I figure instead of telling you about my great week, I might as well show you. Here's how it played out...

MONDAY: Buenos Aires contemporary artist shmorgishborg @ ArteBA '10

Monday afternoon I went down to La Rural in Plaza Italia to soak up some much needed culture. The coolest thing about Buenos Aires is that it's an artist playground. There are so many insane artists here in Buenos Aires doing incredible stuff. The ArteBA showed off some pretty solid contemporary art from both well-known and underground artists. My Personal favorite? It had to be the sick ATM booth my buddy Tranqui Yanqui setup.

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(Before making our rounds to all the liquor booths & making a Wii Tennis scene)

Lots of random events to talk about this week so I figure I'll just throw 'em into one post.

Monday I was invited by my friend and fellow bartender from Buller, Mika, to the 10th Anniversary Party of Bar & Drinks Magazine at the Buenos Aires Golf Club in Palermo. As you see from the picture above it was a very classy event filled with bar owners and promo models. There were a ton of liquor companies with booths setup and you could just walk around and drink anything you wanted from Johnny Walker Black to blackberry caipirinhas. One Promotion company even setup a Wii station! The great thing about it was that nobody wanted to play because everyone was too busy trying to act to classy. Needless to say, Mike and I had an epic Wii Tennis battle, swinging the controllers around like banchies, trying not to spill our champagne, while people looked on in dismay. Although the beverage selection was extensive the finger foods really didn't suffice. The party ended with bartender awards, dancing on tables and a late night pizza run. 

Wednesday I decided to celebrate Cinco de Mayo [photos] with the Buenos Aires Pub Crawl Crew. They threw a big party at Buey Bar. Once again they confirmed their party throwing abilities and I confirmed that tequila and tacos rival Lavern and Shirley for the greatest tag-team of all times. The only problem with the night was the damn drink ticket rule here in Argentina. It really has nothing to do with the party but as a custom overall here in Buenos Aires is that most bars and clubs make you wait in line at a register (caja) to buy your drinks before taking them to the bartender. This goes into a much bigger issue about Argentina and trust issues. I'm just saying bars here loose a lot of money when you can't spontaneously walk up to the bartender and order shots on the fly and you loose a lot of smooth points when you want to buy a lady a cocktail. Regardless, of this setup the party was solid.

Thursday, I met up with Madi Lang and her entourage from SendloveBA.com and BA Cultural Concierge for some lunch in Palermo to talk Buenos Aires, business and the previous nights escapades. I was pretty pumped when she hooked me up with some Peanut Butter and EZ Mac from her last excursion back to the States. 

Thursday and Friday night I worked at Buller and Saturday played in an insane baseball game with the Shankees which ended in a brawl. Read the recap here. Then, I took the night off for a dinner meeting at Isabel and had a few drinks with friends at Kika. 

All though it might seem the majority of my week was spent painting the town at night, in reality I spent most of my time on a new project, the Bueno Entonces Program and planning my father's trip. More on the project coming soon, but first the plans for my dad's visit. 

(Look closely, the awkward smiles tell you that they don't understand a word I'm saying)

As mentioned in the 6-month Status Update, my formal Spanish lessons have been put on hold as of late due to tight funds. I have been working on a proposal to trade Spanish classes for marketing services but to be honest, I just haven't finished it yet. 

Even without classes, I'm still learning a ton through co-workers and friends. I'm also trying to watch more Spanish TV to attack this beast from all angles like the boys from Sandlot. It's frustrating though... I just want that damn ball already. 

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[Part 1 of 2 from Townie Spotlight: Yanqui Mike & His Beef with Beef] 

One of the main reasons I started Tourist2townie.com was to create a platform to help others who are thinking about setting out on a similar adventure. My hope was that my experiences would make things easier for other "townie" status seekers, not just in Argentina but anywhere in the world.

With that being said, I wanted to learn from others who have made the leap before me. I decided to create a new feature called "Townie Spotlight". My goal is to sit down with people who have successfully made the life changing move from State-side to abroad and created a great life for themselves. I am really pumped about this for a number of reasons...

1. Meeting new people and hearing their stories.
2. Learning from the trials and tribulations others have faced before me.
3. Creating opportunities by networking with other business owners & developing business ideas.
4. It's better than me rambling on all the time. 

For my first interview I thought it would be perfect to interview Yanqui Mike. So I got in touch and we met up last week at the Buller Pub downtown on Paraguay for some beers.

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(My Soccer/Futbol Glory Days complete with Argentine haircut)

The guys from Buller organized a futbol match last Wednesday after work. Although it was 3am and I was dead tired from class and work I couldn't turn down the invitation.

This was the second time I've played futbol since I've been down here and my skills haven't improved a bit. I consider myself a role-player. A whatever-it-takes kinda guy who hustles for everything and yells a lot. Kind of like my ice hockey "career". Inevitably, they stuck me on defense to guard the cherry pickers. 

It was the kitchen vs. waiters/bartenders. We closed up the bar at about 2:30am to play in a 3am game at an outdoor field (gancha) about 20 minutes away. It ended up being 7 vs. 7 and the competition was tough. The teams mostly consisted of Argentine guys from both Buller locations but there was also an Italian, an Uruguyan, my Colombian roommate Sergio, and I (poorly) represented the USA. 

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(This was a different WTF Moment I had 5 years ago while promoting our company at Penn State as Victor the Beaver)

Have you ever had one of those times where all of a sudden you snap out of being in the moment and look at a situation and say "What the F** am I doing here?" Like your doing something really stupid or just in a really awkward situation. Well for me, it used to happen a lot, but not in a good way. I would be working on some project at my old job and all of a sudden realize, man this is really stupid or pointless. And we would call that a "WTF moment".

Well last night I had one of those moments. However, in this case, it wasn't because I was running around some college campus in a giant Beaver custome. It was actually pretty cool and it made me step back and say "How did I end up in this situation.." 

I was cleaning up the bar after a pretty crazy night of slinging bottles. There were about 20 med students from Boston who had came in and ordered a ton Irish Car Bombs and left the place a disaster. When I was just about done one of the owners of Buller (Carlos, my buddy Anibal's dad) came and sat at the bar with the lead singer from Catupecu Machu (Fernando) and his buddy (a famous Violin player in Argentina, forget his name). Carlos told me to get a bottle of Jack Daniels down from the shelf and 4 glasses. 

I ended up sitting at the bar with Carlos, Fernando and the Violinist drinking Jack Daniels on the rocks talking about their stories from the road. When the bottle ran dry at about 4:30 we closed up the bar and I took a cab home laughing to myself, thinking "WTF just happened, and how did I get in that situation?"

It's amazing where life takes you sometimes.

WTF - What the F***