I think because we had to wait in a five minute queue. Which I hate. A good night was had by all. Happy Birthday, Jo!!
Off to San Telmo Market the next day with our new friend Charlie (UK).
Got some sick shades. Then, off to the Zoo! You may be asking, "Why?" A great question, seeing as I, um, to say the least, am not an animal person ... per se. At this point, I was just excited to be with people that were A.) not just with me because their friends wouldn't party with them, or B.) because I paid them to take me around (also a part of point A, I am aware). The zoo was fine.
Then took the new guy, Charlie, shopping in a nearby mall ... also fine. Not entirely sure why I agreed to go to a mall on my last day in Buenos Aires and watch a dude try on shorts ... as exhilarating as it was.
Back to the hostel for some pool and drinks.
Met many more people. Kept pushing back when I needed to leave for the airport (to be fair, I really did give myself too much time this time around). Had another drink. Considered switching my flight to the next day. Snapped to; packed my shit up; was way too early for my flight; had time for some airport red wine; realized: damn, I am ready to go home.
