Horacio and Hamlet.

So the other night, we went to a bar to watch one of the Canadian ice hockey matches partly because two of my house mates are Canadians and partly because we were invited by Brennan from Uni, who's an American and a fan of Ice Hockey. The place was called el Alamo and until 12pm, girls drink for free, so it's obviously pretty classy - one of those places with a toilet permanently covered in vomit. And i mean permanently, because it's 24hrs.

Anyway, we got a bit tipsy as was to be expected, and decided to get a midnight snack from Guerrin on the way home , an excellent pizza place on Corrientes. There are two ways to order a pizza from this place; you can sit at a table and be served by a waiter, or you can go to the cashier, order what you want, and then stand at a bench. We chose the second option.

So we're standing eating our pizza (Yas and I that is), and not for the first time. We'd been there once before and struck up a conversation with a very cute little old man who lived a block from me on the same street. Man, he was short. But the conversation went very well, he was very friendly, and smiley, and just an all-round nice fella. So i encouraged Yas to do it again with a guy standing next to us this time.

"Hello! How was your day?" says Yas...
"Hello..." he probably says. I can't remember exactly, but he probably said he had a great day, because nice people generally have good days most of the time.

"So, what do you do?" asks Yas...
"I'm a lighting technician at a theatre nearby", says Horacio, which is what his name is.

"Oh! Very good!" says Yas...

Meanwhile, we're getting some help in translation from a couple sitting opposite us, who are taking quite an interest in the conversation...

"He says you can go to a show if you want. For free." says the female component of the couple.

"Huh? Free?" I say.

"Yes." says Horacio.

"What is it?" i ask.

"What's what?" responds Horacio.

"What's the work?", i finally manage to slur...

"What work?"

"The work, the work of art..." I say, trying desperately to remember the word for play.

"Um..." It dawns on him what i'm getting at... "Shakespeare. Hamlet." says Horacio.

Meanwhile, the couple are looking longingly at Horacio in the possibility of free Hamlet tickets.

"Why the puta is he going to give Shakespeare tickets to two Australians who don't speak spanish?", thinks the woman's brain.

"Is it in English?" I ask.

Horacio smiles at me. And then grins at the couple. "No! Spanish, of course."

I look at Yas. We know we won't understand a word of it.

"Very good!! We'll take them." we say, and organise a time to meet him.

Which is what we did. Last night at 8.00pm. There he was, waiting at the door for us, eating a yoghurt. He greeted us with a kiss on the cheek and took us to the box office for two complementary tickets.

Once inside, we couldn't even understand where the usher told us to sit. So you can imagine what the play was like. But luckily, i roughly knew the story line. Poor old Ophelia gets a bit of a raw deal. The theatre was very nice. Not too big, but not too small either. The production was unusual. The costumes were somewhere between fantasy and science fiction. Sound effects included machine gun noises, and music included synthesizers. The lighting was particularly good... :)

After the play, we thanked Horacio very much. He told us that he'd been treated well in his travels and work throughout South America, and he felt like he should do the same to others. He gave us his number, in case we want to see it again. I'm gonna drop a box of chocolates to the theatre today as thanks.

Update - bought him a box of chocolate and coffee Havanna biscuits and delivered to the theatre with a card. Hope he gets them.