Weekend Report - 04.25.2010

This past weekend was a lot of fun. I already told you about Reggaeton Night on Friday. Well, on Saturday I spent most of the afternoon studying, but that evening I went with some buddies to a birthday party. The girl hosting the party was from Italy, and pretty much everyone there was from Europe or different parts of Latin America. I enjoyed this crowd a good bit more than the last ex-pat party I attended several weeks ago. That last ex-pay party was part of the inspiration for my very first blog post - see "Gringo".

Anyway, on Saturday I started out the evening with my friends, Felix and Sebastian. That is Felix on the left in the picture. He is a buddy from my Maritime Law class at the UBA. Felix is a great guy and lots of fun to hang out with; however, I do not think he will be be helping me out a whole lot in preparing for exams because he doesn't show up at class half the time. I've also seen his handwriting, which is complete sh*t. I'll be much better off studying with a nice girl - a strategy I have discussed in a previous post.

Sebastian is the guy squeezed in between me and the skeptical-looking girl with big hair in the picture above. Sebastian is one of Felix's best friends, and we hit it off pretty well when we all went out together a couple weeks ago. Sebastian is one of those guys who seems to know everybody. For example, in Buenos Aires the stores stop selling alcohol at 11:00 p.m., but Sebastian always seems to be on a first-name basis with the owner of the Kiosks. He generally walks in and exchanges some jokes and banter with whomever is working, and then they go ahead and sell us

Belinda

This is a picture with Belinda Peregin. She is a 20-year-old popular singer from Mexico, and pretty good looking in my opinion. I saw her at Reggaeton Night where she was interviewing people for MTV. Actually, I didn't know who she was. My friend Consuelo told me I take a picture with the MTV girl, so I did. Then when I got home I realized that I have some of her music on my computer.



Anyway, this picture doesn't do her justice - so check out one of Belinda's music videos:

Reggaeton Night

On Friday, I went to Reggaeton Night here in Buenos Aires. Reggaeton is a music genre that has developed as sort of a mix of reggae, cumbia, hip-hop and rap. Most of it is in Spanish, although there will occasionally be some English thrown in there.

Reggaeton has developed in countries through Central America and the Caribbean, and it has actually gotten pretty popular in the U.S. Many people consider it a "guilty pleasure". This is because reggaeton isn't always exactly "good" music - the lyrics are often cheesy (with some exceptions - see Calle 13), the rhythms and melodies repetitive, and the singer is usually decked out in platinum chains and other over-the-top bling.

But it is feel good music, and it is great for dance clubs. I guess people start considering it a guilty pleasure when they leave the dance club and start listening to reggaeton on their iPods.

Well, I listened to a whole lot of it when I lived in Panama. As a matter of fact, I still listen to a lot of reggaeton. I listen to it on my iPod in Boston, and I don't feel the least bit guilty about it. Anyway, I need to get back to telling you about what happened at the show.

The 3 singers on Friday night all came from Panama - Eddy Lover, La Factoria, and Makano. None of these guys

Weekend Report - 03.28.2010

It has been a fun wknd. On Friday I got some work done and signed up for the classes I am taking this semester. That night my friend Analia invited me to a birthday dinner for one of her friends. It was a little bit of an older crowd - most of them in their thirties. Of course we ate a lot of beef and went through several bottles of wine. Beef is a staple here in Argentina, and you eat a lot of it wherever you go.

After dinner, we went to a salsa bar called Cuba Mía. This place was great. When we arrived around 1 a.m. there were all these couples dancing salsa. These folks really knew how to dance, so it was cool watching them. Apparently my friend Analia has taken some salsa classes, and she got out there a couple times. She was really, really good.

At around 2:30 they started playing more diverse music. There wasn't a D.J., but there was always someone up there singing and leading the music. I recorded some video with my cell phone, but I do not have the cable to connect the phone to my computer. So instead I have included the YouTube video above of one of the songs they sang. My ex-girlfriend had this song in her head for months after she came back from Cuba last year. Great song - listen to it! I also drank Fernet, which is definitely an acquired taste...

On Saturday, I spent most of the afternoon at my buddy Francisco's place. I have recorded a couple of my Arbitration classes, and Francisco offered to listen to them with me and help me with anything I didn't understand. Unfortunately,