BUENOS ARIES

Alright folks! Argentiiiiina! Well people, once again my history on Argentina is pretty minimal, but as usual I embrace the world with open arms and let it captivate me for what it is. You see, the advantage of not knowing is not judging. When you hear about a city it’s easy to make your own opinion about it. However, in this particular case I was clueless and that’s the fun part about this experience, not knowing.

So let me try to paint a picture Buenos Aires; a gorgeous city and probably one of the places I could see myself living. The city looks like it was built in the 60’s to 80’s with a hint of French architecture but for some reason all construction stopped. Argentina is the 8th biggest country in the world with a population of about 12 million living in just Buenos Aries. All that could mean is more clubs, bars, and original nightlife. The people were friendly, the steak was to die for and surprisingly I met a lot of people that I could easily converse with in English.

There was one night where me and Takashi were coming back from a party and we completely forgot our address…there we were in a cab panicking because the meter was increasing by the second and we were running low on cash. We couldn’t really call anyone so we started to empty every pocket lights… smokes… receipts… camera… camera? That’s when I started to go through all my pictures and I came across a restaurant right near our house but it wasn't too clear. Then when we started to go through Takashi's camera and found a better angle, showed that to the driver and we were soon on our way to 4802 Guemes…Good times.

Before I get to the whole nightlife scene, Kung - A.K.A Ben A.K.A Thai Ben - was the director of the Buenos Aries video and with a little help from Ania we found ourselves at lovely lady called Natalia's house/garage to teach us the Tango. I'll be honest, Tango's not my cup of tea - however it has a memorable night and it was fun to get up close and personal with the ladies. I haven’t had a chance to use my lessons since that night, but I feel like I understand the traditional Argentinean dance that much more. Later on that night Natalia took us to a tango restaurant called Le Cathedral which became what it is today because of the market crash in 2001. The main room was electrifying. Here we have an old cathedral turned into a massive tango dinner hall, with beautiful old wood flooring and a massive open feeling.
In spite of that, what made this place original was that the tango music was mixed with an electronic beat - with time everything gets a twist and we got to see it first hand. What a night.

There is just so much in Buenos Aries that to leave a night out would be unjustifiable. One night we had VIP passes to an exclusive party held by MTV called La Zone de Combate. For us the highlight was finding out who would have the opportunity to come to Mexico with us for the final elimination on becoming the 9th member in the Smirnoff experience. That night we got a lot of work done and you can watch it in our video on the city. We were so pumped up and I guess proud in an innocent way. Keep in mind that this was a fairly early video in our production team, and to see us all working together as one single unit gave me a sense of pride. But the night wasn’t just all work and no play. We’re here to make original content while having fun so after all the production work was done it was time to hit up our VIP status in the white-couched, free drinks arena and so we did. We danced, sang, took pictures and got to know a little more about the Fanz (people who were hoping to be the 9th member). All in all I didn't want the night to end so I grabbed Takashi and Kung and we hit up the after party, which was held at the hotel where the Fanz were staying. I wish you could see the footage but unfortunately it didn’t make the final cut, either way, it was a sick night; over 50 people crammed into a hotel room talking, bonding, flirting, drinking, having good times with all different agendas. I mean there were us, the Smirnoff Ten, the Fanz that wanted to join us, and the bands who wanted nothing more than a record deal. That night I made a lot of really good friends.

There was this one contestant called Fez, who invited Takashi, Steph and I to see DJ Tiesto play at a party, but this was not your average party. People might find this weird, but this was the night where I discovered the underground scene of Argentina. Over 20,000 people from all over the country came to see Tiesto do what he does best under the stars. Unfortunately we got lost and the night ended with me and Steph trying to make our way through the crowd looking for the rest of the group. It was okay though, because we saw Doug - who was someone I met back at the hostel and was really cool - he partied with us and helped us clear the way when we wanted to move from one corner to the next. Doug if you're out there, thanks and good times! Tiesto... what a night, it was something I won't forget and I will appreciate it for the rest of time. It personally gave me the feeling of a night out with Argentina and the experience of dancing under the stars. Honestly I could talk about the night for a chapter, however I’ll keep it for the stream of consciousness for my memoirs. Either way Argentina blew my mind away, and I had the opportunity to meet wonderful people with extreme talent from all over South America.