Baby por favor, allow me to explain...

I am the worst. blogger. ever.

Curve decided to buy my little story about being a lonely dyke in Buenos Aires after all. Meaning, I´ll be writing about a lot of what I already have slash would put up on this stupid blog. Meaning I´m going to have to take it down so the magazine doesn´t sue my ass. Meaning I´ve been hesitant to spend my time writing anything else. Meaning, this was all just fleeting entertainment and not the grand informative project I was hoping for.

Meaning you´ll just have to buy the magazine issue which will likely come out in the summer of 2K10 after I delete this shit.

Womp. Womp. Maybe I´ll take up a blog on the next adventure.

Drag Nights at Sitges

SITGES
WHERE? Av. Córdoba 4119, Palermo
COST? 20 pesos buys you entrance and 2 drinks
BEST TIME TO GO? Wednesday & Thursday drag shows start at 1am

Can´t decide between a man in women´s clothing or a woman with no clothes at all? Head to swanky Sitges on Wednesday or Thursday for an early 1am show and get the best of both. A cheap 20 pesos gets you in and your first two drinks and performers who alternate between wacky drag queens and sultry exotic dancers will have you confused over whether you should be laughing or biting your lip.

Though you´ll find mostly boys in this joint, the spunky female performers (and their nipples) bring more than enough to the table for the dykes in the house. The Wednesday night we found ourselves here featured an impressive array of costumes in comparison to the small drag stage, including jumpsuits covered in flashing lights and giant folding fans, though the Amy Winehouse impersonation was the real show-stealer.

The punch lines to many of the Spanish language jokes flew over our heads, but the show´s dance numbers needed no translation to get a laugh. Just make sure to sit against the wall if you don´t want to be publicly tested on your español by the drag queens when they walk through the audience.

Take advantage of the rare occurrence of a BsAs show being over at 2:30 and actually get a decent amount of sleep before work in the morning or head a few blocks down to Bach, which only really starts getting good at 3 anyways. We hear the all-you-can-drink for 40 pesos special on Fridays is worth checking out as well.

Pancakes, and Bagels, and Syrup, oh my!

AMARANTA COFFEE & PASTRY SHOP
WHERE? Junin 1559 (Recoleta)
WHEN? Tues-Sun 8am-8pm (bruch til 2 Sat&Sun)
COST? Fixed brunch around 25 pesos, lunch menu around 20-35 pesos
If you made it to my first post, you know that torta means both dyke and cake. This connection, and the fact that I am equally fond of both of these things, will justify why I will be occasionally writing about food, and not about lesbians at all. And if you had discovered the jackpot of US-American style breakfast in Buenos Aires, you´d think it was worth writing home about, too.

Amaranta is a small, homey joint with a welcoming decor owned by a friendly Bolivian guy who did a breakfast-inspiring stint in the States, which turned out to be a winning combo for BsAs expats like myself. Not only does Amaranta serve the almost impossible-to-find delicacies of waffles, french toast, pancakes, bagels and even eggs benedict and florentine, they do it well. And they do it cheap. When you order from their super cheap fixed brunch menu on Saturday or Sunday, you won´t only get a steal of a deal with coffee and fresh orange juice included with your 25-peso eggs or carbolicious breakfast item, but your french toast will be made with thick wheaty slabs of homemade bread (with maple syrup!), your omelet will be stuffed with ham, cheese and even spinach, and your fresh-out-of-the-oven bagel could even be slathered with the oh-so-rare peanut butter!

Expect your server to be a bit overbooked on a busy Sunday, but casually friendly and probably easy on the eyes. Don´t expect your maple syrup and peanut butter to be top-notch quality (just be grateful you have it at all!) or that English is everyone´s first or even second language here. Just because the chalkboard on the wall says ¨Buffalo Wings¨ doesn´t mean shouting ´I want my guacamole on the side´ over and over again at your server is going to get you anywhere. In other words, don´t be an asshole like the rest of the English-speakers that flock to this joint - bring a phrasebook if you really feel that words like ´tostada francesa´ are going to be too difficult for you to crack.

A die-hard breakfast fan myself, I have yet to give their lunch items a try, though their blog reveals hamburgers, nachos, quesadillas and hard-to-find drinks like smoothies and iced tea which all look pretty f*cking delish if you ask me. And if for some reason you haven´t gotten enough of the taste of home for 30 pesos at this place, order sesame, everything, onion, blueberry and plain bagels or their dense homemade scones to go for an extra 3 pesos a pop. Queercentric or not, Amaranta has this dyke expat´s heart.

Kim y Novak

KIM Y NOVAK
WHERE? 4900 Guemes, cross st. Godoy Cruz (Palermo)
COST? no cover, around 15 pesos for a beer
BEST TIME TO GO? I wouldn´t, but if you´re gonna, after 3am
FIRST IMPRESSION? A good place to get drugs at the very least


Kim y Novak. The keyword here is NO.

While even your most recent travel book or website review will hail K&N as the happening 20-something underground queer bar, this tiny and strange place has recently fallen from grace and is now quite literally a bar simply on the wrong side of the tracks. Residing in the rumored old trans red-light district, the only queer people we saw here were either working on the corner or behind the bar. Expect any conversation struck up here to be of little (or illegal) substance.

Let´s elaborate. Our first week here, the search for people or a place that maybe could relate to us little San Francisco treats was on. We read up religiously on the gay/lesbian bars in the area. And then we attempted to go out for our first time. When we hail a cab, the driver can´t understand the street names I´m giving him because my accent is butchering it so much. After cruising through pretty Palermo, he drops us off at the train tracks. Of course. Get out of the cab. Some tweeked out dude kindly offers to sell us drugs. Walk a little bit faster to the bar. Look inside. No one´s there. Weird, seeing as we read that this was one of the most popular gay bars...hmm...ask the guy inside if they´re open. He tells us yes, and that we´re the first ones. Right.

Now we know that porteños like to go out late. Which is why we´ve been hanging out in our apartment all night waiting for it to get later and later as we´re too broke to do the all-American pre-game routine and not cool enough to have made any local friends yet. We even took a little siesta. Having also read that this bar opens at 9:30, we left at midnight. But of course, we´re the first ones.

Having already paid to take a cab here, and not knowing where else to go, the girlfriend (Casey) orders a steep 15-peso beer and we sit in the tiny joint for an entire hour watching the bartenders eat their dinner. I wonder if they felt awkward, too. The sound of the door makes us hopeful before a pack of straight people on some triple date come in and then proceed to turn around in their chairs to stare at us.

A few more people filter in around one. Luckily, one of them comes over to talk to us. Not so luckily, this person happens to be Cokey Bob.

Now, before Cokey Bob had earned his nickname, I had been working on being more open to strangers now that I was in a new place seemingly not filled with the crazies found in San Francisco. So, we scoot over on the couch and offer this man a seat. We proceed with the introductory and painfully basic Spanish conversation most expats we´ve met are very familiar with. What we´ve come to call ¨Tengo Dos Hermanos¨- as in, I can tell you where I´m from, how old I am, how long I´ve been here, that yes, I love Buenos Aires and that I have two brothers (or, in my case, one sister) and then, because I did NOT do enough of my flashcards before we came here, our conversation can really advance no further.

Cokey Bob, however, braves to take us to the next level. At this point, we´ve been city gals enough to know that it´s quite possible that Cokey Bob´s middle name is Hard Liquor. This inkling is further justified when, with slurring Spanish and an unbalanced lean-in, he asks if he can ask us una pregunta personal. Sure, Cokey Bob. Have at. ¿Son ustedes parejas? Yes, Cokey Bob, we´re partners. Yes, lesbians. Now if the stare-down from the triple daters didn´t tip us off that this place wasn´t as queer as we´d read, this whispered question certainly did. Though not taken aback by our pareja status, Cokey excuses himself to the bathroom.

At this point, Casey and I discuss our escape plan. Shockingly quick-like-a-bunny, Cokey´s back. Unsurprisingly, he´s seeming a little more alert. At this point he asks Casey her name. ´Casey´, he says ´would you like some coke?´ ´Hmm, no, that´s ok. But thanks,´ Casey says. Awkward silence. As in most of these situations we seem to find ourselves in, I try to make a joke like ´Normally, Cokey Bob, we would, but if we want to return to the States after this trip (and after this, we do), we probably shouldn´t´. No response. Cokey ´s a tough crowd. He turns to Casey, earnestly looking her in the eye. ´No money, Casey´, he assures her. Yeah, we know....so, we´re gonna go. Nice meeting you, ok bye. Pobrecita dyke expats. Try to go to a gay bar and all we get is Cokey H.L Bob and a bartender that looks an awful lot like Alan Cummings...

Bienvenidos: some basic info for the dyke traveller in the ol´ Bueno

1. CUNNI-LINGO: some choice words

• lesbiana: spanglish, easy - it means lesbian
  
• torta: dyke, or, see previous post
  
• carlitos: not a lipstick lesbian, but not hard core butch, either, this is for the soft-butch ladies out there, or, the chapstick lesbians as one fellow traveller would say


• chongo: butch lesbian...and we mean butch


• pareja: romantic partner


• novia: girlfriend (also romantic) - however, novio means boyfriend. You may need to reassure someone that yes, you meant to put an a at the end, that no, you´re not bad at Spanish, you´re just gay.


• coger: to fuck. In other parts of the Spanish-speaking world, this also means to catch, as in to catch the bus. In BsAs, stick to arreglar when talking about the bus...unless you´re into that sorta thing.

2. YOUR HAIR

If you´re a chick with short hair, especially if you lean more on the carlitos or chongo side of things, you will be getting (shamelessly) stared at in many parts of the city. We´re talking turn-around-in-your-seat, walk-backwards-in-a-crosswalk, never-breaking-eye-contact STARES. Long hair and an overtly feminine appearance are in here in BsAs, so someone like my pierced-up, faux-hawked, boy´s-clothes-wearing (not to mention adorable) butchie of a girlfriend has been walking around this city like she´s got a dick on her forehead. Bummer for her. However, if you´re rocking the revival of the 20-something dyke mullet, the party-in-the-back style (especially when incorporating a rat tail) is making it back with the boys here in a questionably big way...combine this with your boi-ish charm, and it might just help you blend. Now the stares have never been aggressive and are shaking-of-the-head disapproving at the most, but it´s something that surprised us at first. Now we´ve learned to smile and wave, take a few pictures, sign some autographs and continue having a gay old time.

Used to being a metropolitan hot-shit dyke in the cit-tay? Well, you´re not anymore. The only time we get checked out now, is by the straight girls trying to figure our if we´re guys or not.


3. PDA

The stares aside, holding hands or being a little touchy in public shouldn´t get you attacked here, by any means. Like any major city with a wide variety of people and cultures available for the clashing (especially when most of its country is Catholic), maintain your wits about you and trust your instinctual hater-radar. This especially applies outside of Buenos Aires, where things tend to be a bit more traditional. Your outside appearance also plays a role here, as those who look like blatant dykes holding hands may get more attention than those who look like porteña straight girls who also like to hold hands. Needless to say, these lesbian cultural differences will probably also throw your once finely-tuned gaydar a little off. So watch who you hit on. While being generally cautious, definitely give the local culture some credit - after all, same-sex civil unions are legal in Argentina...which, is a lot more than many of our beloved states can say.

4. WHERE TO STAY

The amount of negative or positive attention you get can also depend on the neighborhood you´re in. For the peso-pinchers looking to stay anywhere from a week to 6 months, I would suggest renting a short-term apartment. While it´s often cheaper than renting a hostel per night (and definitely cheaper than all lodging advertised as gay) it allows you to cook for yourself and gives you the privacy to uh, show your affection to people of the same sex in the comfort of your own temporary home. Though there are plenty of sites that can arrange this for you, we went through stayinbuenosaires.com. They have budget, short-term and last-minute apartment rentals, are very accommodating and attentive, and even have a gay resource link on their website. While we haven´t been out and proud to the landlords they connected us with, we are sharing a one bedroom and no one seems to mind.

We did, however, make the not drastically devastating mistake of renting in the neighborhood Recoleta. We had read that it was ´safer´, was close to major city conveniences, and it was in our price range. However, the staring problem we´ve encountered is definitely more prominent here. For those of you familiar with San Francisco, think North Beach. Young, wealthy, bursting-with-their-first-child straight families and toy poodles abound. Our proximity to the Recoleta cemetery and beautiful parks keep us relatively uncomplaining, but the higher price tags on everything from coffee to groceries has us thinning out our budget more than we´d like. Most expat and local dykes we´ve met are shacked up in Palermo or San Telmo.

PALERMO we found to be a bit out of our budget for apartment rentals. However, it is where 90% of the lesbian nightlife is situated, increases your chances of seeing a little same-sex PDA, and decreases the dick-on-your-forehead problem. Think San Francsco´s Castro or New York´s Greenwich Village but a little less screamingly gay. It´s also just gorgeous and has a lot of great shopping and eating opportunities.

SAN TELMO is friendlier to your pesos, but less central than Palermo. It´s more mellow than the hustle-and-bustle of our dear Recoleta and has more of a stroll-along-the-cobbled-sidewalks sort of a feel. It also is home to a few choice queer havens, which we´ll get to later.


5. SMALL TIPS & TRICKS

• Bring tampons. Especially if you´re an applicator kind of gal. O.B. non-applicator tampons can be found, but are a bit pricey in pesos. Pads however, are everywhere.


• Watch your step. Those cute dogs everyone seems to have? Well, they don´t clean up after them. And they do their business in very creative places around here. And at a crosswalk, stay on the curb if you know what´s good for your feet. Drivers seem to get extra points for hitting tourists.


• If you´ve got a heterophobic streak, now´s a great time to get over it. Straight couples make out EVERYWHERE. And it´s heavy. Like sucking fingers, licking faces, feeding-you-grapes and moaning. All in front of you in line at the movie theater.

• Wondering whether or not to bring your sexy time...accessories...? Wrapped in a bandana and stuffed into a sock, ours had no problems getting through the lax Buenos Aires customs checks, which seemed to exist only to show us the exit. And if you´re picky about your lube, bring that, too.


• Buy a travel book. Though Lonely Planet has lead us down the wrong rainbow brick road before, it´s a great jumping off point. And if you want to read more than that, and aren´t fluent in Spanish, bring some English-language titles, because they´re few-and-far between and often a rip-off even when converted into US$.


• Get ready to dig for your dykes. While BsAs´s rep as the next gay city does not go unfounded, you probably won´t find an in-your-face queer neighborhood as they exist in SF or NYC - but don´t get discouraged, it just requires some hit-and-miss work. And us spoiled San Francisco dykes are in need of a little challenge.