Buenos Aires, Argentina - The End

This will be the last entry.

I´d hoped to wrap this up with some kind of broad, sweeping statement about the meaning of life and the virtues of travel but the truth is I don´t think I´ve learned anything over the past couple months except how to buy a bus ticket in Spanish. I´ve met some really fine people, seen some pretty amazing things, and had more fun than you could fit into a wheelbarrow, but if anything I fear this trip may have retarded my ability to become a functioning member of society rather than fostered it. Living the good life is no way to motivate yourself.

So I´ll get on plane in a few hours and start trying to reprogram myself for the real world.

In closing, here are a few things I´ve seen and heard over the last couple days.

While walking through La Boca I passed a small hardware store and peeked in just in time to hear a kid who looked about seven tell the shopkeeper, "I need the paint to be this color." In his hand was a kind of outdoor light fixture with the blue paint peeling away. It was still attached by bolts to a couple of softball-sized chunks of concrete which I can only imagine used to be part of the outside of his house.

Before dinner the other night, we were sharing a few liters of beer while our old Aussie friend Amanda (who you may remember from such episodes as "snowed on at 16,000 feet on the way to Macchu Pichu," and who happened to be in B.A. at the same time as me) regaled us with stories of punching Owen Wilson in the nose at an Aspen ski resort and hopping over a guardrail to steal a guitar during a band´s setbreak in Vancouver to protest the lame cover of "Sweet Child Of Mine" they´d just played and sprinting away from security guards while performing what she considered to be a far superior version. When her Cuba Libre took a while to arrive, someone offered to pour her a beer and she said, "No thanks, I stopped drinking beer when I was four."

Last night I hung out with, among other good folks, a Scottish guy who chucked it all to come down here and kite surf. He spent the better part of an hour extolling the virtues of the kilt, insisting it´s a great ice breaker, a beautiful cultural exchange, and the perfect way to meet girls. He suggested that everyone should wear a kilt, and that it wouldn´t be the least bit of an affront to the Scots if everyone else jumped on the bandwagon. "After all," he said, "It wouldn´t have been too keen if the guy who invented sliced bread hadn´t shared it with the rest of the world, would it?"

I´ve unwittingly adopted the British tic of ending all my sentences with questions. Haven´t I?

I´ve seen several sunrises and sunsets.

I´ve photographed the buildings which stand in the locations where the homes of Che Guevara and Jorge Luis Borges once stood. I have no idea why.

I finally learned how to make a phone call.

So that´s that. I´ve got 32 hours of travelling to get home which begin in about 8 hours. Assuming I don´t "find myself" in that short period of time and veer off in some bizarre and unpredictable direction, I´ll see everyone in Seattle at the Park Pub on Thursday night around 10:30. That´s exactly where I was on Thursday night three months ago and very likely where I´ll be come the first lame Thursday in February.

I need a huge plate of sushi, a dinosaur-sized Blue Med salad from Costas Opa, a ticket to the Seahawk game, and a place to live. If anyone can help please email me.

Otherwise, keep the peace, take care, talksoon, and be good.

-chad