Gringo Survival Guide

  Once more, I write this blog in a state of unholy fragility. I've spent the whole day lying around like a mess, in and out of consciousness and feeling like the world is, finally, coming to an end. When you go to a BBQ at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon, there is often little evidence to precede such a hangover but, alas, it's happened again. I suspect this may be karma for spending my Friday night laughing at Tottenham Hotspur for a similar sentiment; whatever lessons that past failures have engrained in you, sometimes it's just destined to happen again.

'Bald-head pecking' levels of friendship
can be achieved HERE

  What I want to write about today is life as a solo 'gringo' in a foreign country and city. When I arrived in Brazil - after my two friends had left - I knew nobody. The same can be said about Argentina. I was a young English bloke with no pre-determined platform, just trying to make some mates and have a good time. It's been 300 days since I arrived in Buenos Aires back in July, at which point I was without family, friends and belongings (Air Canada ladies and gentlemen...), but I feel like I've done okay. Many new friends have been made from all corners of the globe and of all social groups and ages.

  Along the way though, I think it's fair to say that I've had to take myself out of my comfort zone. I've had to do some weird stuff, and expand my personality out to lengths that it previously hasn't required or experienced. Before this vague description starts to create mis-leading images in your heads, I'm going to go through a few things that I've been through to give a a taste of life as a gringo in a foreign land.

Flares, Paint and Ayrton Senna: My Brazilian Easter

  I was stood on the the streets of central São Paulo staring up at a sporting icon. It was the middle of the afternoon, yet I was a number of beers down and grasping at a bottle of catuaba (a.k.a. liquid gold). I knew I was feeling a bit tipsy, yet I started to question just how much so when I realised that I was listening to a Brazilian questioning why this sporting icon was so important. A Brazilian questioning the greatness of Ayrton Senna? Maybe I'd missed the hallucinations warning on the side of this bottle. The motoring legend stared at us, judgingly, from a vibrantly coloured mural that covered the side of a nearby building. What he was witnessing was a group 50+ charity workers wetting the head of another successful project. It was an authentically Good Friday, just as Jesus intended... minus the beer.

  When I was made aware of the upcoming bank holiday - Easter is not naturally engrained in my mental calendar - I envisaged a day of sleep, Netflix and maybe, at a push, a cheeky shower. Oh how wrong I was. Waking up to the sight of 11:00am on my phone quickly morphed into standing, awake, on the metro platform at 6:30am. I gave myself a slap but it was reality alright. Now why the f**k was I awake at such an hour on a bank holiday Friday? Not even a Monday, a FRIDAY. Well, it turns out the spirit of Easter is contagious. Not giving up anything for lent and claiming to be an atheist at any mentioning of religion is not enough to avoid the big man's powers, apparently.