Giramondo

So now that I´ve been staying in the hostel for a few weeks, I feel qualified to give the readership of this blog a little peek into what life is like in el hostel.

The facilities are pretty nice. The bathrooms are a little strange, but generally clean. All of the walls to the bathroom are metal, including the stall doors. So when someone shuts the bathroom door con fuerte on the first floor, you can easily hear this event from the third floor. There are rooms for living on the first and second floors. On the third floor, there is a room which has a couple computers that connect to the internet, another room for the tv, and a the kitchen, where free breakfast is served every morning.

I suppose the best way for me to explain what it´s like to live in the hostel would be to give you all a rundown of the different personalities that you´re likely to run into in the Giramondo.

1. Diego - this guy is from Peru. He takes it upon himself to play host to every female who comes to stay at the hostel. My roommate, Andres, tells me that he will have sex with anything that walks. So that´s awesome. He´s also an artist - he plays the guitar. In some ways, he kinda reminds me of Ethan, though with less intelligence, less ambition, and less tact.

2. Alejandro - for a long time I couldn´t figure out what this mid-forties Argentinian was doing in the hostel. My roommates informed me that Alejandro recently divorced his wife and received a rather large settlement from his former spouse, who was apparently pretty rich. My roommate also informed me that Alejandro´s role in the hostel is to smell bad, which I can now confirm is true. This guy, from what I can tell does nothing. I´m serious when I say that I don´t think that he´s left the hostel since I´ve been here. He enjoys watching soccer and other television program. I now anticipate the feeling of disappointment of knowing that I won´t be able to control the television channel before I even enter the tv room because alejandro will be watching something. Though, yesterday he was watching Hook in Spanish, which I enjoyed. Apparently, when I was gone in Bolivia, Alejandro passed out on the stairs and peed down all of the stairs. The owner of the hostel threatened to kick him out, but I think some sort of deal was cut allowing Alejandro to stay. Despite everything I say here, he´s a pretty nice guy.

3. Jam(?)- Jam arrived in the hostel a few days ago. I was proud of myself for being able to recognize that Jam was a transvestite within the first five seconds that I met him, or her. I´ll call him her. We had quite possibly the weirdest introduction conversation. It was a mix of Spanish and English and it went like this. First, Jam told me that her name was like the english word for jamon. Ham? I asked. No, that can´t be right. What was you name again? At this point, Jam realized that her name was not in fact the same as jamon in English. She repeated her name again to me. It sounded like gem, so I asked in Spanish if it is like the stone, you know, gem. Jam had no idea what I was talking about. Finally, I pronounced her name correctly, at which point I was relieved that this ordeal of figuring out Jam´s name was going to end. At this point, Jam informed me that she also goes by Paloma. So Jam seems like a pretty normal transvestite. One of the workers at the hostel showed me the little information card that every resident in the hostel has to fill out filled out by Jam. In the space for sex there are two boxes, M and F. Jam created a new box on her card marked with a T. I´m not gonna lie, I´m not used to being around transvestites, so at first, I was a little uncomfortable. But I´ve adjusted and Jam seems alright to me.

4. Stereotypical American guys- many of these guys have come through. They might as well all belong to the same frat. They are in Buenos Aires to party and try their luck with Argentinian women. They generally don´t stay too long, which is preferable to me. But, whatever, they´re nice and we´re usually friendly.

5. High schoolers - there is a group of high schoolers staying here. They are all part of some creative writing program. Holy shit, I know people are always saying this, but was I like that in high school? I´m pretty sure that I wasn´t. I seriously don´t remember doing things for the sake of being cool, but who knows. Anyway, these kids generally annoy the hell out of me with the things they will say to appear awesome. These kids make me feel very old and very uncool, but I guess I just have to concede coolness to them because I´m just not willing to try to be cool anymore. Why is that such a foriegn concept to me? Oh yeah, and these kids generally ignore me, which I don´t take personally because I realize that being unfriendly is part of being cool. At least I think it is. I guess I can´t really know since I don´t know how to be cool. Also, one of these high schoolers lost her purse the other day. I felt bad for her. I did find it interesting though that she was carrying 2000 dollars in her purse. Not really sure why you´d be doing that. That really sucked.

6. My roommate, Andres - this guy is awesome. Originally from Spain but grew up in Chile. Speak English, French, Spanish, and Italian. Spent a few years in Paris before coming to BsAs. Draws comics. We´ve enjoyed many nights of pillow talk about life and such. Andres doesn´t take much too seriously. He´s generally just a nice guy. He´s also the clean roommate, whereas I am the slob (this should come as no surprise to anyone). He is also a doctor´s son, which means that he has a little pharmacy in his personal locker, which has come in the handy a couple times (don´t worry, I haven´t taken anything too dangerous). I also visited Andres´ studio, which a nice little apartment. I´m hoping that Andres draws me in comic form, though I don´t want to ask because I know he has a decent amount of work.

Okay, not really sure what I´ll do now. I was going to watch tv for a little bit, but that´s not an option now seeing as Jam is passed out on the couch.