nightlife

We pull up at a plaza ringed with bars, lines spilling out doors, the air buzzing with conversation. We enter one, grab a table and order mojitos and Argentine beer. Three Americans, sitting around a wooden table in the middle of a bar in the middle of Buenos Aires, getting to know each other. We snack on peanuts, swap stories, laugh, shout over the heavy music that vibrates our chairs. Eventually we head out into the cold night to find another bar that one of us had heard about. We walk a few blocks down wide cobblestone streets until we come to a door, unmarked, tucked into a quiet street. The only hint that there may actually be a bar inside the dark building is a security guard standing outside. He lets us pass, and we step through a heavy door to a beautiful old building, with exposed brick, low lights and plush couches lining the walls. The menu has over fifty types of whiskey. Couples make-out all around us, so deeply focused on kissing I wonder if they even notice us sit down. We sip our drinks slowly, chat with the bartender, then head to a cafe, quiet and well-lit, to order empanadas and croissants and hot drinks. We linger, not wanting to leave the worn-in booth, making friends with an Argentine couple next to us. Eventually we grab a taxi, and by 5:30, tired, full, and happy, I fall into bed.

Two nights later, I sit around a kitchen table with three girls my age - an Argentine who grew up in Miami and two girls from Panama. They are all fluent in both English and Spanish, and they slide in and out of the two languages as fluidly as sand slipping between fingers. We mix orange soda with white wine, listen to music from a laptop and talk about dancing, politics, men, friendship, Buenos Aires, and bad American television. At 1:30 we finish our drinks and flag a cab, which speeds us through the city to the water´s edge to a club named Jet. We arrive just before the early-bird cut-off at 2am, so we get in free. The place is just starting to fill up, and by 3 the dance floor is packed. American music pounds through my body - Eminem´s ´Real Slim Shady´, Madonna´s ´Like a Virgin´, Paul Oakenfold´s ´Starry-Eyed Surprise´, Lil´Jon´s ´Get Low´, Kanye West´s ´Stronger´ - it surprises me that everyone sings along, shouting above the music to these lyrics that I grew up with, ecstatic to hear this weird mix of songs from my past. We dance for hours, the four of us in our small circle, giving dirty looks to men who feel it´s their right to touch you without permission, breathing in second-hand smoke, singing until we´re hoarse, wearing glowing neon bracelets around our wrists, watching through the windows behind the DJ as hundreds of sailboats bob in the harbor. At 5:30 we´ve had enough. We stand in line for twenty minutes, elbowing people out of the way as we wait in the coat check line, then stand outside waiting for a taxi as our breath leaves our mouths in clouds. Our cab races back into the city, cheating stop lights and hurtling around corners, until we reach a 24-hour restaurant with flashing neon lights. There we order hot chocolate and eat french fries with ketchup and mayonnaise, discuss the evening´s events, complain about sore feet and bad pick-up lines and the smell of cigarettes in our hair. We part on the dark street with kisses on cheeks, and ten minutes later I am tucked into bed, my ears ringing and my body still buzzing, my clock reading 7am.