New Years With No Reservations

“Your new year will be as your new year began.”

As far as made up superstitions go, this one is my favorite. Mainly, because my new year started out with perfect luck in a foreign city. Based on this, my new year will be filled with jackpot winnings, perfect timing, and leprechaun friends (I'll even settle for really short people with an affinity for green clothes).

The story of my new years eve, however, began with the notorious “miscommunication between man and woman!”. When a woman says, “I'll make a choice about tonight,” she really means, “You better come up with something good, or else I will act like a total b-word the rest of the night.” (the 'B' stands for bureaucrat).

I'll admit, I should have verified with Arissa, Nathalie's friend from New York City, what our plans were. I said I could do some research; however, I assumed she was going to reserve a place at one of the clubs they had listed down, and she assumed that I would find something better. I did not, and she did not. Which left us empty handed at 8pm when we met up. The man at the front desk summed up our debacle, “All of Argentina is booked tonight.”

After thirty minutes of asking around, failing to connect to the internet, and next to no advice from the hotel, we found the one option was to go to the port and hope to find a place to eat, even though every restaurant claimed to be full, all fifty thousand taxis of Buenos Aires were 'ocupado', the walk to the port was at least fifty minutes away (without high heels), and not a safe place to walk through on the way back. It was looking as hopeless as my New Years resolution to stop singing “I feel pretty” when styling my hair.

Then something came over me. “Here's what's going to happen,” I said. “We're going to get lucky. We're going to find a taxi. Find a nice restaurant with music and dancing, and it's going to be excellent.” For some reason, I believed it – probably, that reason was a glass of Argentine red wine and a mini-bar beer. We set off.

After fifteen minutes of walking down the main road, with the girls in their high heels and each taxi we waved at flying by, the fumes of negativity from Arissa, Ms. New York, began to get a little stifling. Luckily, Nathalie kept her positive attitude – probably, due to the glass of wine she had with me. We finally saw a taxi with the red “Libre” light on. Nathalie ran over. The guy looked away and flicked the light off. I thought that might have made Arissa feel at home. All that was missing was the middle finger.

At about twenty minutes of walking, a taxi pulled over and let out a group of people, we sprinted up and dove in. The price to ride five minutes to the port was enough to feed his family for a week, but you can't be choosy with your luck.

The port and the restaurants were barely speckled with people at 9pm, which is early for dinner, but without a reservation, we were shooed away. Still, confident that we would get lucky, I asked the next restaurant. The hostess wrinkled her brow when I told her we had no 'reservaciones'. She said they were completely full... But... she would see what she could do – which is code for, “you look like you've got magic dancing feet tonight, I'll make it happen just for you.”

In an instant, a husky smiling man pat me on the shoulder and fired out in unintelligible, but jovial Spanish something about something, and a table, and a price, and joining a butchers club. I smiled and frowned as he lowered the price three times before I realized I was bargaining. Then, I was inside paying a set price for the three of us.

For $100, the three of us were given a three course meal, wine, endless champagne after midnight, live guitar music, dancing, singing, and a port side view of the fireworks as they shot off in three different places. The catch: we were three people at a table for two, right next to the enormous crackling speaker and a sleeping stray dog, with a sketchy looking DJ setting up, and I couldn't have had better luck. I even had some leftover luck to get us a taxi home without a hitch... except that the driver was probably drunk and flying through the streets at 3am. Still, lucky we didn't die.

Happy 2010.