Land of Wonders

At first when I realized I was going to be going to winter weather here in South America, I was bummed because I love the heat (well, not exactly as hot as Texas summers, but…) but now that I’m here, I’m really enjoying the chilly weather. This is the Argentina I knew before- chilly mornings and evenings, but mostly sunny and nice in the day. I love being in our warmly heated apartment after walking the cold city streets. I also am loving the tea-time they observe. They actually drink maté, which is a type of tea with a different kind of caffeine called matiena. Now you have to understand that maté is a national obsession here- it seems that everyone drinks maté all day long, seriously. You put a whole load of dry leaves into your maté cup which is actually a dried-out gourd and then you have your bombilla which is a metal straw with holes in the bottom of it. You then have your hot-water thermos (yes, it’s a bit involved to drink maté but they don’t care.) and you’re constantly filling your cup with the hot water, drink, drink, drink, then refill. Anywhere you go, everyone’s slurping on these things- it’s really funny! And there are lots of places you can get refills on your hot water- like a water cooler but with hot water. I promise I’ll take some photos of the obsession! I’ve tried it in the past, but didn’t care for it too much (it’s kindof bitter) but I’m thinking I’m going to give it another chance. I’ll let you know if I give in. Can you imagine me lugging all that stuff around Texas, slurping on my straw like that? Haha!

Another thing I love about chilly weather is I get to be a homebody and do lots of reading and cooking and movie-watching. We went to Up in 3D (and in Spanish, unfortunately…) which was so touching and really incredible! We both loved it. We rented Déjà Vu with Denzel Washington (great) and Night at the Museum I (we’re going to see Noche al Museo II this week at the theater.) And last night we rented a movie that blew my mind- I loved it so much! Have you guys seen Across the Universe? It’s about the 60’s and I guess you could say it’s a musical, but with all Beatles songs…amaaaazing! We were both really impressed by the quality of the movie- it’s an example of cinematic art, truly. I love to watch films that are a work of art, you know?

We’ve been really creative on ways to fill up our time here. For example, yesterday we went to a SUPER nerdy place- the video game lounge (what an awesome girlfriend I am!) It’s a place that has a dozen or so areas set up with a couch and a flat-screen TV with Playstations and Xboxes. You rent a station for an hour and get to play games. We thought Tennis would be a good choice, but we were wrong because it’s tricky to figure out how to make the players hit the ball. Then we switched to a car racing game and that was awesome for us (due to all my Nintendo playing years with my brothers.) While we were playing, there were two cops playing a soccer game for an hour really loudly next to us and the best thing?- they were on duty! Oh, Argentina!

When I ask my curious questions-

• · Why are those cops not on the streets but playing PlayStation?
• · Why is that dog sitting in the middle of the busy intersection?
• · Why did all those 5 cars just run the red light?
  
• · Why are all the DVDs at this rental place pirated?

Franco just tells me “Don’t ask questions like that- You are in Argentina, Land of Wonders!”

Another really odd thing is that no one seems to have change here. Franco says the past couple of years it’s been like this; he says the government is not making new bills or coins (which I believe by the disintegrating bills we get.) So whenever we pay for a cab or a coffee or something like that, everyone’s always asking if we have any coins to make exact change, which we usually do, but here’s a crazy story- today we were in the big supermarket and our total was 25 pesos (like 8 dollars) and we paid with 30 pesos and the lady of course asked for coins but we didn’t have any. She looked at us and said “Sorry, I don’t have any change. You’re going to have to put something back.” A freakin supermarket had no change!!! So we had to buy a chocolate to balance out the total… Weird, huh? There are some things I guess I take for granted in the States, like being able to pay with a $20 bill no problem. We carry equivalents of $20 bills and I swear, people nearly faint when we try to pay for something with it. Oh, Argentina, good thing you’re charming!

Well, we send you lots of love from the Land of Wonders!

Chau!