another great weekend

This past weekend was another one of those that really makes me appreciate Argentina and the way of life here—filled with good friends, beautiful weather, delicious food, and buena onda. And yes, I realize it is now Thursday and another weekend is about to start, but oh well. It was still fun and it’s my blog so I can do what I want, damn it!

On Friday night Eli and I decided to go out for dinner since the hot weather doesn’t lend itself so much to cooking. We got dressed up and headed out to Palermo to wander around—I actually wore heels for the first time in 6 months, since I knew we wouldn’t be doing anything but eating dinner…I miss heels, but since I tower over the majority of men here without them, it’s hard for me to justify wearing them. Dang Lohr genes. We got some empanadas on the way to the restaurant, just because we came across this place Pekin that I had heard had amazing empanadas and so of course we had to try them. They were actually pretty delicious, especially the pancetta y ciruela (bacon and plum).

The resto we decided on was called El Gardelito, a little parilla place on Nicaragua and Thames, I think. We split mollejas, matambre, a small salad, and a giant pitcher of clericot. Clericot is kind of like sangria, but with white wine and lots of fresh fruit…it was amazingggggg! There was also an adorable kitten named Homero, after the Simpsons (98% of Argentines are obsessed with that show). There was much cooing and loving, since after all we are cat people now.

The next day I played soccer with the regular group in plus 100 degree heat, then ended up going up to San Isidro for the night with Eli and some of my guy friends who have an uncle with a house out there. We had a delicious asado, one of the best I’ve ever had actually, and lots of Chilean pisco. After limited sleep due to monster mosquitos and insufferable heat, I woke up early on Sunday and headed outside to take advantage of the sun and the pool. There is really nothing like an icy cold pool after 10 minutes under a blistering sun (10 minutes was all I could manage at a time...too much sweating!)

I was supposed to be playing soccer again at 3 pm, so Eli and I caught the afternoon train back to the city. At Retiro I met up with Juan, a friend from the Couchsurfing group and we went over to this park near the Costanera where we were going to meet up with everybody else. Unfortunately, the park was full and they weren’t letting any more people in—apparently all Argentines still in the city flock to the parks on the weekends in massive numbers. So Juan, Fabi, Erica, and I went instead to Parque Norte where we met up with some of Fabi’s friends. The day was beautiful with lots of sun, and even though we couldn’t get into the pool (they were only letting members in due to overcrowding) we hung out in the park area and had a great time. Later on we played a half-hearted game of soccer, in which I participated minimally being both exhausted from lack of sleep and slightly delirious from too much sun. After the game, we snuck into the pool as it was closing and jumped in for about half an hour—the perfect ending to a sweaty day.

After wandering around Belgrano for a while Juan, Fabi, Erica and I jumped in a taxi and came back to the North Hood (Barrio Norte) for some pizza and beer at Bakano (highly recommended, btw…delicious food and tranquilo atmosphere). And that was my weekend! Better late than never, eh? I feel like this weekend will be just as good too…I’ve got some fiestas planned, fútbol of course, and lots more sun and pool!