This last week has been one of the most ex­haust­ings I can re­mem­ber. And that in­cludes the one I did­n't sleep, while drink­ing heav­i­ly with all my school­mates in Bar­iloche (lo­cal tra­di­tion, nev­er mind).

Let's see...

Last fri­day, af­ter fin­ish­ing work at 21:00, I board­ed a bus at 23:20 with Rosar­i­o, head­ed for my birth­place, San­ta Fe. That's 450km away, and it took un­til 5:30 am.

There I was greet­ed by my broth­er, who I had not seen in al­most three years, and we went to his place to waste some time be­cause I had to go buy a gift for my niece, who was hav­ing her 5th bith­day par­ty.

So, I slept about 2 hours, and then we wen­t, bought some Bar­bie make up (my niece is go­ing to be a mod­el, trust me), and we sailed of­f, in his Peu­geot Part­ner, to­wards Moi­ses Ville (his town), about 200Km to the left.

Bad news: the Part­ner has on­ly two seat­s. There's three of us. So, I went bounc­ing in the back, in a mat­tress, Rosario and San­ti­a­go (my broth­er) at the fron­t.

We did that for about 80K­m. Then we picked up Romi­na (ex-­nan­ny of Muriel, my niece) and Mar­tin (Romi­na's chat­ter­box, 1.5 year old).

So they went to the fron­t, and Rosar­i­o, I, a few pounds of meat, a PC CRT mon­i­tor, a few suit­cas­es, the gifts and some flow­ers went on the back.

Then we ar­rived at the next town, some 50Km fur­ther. I was about to get sick, so, when we picked up the Bar­ney & friends foam suit­s, I switched places with Romi­na & Mar­tin (hey, I'm about twice the size of both of them... to­geth­er).

That's how we ar­rived at Moi­ses, around 3P­M.

Rosario and San­ti­a­go went for a nap, I helped San­dra (San­ti­ago's wife) pick up some stuff, like, bev­er­ages or what­ev­er, and at 16:30, the birth­day par­ty start­ed.

Nice par­ty. Muriel dressed like a princess (she's too cute, re­al­ly. Princess­es are usu­al­ly ugli­er ;-) 40 of her best friends (in a town pop. 1800), two in­flat­able cas­tles to bounce in, cake, and all the sand­wich­es you can eat.

Good thing Rosario used to work teach­ing kinder­garten, too, so she lent a hand...

High­lights of the day: Muriel waltz­ing with her un­cle Iair dressed as the Beast (Dis­ney ver­sion... ok, he looked more like the crea­tures in "The Vil­lage" to me, but to each his own).

Lis­tened at ran­dom: "y­ou know, he could have just used a zip­per in his bel­ly as a beast cos­tume", which is an ab­so­lute defama­tion of the boy ;-)

Rosario paint­ed ev­ery lit­tle girl as if they were about to be on TV...

Now, I have been to some 5-year-old gath­er­ings, and this bunch has to be the sweet­est-­na­tured chil­dren I ev­er saw, ex­cept maybe for the kids at Ur­di­nar­rain, who even say hi to strangers on the street.

At 19:30 ev­ery­one went away, and we rest­ed a lit­tle, then head­ed for one of San­dra & San­ti­ago's busi­ness, a cy­ber­cafe/ping-pong den for a nice asa­do (that's why there was meat in the truck :-).

Awe­some meal, laughed un­til San­ti­a­go seemed about to burst some­thing, dis­gust­ed the fe­male com­pa­ny with anec­dotes, Muriel sleep­ing in a cor­ner, while kids were play­ing coun­ter­strike...

The fol­low­ing day more of the same, knish­es, em­panadas, long nap, think­ing of how the hell we could get back to Buenos Aires be­fore mon­day 18:00, when I had to meet a cus­tomer (yeah, that's right).

San­dra took us in a scary pick­up ride in the dark­ness over a dirt road to Pala­cios, the town on the pave­ment road, where we wait­ed in the dark­ness for a bus.

That bus was head­ed to Rosario (a city, not my girl­friend), and it was ful­l, so Rosario got a seat, I got to stand up (and smooch) un­til Sun­chales (some 40K­m) where some peo­ple left, and we got seat­s, and then noth­ing much hap­pened un­til we ar­rived, around 1am.

Then... no bus­es un­til the morn­ing. We had al­most no mon­ey now, but what the hel­l. We ate a cou­ple of sand­wich­es, took a room in a cheap near­by hotel, and took a bus (fi­nal­ly a nice one) at 9:15 am.

Ar­rived at B.A. at 13:30, she went home, I went to work, went home at 21:30, col­lapsed at 21:32.

Dis­cov­ered my house was in­fest­ed with fleas at 21:33 (how? My cat nev­er leaves! It's a 7th floor!)

lost con­scious­ness at 21:38.

And it was still on­ly mon­day.

Then lots of oth­er stuff, like try­ing to buy a suit with Rosario and Maria Fer­ay (her sis­ter), and wal­ing about 40 blocks look­ing for a piece of cloth... lots of work... even some hack­ing...

And you know... I have a tick­et for San Juan (o­h, rough­ly a 14hs bus ride ;-) for to­mor­row. Once I get there at 10am on sat­ur­day, I will have to dress up for a par­ty (a wed­ding, not mine), and then we will come back in a car. On sun­day.

That means I am go­ing to spend 12 hours in a car with Rosar­i­o, her sis­ter and their fa­ther. Have mer­cy on my soul if noone sees me again!

I for­got to men­tion: I saw Nahuel, a black cock­er spaniel that lived with me when he was a pup­py... many years ago. He's blind, but he still rec­og­nized me. Emo­tion­al mo­ment :-(