November 3, 2018: MY AMAZING DAY + Saving Food Waste!!!

What an incredible day... filled with gayness, productivity, and free food.

No idea who this man is.

I took my sweet time getting up in the morning, ate breakfast, and then went for a run with Cassie around 11:40am. We decided to change up our usual route - which has been getting old for a while now - and run around the Jardín Japones (Japanese Gardens). This was a good call because the new path was refreshing and we were also able to peak into the garden and it was beautiful!! We also cut through this one big grassy area and were able to run alongside a pretty lake with a bunch of different types of trees and cute little statutes. I almost completely wiped out at one point but luckily I caught myself. Qué boluda que soy...

After the run, we each went home, showered, and packed up to go to Loli's to do work. There was a gay pride festival going on literally less than a block away from our houses so we stopped by on the way. It was so cool! We didn't have much time to explore because we had to get going, but it looked pretty lit.

Cassie and I were so tempted to get glittered-out like the girl pictured above but we decided against it. We made plans to come back later after Loli's.

There was this really cool tree with a bunch of different colored strings hanging from it and a station with paper and markers to write messages to pin on the streamers. I wrote, "GAY IS OKAY" and I am happy to report that it was still hanging on strong around 1:00am when I stopped by later.

We then continued walking to Loli's and that walk ended up being a little longer than we had anticipated but such is life. Loli's was so much fun! Pili (her sister) cooked two tartas for us and they were DELICIOUS. It was like a healthy version of pizza! Here are some photos of Loli doing surgery on the tarta.

It felt like I was dining with my Argentine fam. I really really enjoyed the meal, not only because of the food, but also because Loli and Pili were so kind to make it for us. I am truly going to miss them so much when I leave.

After we ate, it was time to get down to business. I came up with the idea to set a timer for 17 minutes and everyone had to put their phone away and work for 17 minutes uninterrupted. We were pretty successful! We would take little breaks about every 45 minutes to play music and pause from work.

During one of these recreos, we went up to their apartment's terrace and hung out there. I decided to climb a ladder to get to a sunnier part but mostly to be a rebel. Oh how freeing.

It was nice to get out of the house and to be with friends during the day, and it made working on my essay a lot less miserable. I am so grateful that Loli and Pili are always so welcoming!!

Pili's beautiful face, so you can put a face to the name.

Cassie and I stayed until about 6:30pm and then headed back to our house. Cassie decided it was nap time and I decided I need to force myself to write one more page of the essay. Shockingly, I actually followed through with this plan, but only because the gay pride festival's music was too loud that I couldn't have napped even if I wanted to.

I might add that on our walk back, we stopped by this little fair (I forget to check what the name of it was) and they were selling a bunch of different foods and products.

We stopped by a lady selling cakes - carrot cake, caramelized apple cake, blueberry cheesecake, peanut butter Oreo cake - and decided it would be a crime to not purchase a cake. So we got the cheesecake one with berries on top. Worth the 90 pesos!!

Anyway, when I got home I forced myself to work on the essay and now we are already at 15 pages!! Technically we only have a minimum of 7 more pages to write and we still have 11 days to do it so hooray for Julie and I being ahead of schedule! It is seriously such a relief.

Around 9:15pm, Cassie and I met up again to explore the gay fest and to eat dinner. At this point, it was SOOOO crowded we could barely move through the gente, but we eventually made it to a less crowded area and it was here where we encountered a very interesting man. A guy holding 3 balloons came up to us, telling us he had captured the farts of many famous people and that they were in his balloons. He offered Lionel Messi's fart for 150 pesos and Shakira's for 100. I told him I love the creativity and the effort but... NO THANKS. He was so persistent and ended up talking to us for 15 minutes trying to get us to buy the balloons - I mean the farts - but we firmly refused. It was so humorous too because he really thought he'd change our minds. Poor guy failed but he did earn a shoutout in my blog.

At this point we were pretty hungry so we went to a crepe place to eat dinner. We got one savory - spinach, roasted chickpeas, grilled squash, and cheese - and one sweet - caramelized apples with cinnamon. Both of them were incredible. But do you know what is even more incredible? Free crepes.

We sat down at a table that hadn't been cleaned from whoever sat there previously and I realized, after finishing our crepes, that they left an entire half crepe behind. Well thank you, folks, it's mine now. And then wouldn't you know it, the girls to our left also left behind half a crepe. Mmm Nutella - thanks, guys! A big family of 5 sat down one table over and this was promising. Sure enough, they left an almost untouched crepe behind. But then the girl threw it in the garbage!!! Luckily I live without shame and reached my hand in to rescue it - don't worry, it was completely covered by its case and sitting right at the top of the garbage. Basically good as new. I figured I'd push my luck and ask the guy making the crepes if they have any extras that no one wants to eat. His reaction made my night. "You want some?" He asked. "How's Nutella?" It's funny you ask, sir, Nutella would be just excellent. He even voluntarily heated it up for us. Free money tastes good.

You are poorly mistaken if you think our free food hunt ended there. We were now on a mission. We walked into Temple Bar and I noticed a bartender stacking up used plates and there was a massive pile of fries on one of them. I simply walked right up to him and grabbed a fry off the plate in his plane sight. He gave me an odd look and I said, "No entiendo por qué..." and he said to me, in English, "Why people don't finish their food?" and I said, "Yeah." Then I continued to grab fries off the plate and he said, "I wouldn't do that, that's gross." I looked him in the eye, grabbed 4 more fries, and walked out. Bon appetit, sir.

We then snagged fries that were just siting unattended outside of a restaurant called Muu (dumb name, by the way) and proceeded to an intersection with lots of restaurants - meaning lots of potential for wasted food. Two men were seated at one of them and we noticed they asked for the check. We also noticed the massive amount of bread and fries they had left. I marched up and asked if they were going to finish them. Turns out, they were from Britain and didn't understand what I said so then I said it in English and we started a nice little conversation. But I didn't come to talk, boys, I came to eat your bread.

"Let's get that bread."

Cassie and I ended up hanging out with these 2 fellas for about 20 minutes but we weren't that into it... after all, we only wanted their food. They're visiting Buenos Aires for the weekend so we gave them some recommendations and then went to bed.

Me and Cassie both feel devoted to finding free food now. We made a deal that Saturday night, our goal is to eat dinner for free by eating people's waste. We said we are going to try for at least one hour to find food and only after that are we allowed to buy food. Looking forward to it! In the words of Cassie, "I never want to spend money on food again." How Freddy Freegan-esque of us.

You may be disgusted, you may be impressed. You may be both. One thing is for certain: I ate a lot of free French fries tonight. Goodnight.

Song Recommendation of the Day: "Money" by Cardi B (ironic because I didn't spend money to eat all that food today)

P.S. - Please enjoy this cool photo.