On a roll!

Well, looky here!

It's the very same day and I'm on to another entry! I am taking advantage of my momentum while it lasts because I can't predict when it will come again... and I don't feel like starting my articles about satellite internet just yet. I have about an hour till I'm going to power fit step aerobics dance class and I am going to try and recall all of the wonderful things that happened when Carolyn and Jackie were here...

WELL. Carolyn came first. We pulled out out the little sofa bed thing for her, moved around some furniture and threw some things under the bed to make room for her and her big bag... and I do believe she brought more clothes than I brought for an indefinite amount of time...and this is a jab at myself for packing too little, not at Carolyn. Honest.

Anyways, Carolyn got here on the last day of festivities of Argentina's grand celebration of their Bicentenario which means that no one was working and everyone in the entire city was downtown. There were special events, performances, parades, ferias, stands from every one of the 23 provincias in Argentina, special foods from around the country, talks, shows and craziness happening all leading up to Argentina's 200th birthday on March 25th. We went downtown to try and see some of the events going on, but literally, there was no room to move. The main street downtown where el Obelisco(huge tall white monument in the middle of the street) is located is called 9 de Julio and it is the widest street in the world.
BUT let me tell you, this widest street in the world was packed person to person horizontally, vertically, diagonally, upways and down and every single way you turned. I believe that the entire population of the country was on this street taking part in the festivities, as much as they could. We tried to see the light show that was happening on the famous Teatro Colon but couldn't get closer than 3 blocks away from it, blocked by trees and pushy, sweaty people. It was like being on the subte at rush hour multiplied by a million.

We learned from this experience and decided to watch the rest of the parades and shows on television from the comfort of our house, a much better decision. You can see some of the light shows, which were actually very impressive that happened on El cabilido, some government building here :http://www.bicentenario.argentina.ar/ .

Later that night, we went to our amigas, Jill and Sara's apartment with Carolyn and their friend Jess for a typical Argentine dinner. The girls made locro, a stew (traditionally eaten on Argentina's Birthday) and is typically made with chorizo, beans, corn, squash, onion etc. Luckily for us, they made one for them, with chorizo(sausage) and one for us vegetarians, with tofu...such considerate friends we have. We brought the postre, a ginormous Alfajor cake which was delicious,filled with dulce de leche, covered in chocolate and terribly terribly rich. MMM. And then of course, we had some vino... I think we had some traditional Argentine Malbec tossed in there somewhere. We watched the last parade on television and witnessed as Mrs. Cristina Kirschner, the presidenta of Argentina shake her thang on national television.

We took Carolyn to the famous and world renown Kosher McDonald's, remarkably the only other Kosher McDonalds in the world outside of Jerusalem. It is inside of a huge mall or "shopping", as they call malls here, (yes they made this present continuous verb into a noun) and Caro got a hamburger AND chicken nuggets. We also took her to a kosher parilla, traditional Argentine restaurante with beef, bife, chorizo,lomo,lamb, vaca and more meat. There are a very different kosher Parillas in Once, where many of the Jews in BA live. The first one we went to was called Mama Jacinta where Carolyn drooled and gobbled up her big cheap kosher steak as Jill and I watched her and ate a potato omlette, tortilla espanola and mashed calabaza (pumpkin, there wasn't much else on the menu. Oh, yes and they did have hummus which we usually have quite a hard time finding in other places.

In addition to treating Carolyn with kosher meat, we went to the Evita museum, the Holocaust museum to china town, the MALBA, we went to the ferias, bought some Rodocrosita jewelry which is Argentina's national stone -it's a pretty light pinky color, she bought her family some gifts and I also started buying some souvenirs myself. We decided that the longer we stay here, the more the prices will most likely rise so why not take advantage of doing touristy things with our touristy visiting friends? The only downside to buying presents for all of you back home is that we get so excited with the gifts we've bought but still having to wait all this time to bring them back to you!

I led Carolyn all around the city on foot, making her pretty little feet tired. We had our daily cafe con leche at a number of cutesy cafes and Carolyn fell in love with medialunas, flaky, doughy, sweetened croissants that are sold EVERYWHERE and anywhere in this city. I also dragged Carolyn with me to the bilingual school where I have been volunteering, Escuela del Mirador. The kids asked her questions about where she was from, Carolyn drew an interesting sketch on the board of the United States and we read them a story about a mouse and his manners when he asked for "cheese, please." There was, however, one particularly embarrassingly funny question...

A little girl raised her hand and said with a huge smile on her face... , "I have a crazy question...Have you seen Alicia en la pais de las maravillas? (Alice in wonderland) I said "Yes", because I had and THEN she goes on to say, " Oh well, your hair kind of looks like the Mad Hatter's!" And then she giggles along with the rest of the class.
Good. One of those moments when you realize how wonderful it must be to be young and naive and not know what you are saying...

Sidenote because I left and came back and now my mind is somewhere else..

Argentina had a game today with Grecia and when a game is on EVERYTHING closes. I was walking to the subte right as the game was starting and no one was on the streets. There were hardly any cars, no one was in the subway station and almost every single store was closed with a sign on the door saying it would open after the game. It's acceptable and probably expected that you will leave the office, close down and pay attention to nothing else but the game. I got on the subway and as I was walking up the street I stopped at a little cafe inside the station. There must have been at least 100 people crowded around the cafe, faces forward and intensely concentrated on a small television in the corner. People woooed at the same time, awwed at the same time and screamed at the same time. It was like a superbowl party in the station (times a hundred), and then every other cafe I passed along the way had the same exact scene.
Thank goodness they won, 2 to 0, or I would have been scared to walk home.