Feliz Año Nuevo!

In Mendoza, Argentina with Susy:

The owner of the inn we are staying at invited us to join his big family party for New Years. We accepted. The rest of his family canceled. We had one of the best steaks I have ever eaten and all the Malbec we could drink with this guy and his parents (who live with him). We arrived at 10:30pm, which was way too early for dinner, so we were having a glass of wine and he says, 'it's kind of odd that both my parents live with me, because they are divorced.'  We rang in 2011 at a small table on a porch while a violent thunderstorm raged outside. The language barrier, for once, helped make things less awkward: since we couldn't talk much, it made the fact that two adults at the table were intentionally ignoring each other a little less obvious. A little.

After dashing in and out of the rain to watch over an hour of fireworks, we went to "Willy's Bar" at about 1:30am with Toto, our host. The bar was so far from being set up that it was basically closed.

Outside of Discovery Channel nature shows, I have never before realized the NEED for time-lapse photography. Nothing could have better captured our New Years Eve.  If only we had been appropriately equipped, you would get to watch something like this:

1:35am: Toto got us 'Fernet' & coke... the local drink, which smells and tastes like Coke mixed with Ricola cough drops. The bartender has a fauxhawk and a spiked belt barely holding his jeans above his thighs.

1:37am: A tumbleweed rolls through the echoing red and black painted room accompanied by complete silence.

1:47am: We watched the DJ move all his equipment inside, which included moving, and breaking the feet off of, a pool table. 

1:53am: Two girls arrive. Short hair, parted asymmetrically.  Short, flowered dresses: eighties print.

2:13am: More hipsters trickle in. Average age is 22, but there are some older lecherous boyfriends. Girls are in short skirts and short boots and loads of perfume. Boys are in truckee hats and tight jeans.

2:24: We talk about how old we are.

2:28am: It stops raining. 
2:34am: The DJ moves all his equipment back to a tent outside.
2:46am: 8 hipsters, two with mullets and one with silver pants, fall asleep on a white leather couch, waiting for the party to start.
2:48am: Fauxhawk bartender opens up his laptop and plays Michael Jackson's extended version of "Thriller."  We dance... just like they do on the video.
2:53am: Toto asks if I'm on Facebook. I say, "What's 'Facebook'?" I have had enough Fernet to think this is the funniest joke of the night. 
3:01am: A guy walks in a red t-shirt and Dick Tracy hat. He's with two girls in striped shirts they stole from the set of "Growing Pains".
3:24am: The DJ finally starts playing in his outdoor tent. He starts with breakbeats (Susy is shocked) and works his way into "Indigenous techno".
3:38am: There are two pairs of silver pants on the mud dance floor. 
3:46am:The stars above the "danceyard" are bright. Toto points out a 'special Argentine' constellation of "a shopping cart". It's Orion's belt.
3:53am: There is a line at the gate to get in and the bouncers are charging admission. 
4:14am: the danceyard is full. We are among the best dancers there, a rank accomplished with minimal foot and arm movement.
4:18am: There is a deep crowd around the bar, clamoring for Fernet and Coke. 
4:35am: We tell Toto we want to leave. He is appalled. 'Things are just getting started!'
4:38am: The three of us leave the hipsters to their dance moves and climb into Toto's 1966 Ford pickup truck.
4:57am: We laugh ourselves to sleep, visions of mullets dancing in our heads.