Why is your zipper down??!!

Ever since reading Locke in university I've been a big believer in his theory that the road to all true knowledge is first via experience (sensation), then reflection (on those experiences). With that in mind, we have now been in Buenos Aires for over a month - and we're losing a limb. Robynae begins the long journey home in just a few hours. So, we decided it's time for a little reflection on all the experiences we've had, and we came up with a list.

I think I can safely say that this list is going to bore to tears anyone who is not me, Rebecca or Robby. It's full of inside jokes and quotes that really don't translate well into the written word (the favourite movie line, for example, really has to be acted out, accompanied by the obligatory hand gestures). I got a tip from a well-placed source the other day who informed me that the procrastinating audience in Perv's Corner want me to sex this blog up a bit, so let me just warn Perv's Corner especially: you are not going to find this post interesting.

But we practically fall apart laughing every time we read it. So:

The List

*Song of the trip: The Killers, "Mr. Brightside" (Robby nearly turned a table over in her battle to get to the dance floor when it came on in Asia de Cuba)
*Favourite seasoning: Salt
*Favourite drink: vino tinto (in particular, Vasco Viejo, which is served as the house wine in all our favourite sketchy places - the milonga and La Vaca que Fuma - not Ugi's, though, they stick with beer!)
*Least favourite drink: Fernet (note, to Rebecca's grandparents - it's a sweet offer, really - but we're good!)
*Favourite neighbour: Florencia
*Least favourite neighbour: Ian (The Chap from Manchester)
*Favourite landlord: Joe (Leo!)
*Least favourite bunk buddy: Owen
*Favourite Newspaper: The Buenos Aires Herald (we ARE working on our Spanish, I promise, but we have to keep up with what's going on in the world, right? Particularly on Sundays when we're drinking coffee for eight hours in Piacere!)
*Favourite cafe: Rapsodia/Piacere
*Favourite jeans: Rapsodia
*Favourite store: Rapsodia
*Favourite Locutorio worker: Johnny II
*Least favourite Locutorio worker: Juanita
*Favourite restaurant: Sucre
*Favourite sketchy place: Ugi's (one on every corner!)
*Favourite TV channel: TNT (pronounced, of course, "tay-ehnee-tay")
*Favourite place to sleep: The Special Bed
*Best night's sleep: The morning we arrived back in BsAs from Mendoza
*Worst night's sleep: On the bus back from Mendoza (stupid red light and shrill beeping noise every time the driver went over a certain speed limit - and he took a grim pleasure in going over that speed limit, let me tell you) *Favourite saying: "Why is your zipper down?"
*Best moment: The Becham double-take (the night after we discovered him at the asado in Mendoza, when we went out on the town and spotted him in an Irish bar - Rebecca casually-on-purpose walked by to go to the bathroom and he did a fantastic double take when he saw her. I'm sure it had everything to do with how excited he was to see her, and nothing at all to do with the Favourite thing to say to Becca category.)
*Favourite thing to say to Becca: "You're ugly as fucks, but you're lovable!"
*Favourite thing to do to Sarah: make her stand in sad pictures all by herself ("I'm so desperately lonely!")
*Favourite thing to do to Robyn: Not listen
*Favourite waiter: Ricky (Keegan?) (El Guapo!) (Who did email us back, btw, and very promptly too, but who we then just as promptly never emailed again - now, unfortunately, we can never go back to Sucre again because we dissed the hot waiter who wanted to give us massages ...)
*Least favourite person in all of South America: Arnaldo
*Best breakfast: "Tres medialunas y un cafe con leche, por favor"
*Favourite salad: tomato cucumber
*#1 food: tomatoes
*Worst food we've ever tasted: the powdery soup
*#1 ice cream place in the entire universe: Tuyu
*Favourite mixer: sifon
*Favourite thing to play with: sifon
*Favourite facewash: sifon
*Favourite subte line: Linea D (the Green line)
*Favourite bus: the 152 (honestly, it goes everywhere in the city) or the 380 in Mendoza (takes you to the vineyards - eventually)
*Most necessary sleeping apparel: earplugs and an eyepatch ("But it's not called an eyepatch! What the hell are those things?")
*Favourite kid: Martin Leonardo (Jorge and Viowheaowe's son)/Ignacio (the chubby little kid we saw in the grocery store who we then saw again randomly outside an Irish bar and on the street)/Antonio from Law and Order SVU
*Favourite Jew: The Jason Titterton lookalike (I love you, Jasey!)
*The noise that will haunt us all for the rest of our lives: clip, clip, clip ...
*Favourite movieline: "This is the moneymaker! I'm not that good of an actor!" (Ashton Kutcher, Cheaper by the Dozen, which by the way we saw about a dozen times on the bus trips to and from Mendoza - oh God, I bet they're going to show it again when we go back through Mendoza on the way to Chile. Becca, we're going to know that movie off by heart! I can't wait!)
*Best attempts at speaking Spanish: Sean (i.e. not any of us)
*Best karaoke: George (Ian??)
*Favourite porteno accessory: sparkly scarf
*Best bartender: Fred at Jackie O's (no idea what his real name is)
*Most awkward meal: at Elcano Grill (we were literally - yes, literally - the only people in the entire restaurant. And it was such an amazing restaurant. Why was no one else there?! Were they actually closed? Was it even a restaurant? A mystery which will forever remain unsolved ...)
*Most awkward moment: This morning, when the gang at Piacere gave us some free biscuits - presumably because we're their most favourite customers in the entire world (and here we thought they hated us) - and we had to ask if they were for us or the guy next to us - and she awkwardly told us they were a gift for us ...
*Most awkward repeated moments: every time we set foot in Tuyu (or Plums) late at night and they start laughing when they see us coming
*Favourite randoms in a photo with us: The supercute Gael guys who jumped into a pic with us outside Asia de Cuba - too bad we didn't notice how hot they were at the time
*Favourite haircuts: The Gael (on the guys) and the Giselle (on the girls). (And because I know there was a certain faction at the RG who were extremely concerned about us encountering a multitude of greasy mullets, I will say that we certainly have seen one or two mullets - but that overall Argentina is a fabulous hair country!)
*Favourite pictures: The "Becca Excuse" pics - i.e. pics where we pretend to take a picture of Becca while really taking a picture of something behind her, e.g. Beckham - best Becca pictures ever, other than the Fernet one
*Favourite bodega: Dolium
*Favourite English Couple: The English couple
*Favourite book: the Spanish dictionary
*Least favourite thing in the apartment: the alarm clock
*Most favourite thing in the apartment: the wine opener
*All-time favourite TV character: Leo - the blind French porn star who wasn't blind
*Favourite street: Vuelta de Obligado ("Is there a movie theatre on this street?")
*Least favourite street: Virrey del Pino
*Scariest dog ever: the crazy fucker in La Boca (I've never been scared of a dog in my life before but one look in this fucker's eyes and if Rebecca hadn't already shoved Robyn in front of her, I would've)
*Wettest place in South America: Tres Bocas
*Quietest place: Tres Bocas
*Eeriest place: Tres Bocas
*Tightest spot to get out of: when your right leg gets caught in the door of a moving bus (yeah, two guesses who that happened to)
*Favourite blog commenter: my mother (I love you, Mom!)
*Favourite animal: the two-humped camel in the Buenos Aires zoo (for obvious reasons), or Gimpy, the gimpy pigeon with bedhead hobbling around the Vivaldi cafe and making us feel guilty for hating all pigeons ("You're rats with wings!")
*Most depressing place in BA: the zoo
*Least favourite pizza in the entire world: the grande mozzarella from the milonga (reminiscent of wood shavings and glue - and we were so hungry we ate it anyway)
*Favourite nightspot: Las Canitas
*Favourite bathroom: in the Faena Hotel and Universe (gilded silver swans for taps)
*Favourite bribe: "I'll buy you an empanada ..."
*Favourite tango teacher (partner): Adrian Brody lookalike (aka Twitchy) at La Confiteria Ideal
*Favourite milonga (tango dance hall): La Confiteria Ideal (ok, ok, it's the only one we've been to so far)
*Robyn's favourite cookie of all time: alfajores (dulce de leche sandwiched between two shortbread cookies and dipped in meringue or chocolate)
*Our Shared Anxiety Disorder: OCD

Robyn, we are going to miss the shit out of you. Not when we're sleeping at night and we both actually have our own beds, but the rest of the time fo' sheezy.

And I'm out like a fat kid in dodgeball!