Trip to Còrdoba

We are out of town for the holiday weekend (Dia de la Patria). Ain´t gonna be no new posts this weekend. Look again Tuesday maybe. Have a good Memorial Day Weekend.

Damajuana

This size wine bottle is called a damajuana. It contained 4.6 liters of Malbec when we bought it. More than a week later we still have more than enough. Lesson learned.

Cena Show

Lou: It turns out that when we tried to invite the family that had had us over for meals a few times (see “La Parilla” March 14), we instead were invited to a Supper Show (or “Dinner Show” for the city people out there). We are in serious hospitality debt, now!

They picked us up at about 9:30 pm. The club was in the upstairs of the bus terminal. Even though it had such a sketchy seeming location, it was quite the family event. (picture a big VFW wedding dance—but with people actually dancing) We were about the first to arrive, that assures the best seat in the house we presumed.

We were the first to order as the place slowly filled up. Luciano recommended the stuffed chicken, but as he started to explain that it was stuffed with ham, I declined and ordered a salad and a cheese empanada. We soon received our meals. I think we were both picturing something like a cordon bleu. But, picture ¼ chicken (leg part) with all of the bone & probably most of the chicken replaced with ham & hard-boiled egg. Dan loved it of course. My salad was very simple as most salads are here. It was thin-sliced leaf lettuce for 1/3 of a pie chart shape, shredded carrot 1/3, and the last third had slices of tomato—oil, balsamic vinegar and salt for topping. No pepper on the table, even. I was probably looking barbaric when I proceeded to mix all of my cute pie chart together. Things don’t really seem to be mixed here.—unless its something stuffed, of course.

As we were eating, we were introduced to a barrage of family and friends that came in and sat at or near our table. Before the band started at 11 or after, the MC, or the man of the house in a suit went around to all of the tables to say welcome and to gather information. Then, he started to announce all of the anniversaries and birthday parties that were in the place when he got to our table we had to stand up to announce “the visiting norte americanos”. We were obviously the only gringos—not a tourist hang-out! I’m pretty sure I was beet red.

Then, the band started and we were urged to dance. Turns out that those latin dance classes we took almost 10 years ago, were finally put to good use! We didn’t cut it up or anything, but we at least new we should be trying to dance a cumbia or to merengue. It was not a very serious crowd and it was ok that we weren’t spectacular or that we bumped into people on the crowded dance floor. There was much playing around & joking on the dance floor with the family and family friends, and we were out-danced by people 30 years older than us. (We stopped to rest a lot more than they did.)

Since we were even accompanied to the bathrooms, we assumed that we would not be able to leave on our own even to take a taxi. We had no idea how late it would go (Argentines stay up practically until sunrise on the weekend), but after the raffle numbers were called at about 2 am we packed up to go. We were not allowed to pay for anything.

Responses #1

To answer some of your questions about products and brands:

Convenience stores here are generally in the form of a Kiosco, narrow stores that at the very least sell candy, sodas, phone cards and cigarettes, but often also sell sandwiches, some basic groceries, beer, cheap wine and bus cards. Some of these places are slightly bigger and have some tables inside and outside. For some reason they are often called Drug Stores (in English) here. Young folks hang out drinking coca-cola or beer. There are no 7-11s or any chains you’d recognize. At some gas stations they have tables outside where people congregate and drink beer, but they aren’t necessarily marketing to the drivers who come to buy gas.

The only fast food chains I’ve seen in the Mendoza area are McDonald’s and Mr. Dog. There are a few chains selling coffee and pastries or sweets (Bonafide, Dun Ken, Ouro Preto, La Virginia, Havanna) but they are domestic or originally from Brazil. There are also a couple of ice cream chains.

As for Pringles®, yes they are available here, for about $3 a can, but sadly there have been no flavor innovations, in this part of South America at least. Only your basic red can, orange can and green can and pizza-licious. But Doritos has a tube shaped chip, like a Bugle, that is pretty good. By the way, you should all check out the Pringles® website some time and see what flavors are available in other parts of the world. (paprika flavour anyone?)

Before coming here, I too had pretty much assumed that all apparel in the world was currently being made in China. But of the things we’ve bought here, and most of them do have country-of-origin labels, I don’t think I’ve read the name of a country other than Argentina. But we haven’t been to Wal-mart yet. We haven’t really bought that much in the clothing department even though we had to tote four seasons of clothing in two packs. When we first got to South America and it was so damn hot, we (read: Louann) went on a tank-top purchasing frenzy. (lou says “frenzy?—I bought 2!”) But now we’re picking up some long-sleeved shirts and sweaters. I know you may be picturing us decked out in regional alpaca wool pullovers, so if that’s what you want to imagine, stop reading here. In reality, I’ve made most of my purchases in some very picked-over secondhand shops. No alpaca. Not yet.

In theory I think it is a good experience for us to have to deal with having a limited wardrobe. It reminds me of college in some ways, wearing the same pants for a week or two, then rotating to the other pair. In MN many of my students seem to wear the same thing day after day and it doesn’t seem to bug them. So, as I was saying, IN THEORY I think it is good for a person to have the experience of rejecting vanity and shedding some material possessions. But in the day to day reality I kind of wish I didn’t have to wear the same sweater to work every day, and that I had a better pair of shoes.

Bocaditos is people!!!!!!

It’s time for change

Dan: Thank you everyone for your suggestions and requests. We’ll try to address each of them. We now have ideas to write about for the next month for sure. Please continue to use the comment areas to ask for clarification, make requests, spam us or whatever you want.

In traveling, a person finds himself getting used to things that at first seemed very strange. One of the things that a person must come to terms with here is the use of money. The biggest bill available in Argentina is a 100-peso note, roughly $30. If we go to a cash machine, we get a small pile of those. The problem is that almost nobody wants to give you change for a 100-peso bill. You have to know where to go (a supermarket, a touristy restaurant, the post office) to buy something from a place that always has lot of change, so that you can get smaller bills. The other day I only had a 50 peso bill and bought lunch for about 10 pesos. The guy at the register said ,”You killed me,” then proceded to do something I’ve seen happen quite a bit here, he reached into his own wallet and grudgingly fished out my change from his personal funds. Even if I have smaller bills, I always try out the big bill first, so as to get more little ones. I think everybody does this because nearly every time I try my little ploy, the cashier asks me if I have anything smaller, at which point I miraculously realize that I do indeed have smaller bills after all.

Another problem is the apparent scarcity of coins. Almost every store has a sign that says, “colabora con el cambio,” which means “try to give us exact change.” Some places say that they don’t give change at all. Often if the difference between the amount of change owed the customer and the amount available to give is 5 or 10 cents, the store will give the customer a piece of candy instead of the coins. It’s pretty funny because I seem to remember that in Japan the game was the exact opposite. People were always paying with exact change, trying to get rid of coins as often as they could. Some Mendocinos tell us that coins are scarce because they are all in the fare machines on the trolleys and buses. I always use an electronic card when I ride the bus. In the meantime, we have a giant pile of 10-centavo coins at home, just in case.

Food: As far as traditional Argentine food goes, I’d have to say that breakfast is my third favorite meal. From what I gather, it consists of some kind of boring bread and coffee, tea, mate, or juice. Eggs? Not for breakfast, silly! Eggs are for putting on top of a steak or in a hamburger sandwich for dinner or lunch. We haven’t really been following the local tradition for breakfast. I’ve been eating high-fiber cereals (fibritas) found at the health food store. Instead of milk we use strawberry or peach drinkable yogurt. And ever since we bought a blender for Lou’s birthday, she has been making smoothies a few mornings per week, banana and/or strawberry. Also, a couple days per week I wake up so late that I go straight to lunch.

A special landmark for Dan

Dan: I was called a boludo in anger for the first time tonight! Boludo seems to be the most common, general-purpose insult. I feel that it has an anatomical connotation similar to huevon. I was crossing a street and didn’t see the motorcycle coming. He honked, I stepped back, he called me boludo as he passed.

Your requests

We’ve been writing whatever we’ve felt like writing for almost 3 months now. It occurs to us that maybe there are things you want to know about that we’ve neglected to cover. So, we’d like to announce an opportunity for our readership, a chance to guide the course of this blog! We want to know what you want us to write about.

For example: - please write about the ethnic makeup of Mendoza

- describe for us what you normally eat for breakfast

- show us a picture of your bathroom

- how come I haven’t gotten any postcards?

Please use the comments area below to tell us what to blog about. We changed the registration requirement for now, so don't be shy. Click on 'comments' and type your request.

...in the middle of the street, our house...

Well, it's an apartment/ flat, really. We've been here almost a month, and we would like to stay. Hopefully they will rig up some heat for us since the evenings are getting into the low 50's now. P.S. That sofa-bed is just waiting for YOU!


















photo of our balcony complete with the laundry and the gucky green & cement gray building next door.

La TV

Dan: On cable TV here you can see a lot of American TV shows, maybe a season or two later, and movies in English, with Spanish subtitles. There is always at least one soccer game on (did you know there was a FIFA World Cup of Beach Soccer?). For better or for worse, we have only two channels. On weekends they tend to play hollywood movies, with Spanish voiceovers. Out of boredom and in hopes of improving our listening comprehension, we sometimes end up watching movies we wouldn’t normally sit through. “The Next Karate Kid,” “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” and last weekend two fine films from the Tim Allen collection. And as I think we mentioned before, the Argentine version of Big Brother seems to be on all the time, but I still don’t understand it. There are a couple of game shows along the variety of the one Howie Mandel hosts (I can’t remember the name), and at around the same intellectual level. Also, I try to catch episodes of “Lost” when I can. Generally TV hasn’t played that great a role in out lives here. I don’t even know what time the news is on. Yesterday I had to go to Mr. Dog to watch the Liverpool/ Chelsea game.

As far as Dan and Louann are concerned, the only TV show of any value is Zorro: La Rosa y la Espada. It is a telenovela (soap opera) based on the story of El Zorro. It comes on at 2:00 every day, so we catch it maybe twice per week. Some days one of us will see the show and have to fill in to the other with what happened. Maybe it’s like this with every soap opera, but even missing three episodes per week, we never get lost with what’s happening in the story. Even without understanding any Spanish, I think a person could follow the basic story line. Even if I were completely deaf, I’d know which characters were the evil ones (the blond colonel with the chin beard, the red-haired vixen, the guy with an eye-patch). The production and musical soundtrack are better than all the other novelas The theme song is sung by Beyonce. The show is completely cheesy and dramatic, full of double-crosses and deceptions. Each character has multiple love interests. In every episode somebody secretly overhears a private conversation and uses the information for some nefarious purpose. Diego de la Vega doesn’t even don the Zorro mask every week, but there is plenty of swordplay and cleavage-bearing wardrobes to keep the fellas watching.

A message to my friends from the Costa Rica program of 1993: I think I have finally discovered the Spanish equivalent for the word “cheesy.” I think that here the word “cursi” is used in a similar way. Finally we can describe Ricky Martin!