Nov 23rd: Friday
Today was tattoo day, and I was pretty excited. I got out of bed around 10am (pretty early by my standards), and jumped in the showed. Actually, I should say, I walked down a flight of stairs and locked my self into a little closet that had hot running water. Fine by me, it did the job. I then put on my shorts / bathing suit / cut-offs, and grabbed some breakfast (ie. free bread). After there was some food in me I took my allergy cocktail and also added in a giant herbal vitamin. I try to be as healthy as possible the day of a tattoo. I tend to get sick after getting tattooed. My immune system is so busy dealing with the trauma to the skin (which is a giant open wound), it’s prime time for catching something.
Since it was early, we headed for the subway to go towards Bond Street and then I was going to look around to see if I could find the Alien DVD for sale somewhere. I still didn’t have Argentina, and I highly doubt Ushuaia is going to have it. This is my last chance. The entire time I was trying to find it, Nicole kept reminding me how stupid it was to get it, and that I already had it in Spanish. I think I must have heard that speech 4 or 5 times. With no success, and feeling quite aggravated that I will not get the DVD from Argentina, I stopped into Burger King to try the exclusive “XL Doble”. It’s like a long cheeseburger / sub mix. I ate less than half of it knowing that it was not the healthiest of foods.
Right before heading into the tattoo studio I stopped at a little Bodega-ish thing to stock up on apple and orange juices (good stuff to drink when you’re losing a lot of blood).
I had my necessities, so it was time to head on up. When I got there, there was a french film crew hanging out in the studio. Turns out they were there to film Cray tattooing me as part of a french hip-hop graffiti documentary.
They wanted to interview him about all his years doing graffiti while I was getting tattooed. I said it was cool with me, so the production started. This is when it clicked that this guy really is some world renowned graffiti artist. I found out later while talking with Cray that this kind of stuff happens all the time. His graffiti is is public mainstream artistic side, and he does tattooing to bring his art to a more personal, out of the lime-lite, nature. Something I appreciated very much.
Here’s the rundown of how Cray tattoos, slow, heavy handed, and he buries that needle! Oh man. My leg was tore up. Oh yeah, the tattoo wound up being pretty much the entire right side of my right calf =) “Go big or go home,” as Nicole likes to say. I find out about 6 hours in that he’s only been tattooing a little over 2 years. Oh… that 3-4 hour thing? Nope. We got a good 8 and a half to 9 hours in. Like I said, my leg was toe’ up from the flo’ up! I may have lost count, but in that time period I took at least 6 motrins to get through it. I don’t think I’ll ever get the back of my knee tattooed, that area is intense!
So, all in all, I wound up with a definite one-of-a-kind tattoo that I’m very proud to wear. On top of that, I made a bunch of great friends, Cray and Sebastian kick ass. After a few more years of tattooing, this guy is going to be insane. I plan on keeping in touch with him for sure!
When we were done saying our goodbyes, we took a cab back to the hostel. I wasn’t in the mood for a lot of walking around. We found a nice Italian place a block from the hostel and had dinner there (there’s a lot of Italian food in Argentina). I should probably say, tried to have dinner there. I wasn’t feeling so hot, nor was Nicole. The mushroom risotto was awesome and I really wanted to eat it, but my body just wouldn’t allow it. So I just payed the check and we left for the hostel. I think it was somewhere around midnight when we arrived, and I passed out almost immediately. We had a 6am flight to Ushuaia the next morning and a cab picking us up at 4:30am.
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