Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all you people in the States!

 

If you were wondering why I wrote the less pithy phrase of  "all you people in the States" rather than "all you Americans", there is a reason.  I knew this little tid bit prior to coming to South America, but it has come up in conversations with some of the locals a couple of times so it is worth mentioning here.  Other people in North, Central, and South America do not appreciate people from the United States referring to themselves as "Americans" as if we were the only ones.  They also take pride in being Americans and thus differentiating themselves from the old world and the colonial powers.  They also proudly identify as Costa Ricans, Peruvians, Argentines, etc.  But they do not like hearing people from the States referring to themselves as Americans without the qualifier that we are from the United States of America.  They don't get pissy about it of course, but they will remind you that they are other Americans in this world.  ;)

 

We had a very pleasant Thanksgiving even if it was untraditional.  Thanksgiving is a very important holiday to Ozell.  I don't put much significance on holidays in general although I may be excited by Halloween, Xmas, my birthday, etc on any particular year.  I thought there was going to be a decent chance that Thanksgiving would not be an enjoyable day for Ozell because he is away from family and we had little luck in finding any turkey for sale here in Rosario unless you count the turkey sub from the Subway we found a few blocks away.  Thankfully, Ozell enjoyed his Thanksgiving even though it probably didn't turn out the way he originally hoped it would.

 

The day started in the early afternoon as is sometimes customary when we were out the night before.  We met Federico outside of the hostel and went with him to a beach about 8 km up river from the center of the city.  Two things:  Federico is a guy who works at the hostel we are staying at.  Ozell and he hit it off pretty much from the first day we were here.  He is a very nice, intelligent, and attractive young man and has artistic talents as well.  Secondly, Rosario is a city along a river like many others around the world.  However, the river here is exceptionally broad and has many islands (some pretty damn large) in the middle of it.  There are bars and beaches strewn about the banks of the river and the islands in the middle.  They are popular local hangouts with all of the typical amenities of seaside beaches:  sand, umbrellas, chairs, cocktails, and water.  The three of us went to one of these beaches to spend the afternoon.  It was wonderful because it was sunny and hot!

 

When we came back into town, it was too late to even consider making a Thanksgiving dinner ourselves.  We still had not found a place that sold turkey anyways.  Ozell and I cleaned up and then went for a nice dinner at one of the local restaurants in the pedestrian area of town.  We had a nice relaxing time, and it was nice to eat dinner together.  After dinner, which we had late to begin with, we met back up with Federico outside the hostel.  We were all going to go to a bar called Bar Del Mar which we had visited the night before.  It is a gay friendly bar here in Rosario-  smaller and with a neighborhood feel.  The night before Federico had taken us there.  He brought one of his good friends along named Jose.  While it was quite obvious that Federico and Ozell had taken a liking towards each other from earlier in the week, I am not socially astute, and didn't realize that Federico had brought Jose along as a potential match for me.  I just assumed that Jose was a friend who was coming along because that is how I would behave.  To make a long story short, I thought Jose was very handsome and intelligent in his own right, but when I occasionally looked over at him while we were at the bar, I didn't think he was expressing any interest in me at all so I just carried on accordingly.  Well, the next day at the beach with Federico and Ozell, I told Federico that I thought Jose was hot but I didn't think he had any interest in me.  Federico chuckled because Jose did have an interest in me and had told Federico that he tried flirting with me throughout the evening but I didn't seem interested in him.  lol  That's the way things go- especially when I am one of the people involved.

 

The point being is that we all went out to Bar Del Mar on Thanksgiving night.  At first, it didn't look like Jose was going to meet us there because he was not feeling well.  That disappointed me some because now I knew we were both interested in each other and I knew that Ozell and Federico would be making googling eyes at each other which does make me feel like a 3rd wheel if there is not something else to grab my attention.  But, Jose did show up at the bar, and we all had a really nice time.  We all went back to Jose's place, listened to some music and YouTube videos, smoke some weed (the first time I got high since our first week in Lima, Peru), and then spent the late night/early morning with each of our new friends.

 

I really enjoyed Jose's company.  However, he had to get up for a study group early in the morning so I left his place around 6am to head back to the hostel.  Ozell stayed with Federico and had a very pleasant morning with the other roommates.  Then they all had lunch together.

 

So even though it was not a traditional Thanksgiving in any sense, it was a very enjoyable and memorable one for both of us.

 

More about some of the people we have met here in Rosario in a subsequent post....

 

Cheers!

 

Sean