The fun you can have with $12

Sol tells us about this zoo in Lujan, like 60 km outside of Buenos Aires, where you can interact with all the animals like pet tigers and hold baby lions. Hmm... where else are you going to have the chance to do this? So, me Bryan and Nathan (Bryans friend visiting from Cali) jump on a bus the next day and start our adventure to Lujan. We had to take a bus to the train station to get to Moreno then a bus to get into the little town of Lujan.. 2 hours later we made it!

We walk in and its for sure the weirdest looking zoo I've ever seen. From the entrance all you can see is like a big dusty field, a graveyard of broken down tractors, a rusty shed, and to the right a big gated bird pond and thats it, oh and ducks walking around everywhere. Big over population of ducks. Cool Sol. Ok, not bad, give it a chance... we visit the ducks and turtles and continue wandereding around walking, kicking dust. It feels like a run-down petting zoo, then all of a sudden, it was like we turned this corner and the whole thing opened up. Its all outside, no sidewalks or anything- just dusty dirt, grass sometimes and big cages of animals spread out over a huge piece of land.

We found the big lion cage- six lions just lounging like lions do- at first you think its just a lion den, then you notice there are three little dogs sleeping next to them like no big deal. The lady told us that they raise the tigers and lions around dogs so they become "domesticated." haha ok.

After that, we went into the baby lion cage! They were so cute like the size of big thick puppies. The trainer was this intense lady who LOVED lions. Not gonna lie, I was kinda freaked out by the baby lions haha - it wasnt really until one of them stretched in front of me and yawned and then BAM! his claws just like shot out- and Ive never really even had a cat so I was kinda like ughh...

They only two months old and she said that if they bit you it would just be like the bite of an oversized dog. Soo kinda freaked out still- one saw my toenail polish glissen in the sun and then he crouched down behind a tire staring at my toes like he was planning to attack like you see on the Discovery Channel when they pounce. haha so I was like trying to hide my toes. Anyway, after a while in there we left and as we were leaving the lady told us if we go to the big cage by the gray van, we can touch the big big tigers.

Ok, so the BIG tiger cage. It was this huge cage with like 7 tigers sleeping and one pacing back and forth across the front of the cage by the door. The trainer- whos like 18 and not experienced at all- was like, do you want to go in with me? Me and Nathan looked at eachother and were like ehhh no , not really. Then Bryan's like, "Yea man, I'll go in." just like no big deal. Sure. So Bryan goes in with the tigers and walks up to this one tiger laying on a higher platform. The trainer tells him to go up behind the tiger and pet it on the back, not the head. All the guy does to distract the tiger is squirt milk on his paws. He says they aren't drugged, just "domesticated." haha. Then the tiger realizes Bryan is there and turns his big head (like the size of three big watermelons, thats the only thing I can think to compare it to) towards Bryan and the trainers like uhhh maybe you should go to the other side. haha so Bryan gets his pictures, hangs out for a while and then leaves. Then Nathan goes in with some other kids and is alright. Check.

Im the only one left. Okkkk , I'll go! In and out. No big deal, just big cats. Big kitty cats. Everything is okay. The trainer tells me they can smell fear which seems legit because dogs can. I walk in, and automatically breakout into a full sweat, my heart is pounding, everything I hear is in an echo batteling the sound of my heart, adrenaline is pumping. SO SCARED. haha. I kept telling myself, "I am not afraid, this is fun. I - am -having - fun." I get up to the platform where Bryans tiger was... and the big cage has suddenly shrunken drastically and the tigers are huge.. I just see the big tiger pacing back and forth out of the corner of my eye. Im freaking out out on a whole new level now because now you're in and there's no turning back. The trainer can see it in me and is just laughing. I made Bryan come for support, so he has my camera and is like ,"Its ok Elise, touch the tiger." So Im standing there with my hand like half a foot away from the tiger pretending to pet him- like "Okayyy Bryan just take the picture, take the picture please" and hes like ehh "Nope, not til you touch it. Just touch it." I cant do it. "Bryan just take the f***ing picture, Ive got to get out of here" The trainer is laughing (which at the time wasnt funny at all) He looks over at the pacing tiger and is like "No! Natalia No!! Stay!! " which freaks me out even more and in this panicky yell I say," Why are you saying no! Why are you saying no! " He just laughs, obviously getting a kick out of this whole ordeal. I can feel the terrified tears starting to come, it was just a matter of if they were heavy enough to fall or not. haha. So I finally touch the tiger. Feels like a horse actually. Bryan gets the picture- although fails to get a picture with the tigers head in it.. just a striped body. Anyway, not the point. Then Bryans like just walk in front of the tiger and look at his face. So I do, and it is such a beautiful animal. Really. So so beautiful. After seeing the tigers face and look in his eyes, a lot of the fear left and it was more of like a stunning "wow you are so beautiful" feeling.

In my cowardly defense, you know, the 18 year old trainer (who isnt a trainer at all, just works there for some cash during the day) says they're domesticated- but you always see big cats like that turn on their trainers and they have instincts and they can snap at anytime. And I guarantee if a tiger started attacking me the trainer wasnt going to be like, oh wait Ill save you! The zoo's kinda idealology (is that the wrong word?) is that if you're in a cage with any animals and they attack you; it's kinda your fault, the zoo is not responsible.

Then, we came across the sea lion pool- which was like a huge hot tub surrounded by a cement sidewalk and then the gate. Next to the cage was a bucket of raw fish one of the workers had forgotten about and just left. So... I mean, we've already pet tigers, held baby lions, we might as well feed sea lions dead fish! Haha it was so fun! There were three of them and I would throw one and they would race to catch it diving into the water and then swarm the gate again yelling for more. This is one of the videos from it:

We washed our hands from the smell of fish and went back into the baby lion cage, after petting the tiger- holding the babies was nothing. They were so so cute! and kinda just like puppies. Oh and you know what they feed the big lions and tigers... raw meat. Im not sure what kind because it was in the middle of the big lion cage - but it looked like half a thing of raw bloody cow ribs covered with flies, just hanging out on this platform. So safari of them. (You can see it in the picture)

Then the boys rode a camel and we rode an elephant and decided to go home because we were still two hours from home. Sol told us you could hold baby bears, but we didn't find the bear section. And after talking to some people about the zoo, we found out that two months ago it was prohibited to interact with the animals because some lady got her hand bitten off or something by one of the lions I think. Now, its like nothing ever happened and everything is back to normal at the zoo- crazy. I think before the hand biting situation, they used to let you ride the lions which just seems wrong. Some people are trying to get the zoo shut down because its really not that safe and its not normal for people to ride lions. But, Im glad I did it! Very glad! And that... was our trip to Lujan :)

Game-Day Shirt.. CHECK! Game-Day Face.. ON!

RED RIVER RIVALRY:

UT vs. OU - as a longhorn fan, you know thats one of the biggest games of the season. I searched and searched trying to find some magical sports bar that for some reason was showing American college football. Then, I found Shoeless Joe's , this American Sports Bar open 24 hours a day. Can't get much better than that right, pretty on target. On game day I was SO pumped, had my game day gear layed out the night before and everything.. haha the big decision was which UT shirt to wear... I drug a couple friends with me to watch the game. I figured if I was lucky it'd be me and 3 other fans watching the game, maybe. We walk in right after kick off and there it was... a sea of burnt orange!!!! My people! Not gonna lie, my eyes gotta a little watery out of pure excitement!

The only downer was that the Wisconsin game started before the UT game- so the entire restaurants surround sound was set on the Wisconsin game until the 4th quarter of the UT game, but it didnt matter. Ah it was such a great day! UT ended up beating OU :)

FUTBOL ARGENTINO:

Argentina wasn't doing too hot in futbol (soccer) and they were in 4th place to qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Out of the South American bracket, only the top 4 teams go. They still had one more game against Uruguay and they was only a point behind Argentina. So they had to either beat or tie Uruguay in order to advance. Anddd Argentina won! Maradona cried. And also got new gotti diamond earrings after his other ones were seized by the Italian government to help pay off his debt he still has back from when he played in Napoli. Maradona sucks, well his attitude and macho- joe coolness annoys me. I was glad Argentina qualified because we'll still be down here next year while the World Cup is going on - so it'll be more fun getting to sport my blue and white.

"Arte por Dentro y por Fuera"

Last night we got invited to a social art charity event at the Park Hyatt by our friend Katia who works for the Crear Vale la Pena Charity. Didn't really know much about it except that it was at a nice hotel and it said "cocktail" on the invitation- thats always a plus. We got there and the hotel was so so beautiful! The first guess I see is an overly tan lady wearing a huge furcoat and a diamond necklace... theres so much to be said about that, it's not common to wear diamonds down here so that automatically means its a nicer event and although fur coats may look nice, 600 chinchillas to make one jacket is...

As we walk in, we're greated by a little man in a tuxedo and a silver tray who serves us champagne, we continue going down the stairs into the event and there's painted wine barrels spread out throughout the entire room. Twenty different local artists painted wine barrels and they are being auctioned off for two weeks online through Mercado Libre (Argentina's ebay). This was the kick-off event to start the bidding. The champagne served that night was also from the bodega who donated the wine barrels.

There were servants spread out throughout the event with little appetizers on trays and people refilling your champagne glass when it got low. Of course me and Bryan hadn't eaten dinner yet, so we a picked a very "convenient" spot to stand... kindaaa right outside the kitchen doors-ish, we had first dibs on the different appetizers that came out. haha. But! doing that, we got to see the chef come out and look around. Turns out, he's this famous argentine chef we see all the time on the "El Gourmet" channel (their Food Network). It was so cool! I think it made the food taste better just knowing that. We watched him make Thai food last week.

The event was a lot of fun, the wine barrels were really cool, the food was good, the champagne was great and they even had live music! I think we were among the few actually looking at the wine barrels though, most of the people just came to show their face. And the hotel was so beautiful, $700USD a night to stay in the cheapest room.. yikes. I wanted to take pictures of the event and the barrels and the hotel, but I didn't. This one couple did and a lady actually frowned at them. I took one of me and Bryan right when we got there, but that was it. I found pictures online, so that works too I guess :)

Thennnn I went to class after that which sucked, but it was sports marketing so it wasn't too tough. My teacher brought in a guy from the Miami Dolphins marketing team who kept preaching to the class about how Dan Marino was the best QB ever... uhh Vince Young? helllooo.. haha just kidding. (Rosebowl 2006, anyone?)

Batteling Hooligans in Rosario

Argentina vs. Brazil in Rosario... big game. Why? The 4 top teams from South America go to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Right now, Argentina is #4 and Brazil is #1 with 4 games remaining, so if Argentina beats Brazil they'll qualify for the WC. Also, this is the first time in history that the Argentina national team has played in Rosario, usually the team plays in Buenos Aires at the River Plate Stadium but Maradona (the coach) doesn't like the field since he played for Boca (the two teams in Buenos Aires are River and Boca). He decided to move the game to Rosario. On top of everything else, Brazil vs. Argentina is always a big game because they are rivals like the Red River Shootout game (UT vs OU). It will always be the RR Shootout to me, even though for "crowd purposes" theyve changed it to the Red River Rivalry, lame. Movinggg on...

Since its such a big game, getting tickets isnt easy, long story short, our only option was to camp out in front of the stadium in Rosario for a day to get tickets for the Populares section. (The cheapest section to sit in where the super fans are) So thats what we did...

Tickets went on sale Friday morning at 9am and the game wasnt until that Saturday night, so we got to Rosario (4 hrs north of Buenos Aires) at 7am Thursday morning and were camping by 10am. By the time we got there, the line had already wrapped around the entire stadium and trickeled down 7 blocks. People had been out there since Monday! Some had tents and radios and food and everything, we just had blankets and yoga mats. We set up shop on the cement at the end of the line against a gate. It was alright, sitting on the cement all day.. we sat next to this kid from Rosario, Martín who was super nice- and Luis, this guy in his 60s.

So, sitting sitting sitting all day- kinda chilly , trying to make the day pass, then all of a sudden we see everyone in front of us start packing up all their shit super fast and run towards the front of the line. So thats what we did, we ran, asked no questions, packed up our stuff and just ran- hurdeling over lawn chairs, blankets, anything. It was survival of the fittess at its fullest. Seriously. The long line that had wrapped around the stadium was now condensed to 5 blocks. It was complete madness. What had happened was a bus of a group of the Barra Brava - soccer hooligans- had gotten out of the bus and rushed the front of the line all at once. Luckily a lady had warned us about this earlier so we were prepared. Ok so now its 6pm and we're in this crazy packed line which wasnt even a line it was just like a sea of crazy soccer fans trying to push to the front.. why? I have no idea, tickets werent even going on sale for another 15 hours. Everyone was so so squished... thats an understatement- you were slammed in between the person in front of and behind and to the sides of you.

The line would move forward but there were so many people, you couldnt move an arm or anything, and you just moved with the flow of the people without walking because you couldnt move any other way. Even though it was really cold outside, in that crowd of people, you got so hot and sweaty because you still had all youre layers on. Then the police showed up and did absolutely nothing. They just shot shotguns in the air- which I think I was the only one scared by it - but apparently its pretty common. It was dumb, the whole thing was crazy. There were people climbing on walls and gates trying to regulate. Women with babies were stuck in the crowds, some old fat man passed out from exhaustion.

(we're in between the green and blue tent)

Okay so this goes on for 3 hours- then around 8pm, it starts pouring, great, and, its dark outside. Of course, we have no umbrella and my rain jacket got stolen in the chaos. Whoever has it, I hope they know I loved that jacket.. ughh who steals? Anyway, we had nothing and were standing in this group of packed people like sardines in the freezy freezy freezy rain for a couple hours. People were using tents, trashbags, sharing umbrellas with strangers, anything to keep dry. Riot cops had shown up a little earlier to try to form a line out of the people, but when it started to pour they left. What are you supposed to do? Its 10 at night, freezing, raining, and tickets dont go on sale for another 11 hours!

If you stay in the wet rain, you may get tickets but youre probably going to be super super super sick during the game that it wont even be worth it, but it was like you had already waited sooo long you couldnt give up now. Soo... at 10:30 PM, we gave up :( we couldnt do it. If there wouldnt have been rain I think I couldve done it, but when youre soaking wet standing up exhausted, its so much worse. We lost the battle.

Luckily we left because around 3AM that night another bus of the Barra Brava came , rushed the line, started chaos and a lot of people got robbed, bottles were thrown and there were fights, No where for me and Sol to be. We went back to our hostel and took a hot shower. I heard they didnt even finish selling tickets to the 4,000 people until like noon the next day and a lot of people didnt even get tickets. Crazy. Whoever lasted in that line, deserved their tickets!

The next day we went exploring around the city of Rosario... if San Diego and Sevilla had a love child, Rosario would be it. Its so beautiful! Its a smaller city that borders the Rio Paraná , so there are parks everywhere and people laying out and flying kites and everything all the time (when the weathers nice). Pretty much, we explored all day on Friday, ate lunch by the river and ordered a pizza that night and played drinking games at the hostel. I think we were all still so exhausted from the night before :)

Our room smelled like mildew-y, humid, bananas and wet dog from our wet disgusting clothes from the night before. haha gross, but it was so true. It smelt like a first graders lunch box after sitting out for a couple days. Seriously. We went by the stadium earlier that day and you could just see where everyone had been the night before, the streets and sidewalks smelt like rotten sweaty sweet vinegar and there was dirt everywhere. Brought back some bitter-sweet memories.

On Saturday, me Sol and Bryan were still super unsatisfied with going through all that and still not getting tickets that we decided to go by the stadium and try and get some scalped tickets. The stadium on game day was a zoo! There were drug dogs, horses, riot police, radio stations, churipan stands, old ladies sitting outside of their houses selling homemade pies, stray dogs, tourists, argentines, everyone... The average populares ticket was going for $600 pesos- and they were selling them in the line the day before for $50! That stung a little. Bryan found a guy selling his for $350- deal, done. I down, two to go. We had been out at the stadium all day long, and it was getting late, so the cops were starting to show up for the game and the scalpers were starting to scatter. (Its illegal to sell scapled tickets but not illegal to buy them ) Crappppp. Crunch time. Bryan found this sketchy kid selling 2 tickets for $1000 pesos total- ouch. You know when you have that weird feeling in your stomach like, somethings not right... well that was what I got from this kid, super shady. Anyway, he took us to the guy selling the tickets.. it was broad daylight on a busy street right by the entrance of this crowded restaurant, he was selling Argentine flags.. so the situation wasn't sketchy. I was standing kinda by Bryans side and Bryan asks the guy to see the 2 tickets to compare them to the real one he already had because a lot of people were selling fake tickets- and that would've sucked a lot to buy a fake one and get denied at the door. He was comparing the tickets when all of a sudden these two guys (clean cut dressed in regular street clothes) come up real fast, grab Bryan and the kid selling the tickets and start yelling. "Freeze!" (..or something) He throws Bryan against the wall and is like - "Im a cop, it's a federal crime to resell tickets." yada yada yada. Bryan tries to tell the cop, No no this is my ticket- Im just trying to buy one for my girlfriend and I was comparing the tickets to make sure they werent fake. The cop kinda has his hand over Byans mouth and is scream-whispering (if you can imagine that), "Shut up! Dont make a scene! Shut- up!" very scary. He sees me and makes me stand against the wall, of course Im crying like a loser on the side picturing the absolute worse case scenerio possible, going to South American jail but we didnt do anything wrong, really. "Who sold you this ticket! Who sold you this ticket!?" he kept yelling so Bryan finally said, some guy around the corner. He treated me and Bryan so much worse than he treated the kid actually scalping the tickets. The cop takes Bryans ticket! Takes it!! Thats when the tears really came, he had no idea what we even went through to get that ticket and runs around the corner, to "catch" the guy selling tickets and tells us to stay where we are and not to move. And... that was the last we saw of him.

What was Bryan supposed to do? Keep arguing so the cop would search him and steal his ticket and the $1000 of pesos he has in his pocket, or go tell another cop that a cop just robbed him. Theres really nothing you can do. I probably did a sucky job explaining that whole situation, but everything was so fast and so crazy and loud that I just froze and not one word of spanish came to mind, I couldnt say anything. The cop turned the story around to that since Bryan had a ticket in his hand, he probably had the intention of scalping his ticket. So, he took our ticket and probably sold it on the streets later that day for $600 pesos and pocketed the money. $600 pesos is a lot of money here. The average wage is about $1200 pesos per month, so selling one ticket gets you far. ($1200 pesos = $315ish USD)

The Argentine futbol system is really corrupt, the police and the head people at the soccer club association and the hooligans and the thieves all work together... everyone gets a cut.. very mafioso. The cops pay the Barra Brava to rush the line and steal tickets, thousands of tickets magically go missing and into the hands of the people on the streets, yada yada. We were talking to some guy on the street and he was telling us how on the day the tickets go on sale, if you go down this little alleyway and ring the bell, a cop comes to the door- you pay him $100 pesos and he goes into the "ticket safe" and gets you tickets. The cops set the price that the tickets get sold on the street. So they make a killing off of the games.

So, after being completely defeated and wanting to burn my Argentine jersey, we went back to the hostel- put on Brazillian colors and met Felipe and Maria at a brazillian bar to watch the game! I even, conveniently had face paint :) It was so perfect, it was this little happy hole-in-the-wall pizza place owned by an old argentine guy married to a brazilian lady. He had a big TV set up and we were the first ones there so we got a table right in the middle front.

The bar was packed of Argentine fans and then there was our table, an island of green surrounded by a sea of blue and white. Luckily, the game was a blow out and Argentina ended up losing 3-1. It would've sucked a lot if we would've ended up paying all that money to see a losing game where the fans were bummed out the whole time and no one was cheering. There were 3,000 people stuck outside the stadium with real tickets who weren't allowed to go in because so many people had gone in with fake tickets. That sucks a lot. Later that night, the girls went to a boliche called Madam.

Then on Sunday we woke up early- early as in 11AM, but when you stay out singing and dancing until 5am, 11 is pretty early, and went to Martín's house(the guy we met camping in line) for an asado his family wanted to have for us. How nice is that? We meet this kid for one day, talked, shared our snacks with him and his family makes a huge bbq for all 5 of us. His house was kind of on the outskirts of town and you could tell that they didn't have much by looking at the way their house was, the kind of meat they bought, the questions they asked, etc.. but they were so so so nice and so genuine and so great and so welcoming! Really really nice people. We hung out with them around their dinner table the entire afternoon hanging out.. and snacking of course. They were so great. Aw and his little sister told me that me, Maria and Sol were the prettiest girls she had ever met :) And, thats it, we took a bus back to Buenos Aires later that night and thats the story of my trip to Rosario.

Bryan, Sol, Me, Maria

Santa Rosa's coming... get the rain boots!

On Sunday for Felipes birthday, ( the guy in the picture) we invited a bunch of people over and had a huge asado for at our apartment. Bryans the grill guy and I was like wellll what am I going to make? I have to contribute something. So, I decided, "Perfect! An apple pie!" Very American and I love apple pie. I found a recipe that seemed legit, figured it wouldnt be that complicated... make some dough- cut it in a circle, throw some apples and cinammon in, put dough on top and stick it in the oven. Bam! done! So, I didnt bother to read the recipe before I started. Classic Elise cooking mistake, classic. There's always that weird surprise that pops up, like.. "let sit for 4 hours" or "tie with green fishing string" something weird like that.

It turned out wayy harder and way more complicated than I realized. Apparently I picked the recipe geared towards those that "love baking" so there were more special steps than usual. It was one of those recipes with all kinds of the hidden, "let sit for 2 hours" instructions. The only minor bump in the road was that we calculated wrong for the dough and didn't have enough at all. So.. our apple pie didnt really have a top, it was just a bowl of hot apples pretty much. haha. Me and Bryan were the only Americans, so no one really knew how it was supposed to be. This is the only picture I have of the "infamous A.P.," pre- crust and oven stage.

What else.. Bryan changed schools and degrees, instead of being at the smaller private school, he joined the big dogs at The University of Buenos Aires (UBA). Its #1 among Latin american schools and ranked higher than a lot of US schools. Go Bryan go! But hes one of those naturally smart people... you know the type. He changed to International Private Law, which is like if you live in Columbia and want to buy a house in Argentina.. Bryan would be your guy, something like that. His school is really intimidating looking.

My first week of real gradschool started on Monday! The summer school class counts, but not really. Im taking four classes and its going pretty well so far. Im the only native english speaker in my classes. There was a mexican guy in my class last night and I automatically felt like we were friends. Hey neighbor! haha. Everyone else is from Central or South America. My sports marketing and internet convergence in media classes seem interesting , but my core classes seem like they are going to be a draggggg. Administration of Human Rescources and Marketing... bummer.

Every year in Buenos Aires around the end of August, comes a big storm called "La Tormenta de Santa Rosa", its named after her because it coincides with her holiday (August 30th). The storm marks the end of the cold season and the beginning of spring! Woo! Anddd , supposedly shes coming this weekend... bum bum bum.. hopefully our apartment wont flood this time!

Oh! and Thursday, me sol bryan felipe and maria are going to Rosario ( 4 hrs north of Bs As) for the Argentina vs. Brazil soccer game! Were going to try and get tickets for the Brazilian side, just to be brazilian for a day. Plus, I think it'll be a lot easier to get tickets that way rather try and battle Argentines for a huge home game. Argentina vs Brazil is a big rival game, so, of course, I already have my face paint :)

Ok welllll, Ive gotta go to this meeting with a guy from EMI, to see if he'll give me a little job! Yikes! what to wear what to wear :)

Los Enanitos Verdes

In my summer school class, I met Horacio. He's super nice and always took a bunch of us home after class. One day we were talking and I told him how I was trying to work in the music industry yada yada and he was like "Great, Ive been in the industry for a long long time. I worked for Sony BMG and now I have a small music label of my own." ... very good person to know.

Last week he invited me to go on a media tour with one of his artists, Felipe Staiti, the guitarrist from Los Enanitos Verdes, (The Little Green Dwarfs). In the picture, he's on the left.

Apparently, Los En. Verdes is a huge band that has been around since the latter 70s, kind of like a mild version of U2 for the Latin music community. So it was real cool when I asked him, "Soo what kind of music do yall sing?" haha such a bozo. I had no idea who they were. Anyway, Felipe is coming out with his first solo album in November and was going around radio and TV stations being interviewed about the album. Before I met him I had no idea what the media tour was going to be like. Horacio just told me, "Go here, ask for so and so and they'll take care of you." Ok, easy enough. I showed up at Much Music (a music TV channel down here) and walked down this long hall where a man signaled me into a bright dressing room. Hello. I walked into the interview with the camera crew and bright lights crammed into this dressing room, Felipe was sitting in a chair with a microphone and there I was sitting two feet away on a couch while the interview was going on. I sat there like an idiot smiling as I started to realize that this guy was kind of a big deal. haha. After that I went with him, his manager and a guy from Horacios label to get some tea and then to a radio interview. It was really cool! Not because of who he was, but to see the whole process happen. I wanted to ask for a picture so bad! I had my camera with me and everything and at the last minute I chickened out, said bye and walked away like a coward! loser.

el día feriado de San Martín

Leaving the city! Argentina is known for their bbqs or "asados". Its like an all day event where food just keeps coming and coming and you drink wine with family and friends. Sooo luckily, we got invited to one on Monday! Monday was a holiday in honor of General San Martín, so 10 of us went down to Ro's dads house in the country right outside of Capital.(Buenos Aires is the name for the province and the city, but the people call the actual city, Capital Federal.)It was so beautiful!!

Their house is on this old estancia which is kind of like an old plantation- minus the slaves. Usually on an estancia theres an old mansion with a little side house for servants and horses on a huge huge piece of land basically, with trees and hills, really nice. Now, Its a gated country-club type neighborhood with a few houses spread out on the land. Very cool. Luckily the weather was super nice because the day before it had been freezing and raining, but now it was sunny with blue skies. They had tables set up outside on the terraza and the vines hanging above us provided a little bit of shade from the sun.

So... the food starting coming... all day long it came. First we started with Venezuelan arepas with ham and cheese. An arepa is kinda like a tortilla mixed with a biscuit made from special Venezuelan flour.

Then Ro's dad came home and lit up the grill. When I say lit up, its not like you have a little gas thing and you just light a match. But, theres this whole "make the coals" process and you have them in a pile on one side and then you move them to the other side to cook with and thats the side you put the food on. You put the food on the grill and you wheel the grill down towards the coles depending on how close you want the food to the heat. Theres a process to it. While the coals were heating up, we took a walk through the neighborhood and the fields. There was all sorts of nature going on- cherry trees, lime trees, pomegranite trees, kumquat trees.

When we got back her dad was ready to go, he had everything on the grill! Red peppers, provoleta with oregano (its really common down here to grill a big circle of Provoleta cheese), squash, sausage, vacio which is like the side by the ribs, filet mignon, morcillo- I have no idea where that comes from, there was pork, blood sausage- not a fan, and then sweet bread which is funky, its this weird texture and I think it comes from the glands of the cow. Oh! and I tried tongue!! Cow tongue - it was soaked in oil and some kind of herbs and you just pick one out of the bowl and thats it! Ew, it wasnt bad - just the thought of eating the tongue of a cow was too much to handle. So was the idea of eating cow glands- that was odd.

This is me, unsure about eating "the tongue":

He served us in rounds, started off with one thing gave everyone a little piece and then brought out the next thing as it was ready . Way too much food, most of us called it quits and just drank wine . But the dad loved Bryan so Bryan never told him to stop putting food on his plate haha I think he ate 3 times as much as I did. The bbq part lasted a couple of hours. I wish you couldve tasted the pork. Good is an understatement, great is too... Then we took another long walk. The asados really are just like all day eating events split up by long walks so your food digests easier.

We got back and sat around the fire in the living room. Thennnnn round 5 came and it was dessert and coffee. Mmm dessert. It was so good- since they're argentine, everything had a little bit of Dulce de Leche in it. Its like, when in doubt, add Dulce. After that Ro brought out this big box of old Argentine song books and gave one to everyone, apparently they sing a lot. It was like a book of Christmas carols, but instead of carols they were old old Argentine folk songs. Her dad brought busted out his guitar and we sang songs for a couple of hours. haha seriously, jammed. It was fun, intersting. The Baros family never sings in circles, so it was different Everyone knew the songs already except me Sol and Bryan so we just read the lyrics.

When I thought it was all over, round 6 came- mate and pastries. Mate (mah-tay) is a very popular drink down here. The people drink it allll the time, its very common. Its a hot caffeinated herbal drink that you drink from a hollowed-out squash shell. You put the herbs in the shell, put in your special straw that keeps out the leaves, add hot water and sugar.. thats it. One cup is used for the whole group, you drink your portion, add more water and sugar, and pass it to the next. The leaves have so much flavor that its pointless for everyone to get their own.

The asado was so much fun, a very very Argentine experience. haha I know everything Im doing down here is an Argentine experience, but the asado was a more traditional thing, ya know. Oh! and Winston got to come :) I think he ate more meat than I did and he ran free through the fields, so Im sure he probably had the most fun out of everyone. We went back later that night and I woke up still full the next day :)

This is a video of Ro's dad singing: