Supplies

Today was an errand day. It was great conditioning for what awaits me in the next couple days. I walked through smog and drizzling rain from noon til 9:30 in the evening, with the exception of a 3 hour Spanish class tucked in there. Why would I subject my lungs to such polluted air, and my permeable clothing to rain? Because I have such a great weekend 'planned out.'

It's funny because really, the plan is that there isn't much of a plan. I got up this morning, and 3 phonecalls, fourteen blocks, and 2 shops later, Western Union had bulked up my wallet quite a bit.

I thought I was in a hurry, but then I remembered the great Geggy Tah's lyric, Who's in a hurry when we've got no place to go? So I dilly dallied in the rain and shot some photos of Congreso, and I peeked inside the library of Las Madres de la Plaza. They're up for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Their library had some great books and Tees. I'll be making a contribution there before my time in BsAs is up. Maybe a book of Girondo poetry...

Now that I had funds, it was time to stock up on supplies. So another twenty or so blocks later in the smog, rain, and pedestrian nightmare (as Daniel Watts coined the avenue traffic) I arrived at the gluten free bakery and paid up for a pack of buns.

Then came the 3 hour intermission of class. During this stagnant break (in that I was seated) I absorbed some Spanish grammar, crammed in a little more of the sad and ridiculous history of the most recent Argentine dictatorship, and found out how cool my Spanish instructor is. Not only is she lending my friend and I 2 warm coats for our weekend, she told me about the next 4 concerts she's dying to get to in this town. 1) Pixies 2) Thievery Corporation 3) Massive Attack 4) Belle and Sebastian. I almost fell out of my chair with excitement about the Pixies concert, which I'll hopefully be attending next Wednesday if everything goes the way I'd like it to...How cool would it be to see The Pixies in BUENOS AIRES.

After class, we set off for the bus station. In this mess of affairs I managed to lose my coat and cell phone, speak so quickly that my English was understood as gibberish, and buy the wrong tickets for everyone. All this to find out that our soon-to-be-celebrity friend had sneakily hid my coat from me instead of letting it fall off my purse in the station, and that the tickets we'd bought were the better choice anyhow. Life works out.

What followed was a sequence of campstore scoping, sleeping bag buying, and non-perishable food purchasing. Somewhere in between there, someone whose name I'll not mention got his hand covered in some foul smelling dung : )

Finally, with 3 plastic bags full of dried fruits, nuts, salami, and a personal sized bottle of Argentine whiskey, Jaclyn and I caught a bus home.

If I can walk all day long in this city swirling with exhaust, I think I'll do alright backpacking through the infinitely clean air of Parque Quebrada del Condorito in Cordoba. Apparently I'm going be in the middle of more than 30 thousand hectares, at the height of an 800 meter gorge, and sharing the condors' home for a couple nights. The 22 hours of bus transportation round trip? Manageable.