So for the new year, I was chilling in this extremely touristy town called Bariloche in Argentina. This was a huge bummer because in my experience every touristy town is pretty much the same, and unfortunately, in the Patagonia, every touristy town is even more the same. There is your 101 outdoor sporting equipment stores, your 101 internet cafes/ice cream stores/chocolate stores, your 101 rental places, and your 101 hostel crap. Bariloche was no different, and actually it was a little worse because you can tell it just expanded artificially due to the extreme influx of foreign money. It doesn't even have a central plaza! What kind of Latin American city does not have a central plaza? Well, those that are just fixtures of foreign occupation.

Anyway, we were lucky to find a room because everything was full. Of course, like always, there were a ton of Israelis in the hostel.* This one particularly "loose" Israeli girl started a conversation with us I guess because she was interested in the pasta that we just whipped up. It was a pretty good pasta with cream based sauce, but we made waay to much of it and were suffering trying to eat it all. We offered some to her and then all of a sudden a bunch her Israeli travel buddies came and sat around us, which was sort of flattering I guess (Also, I use "loose" not because she was - I have no idea if she is or not - but rather it was because her clothes were too loose. Her tank top was falling off her shoulders, her hair was everywhere, that sort of thing. Usually one and one make two, but you know).

I bring her up basically because later on that night in the closing minutes to the new year, we were all chilling in one of the hostel rooms, and she says to me:

Loose Israeli: Do you watch the Gilmore Girls?
Me: Um..no but I have heard of it, and I hear that it is very good.
(rest of room full of israelis jeers and says that I probably watch it every day and know every line)
LI: Well, I bring it up because do you know you look hispanic, and you remind me of a character in this series.
Me: But...I am asian!
LI: Oh yeah, asian or whatever. Hey I want you to take this as a compliment...do you know that Asian girl on that series who is the friend of such and such? You look like her.
Me: Wait...are you saying that I look like a girl?
LI: I wanted you to take that as a compliment!
Me: (speechless)

Honestly, I would prefer the usual comparison with Jackie Chan. I don't know who this hispanic/asian girl is, so I did some research on IMDB, and the only person that I guess would be important enough for her to know/remember her face would be this girl named Keiko Agena. I honestly think that LI is on crack. And I think my new years resolution is to get a haircut.......

*I never knew this, but Israelis have this custom of traveling around the world after their mandatory military service. South America is one of the most popular destinations because it is notoriously cheap and pretty fun. So usually, these people are about 19 to 20, leaving the country for the first time and leaving the structured military service (or more like the asshole socialization project enforced upon the Israeli population that probably reinforces the divisions between the two people) and they sort of go crazy with whatever they can get their hands on. My experience with the Israelis has been quite good. Generally speaking, Israeli women are gorgeous at least the ones that I met. They are (obviously) quite pro-Israel, but I tried to avoid that topic altogether, despite the fact that a couple of them can'¡t quite get off of the topic. They also love to talk about Israel: customs, food, etc. I usually find discussions like this quite interesting, and I like to listen to people talk about their own cultures. At the same time, sometimes it began to sound like a disparaging comparison with what they were experiencing in Latin America, which sort of bothered me a bit.

Labels: complaints, fears, musings, travel