SATURDAY 03/06/10
Went for a rather hot run at noon around the Bosques – the sun was beating down, but it felt great and gave me energy! I then went for a late lunch at Arevalito, a restaurant that I had read about in a New York Times review (http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/travel/07choice1.html?pagewanted=all). Henry (the owner of the apartment) said that it was one of his and his wife’s favorite restaurants. It was located on a quieter street in the middle of a block, and while most other restaurants were pretty dead at 4:00 pm on a Saturday, I had to wait for a table at this one. Granted, it was a smaller restaurant, but it was absolutely hopping! The woman who was quite apparently the owner and 2 other servers were bustling about bringing out plates of delicious vegetarian meals and quickly picking up any empty dishes. I sat down with a glass of chardonnay and enjoyed the peaceful Saturday afternoon. The scrambled egg plate that I ordered was exactly what I was in the mood for – plenty of zucchini and sautéed onions with a mild cheese all mixed in and atop a large slice of multigrain toast, accompanied by a salad.
After relaxing a bit too long, I made my way down to San Telmo to meet up with a political debate group that had formed through the BA Cultural Group of Couchsurfing. I arrived at the café in the middle of their debate and ended up sitting down next to a girl from Barcelona. There were 7 people there – 3 from Argentina (1 lives in Spain), 1 from Chile, 1 from France, 2 from Spain – and the mixture certainly led to some great conversations that ranged from the socialized university system of Argentina to capitalism and its effect on society and classes. It was invigorating even just to listen and hear what the others had to say (while trying to comprehend the abstract ideas in a 2nd language)
As people started to leave, there were 4 of us left and we decided to have an asado (barbecue) at Francesc’s (the Spanish guy) house down the block. But we had to go get the meat from the Felix’s (the French guy) apartment in Boca (the next neighborhood over that’s famous for the colorful tin houses, tango dancing, and not always the safest area at night)…but we arrived just as the Boca Juniors futbol game had gotten out. There were throngs of guys (and a few girls) wearing the navy blue and yellow jerseys (supposedly, they made the decision for the colors based on the first ship that they saw coming into the port…which ended up being a Swedish ship).
We went back to Francesc’s house in San Telmo to cook up the beef…except that there wasn’t any coal and all of the convenience stores were closed. So, we resorted to the usual Argentine standby of pizza and debated some more in the open air of their fabulously typical Argentine rooftop terrace.
(David in the hammock - from Argentina/Cadiz, Spain; Fracesc - from Barcelona)
(Meri - from Barcelona)
(Felix - from Canada/France; Flor - from France/Barcelona)
(the right mixture of ingredients for a good debate - Quilmes, Fernet & wine)
No comments:
Post a Comment