Beef

Busy day yesterday. I went to meet my buddy Ted in the park (pictured above) that all the old men like to go to to play chess. Endearing, I know. And we hung out for a while there, met up with some other kids, and walked through the massive open market that the entire neighborhood of San Telmo becomes on Sundays. The Streets fill up with venders selling their leather goods, mate cups, and works of art. In addition. Street musicians intersperse themselves along the 20 or so blocks and play for tips. It is a pretty cool place. There are also some pretty nice leather bags for excellent prices.

After the market, we were planning on heading to the concert of this famous Argentinian guitarist QuiQue Sinesi (check out the link, he is a great player). He was playing at this cultural center for 4 hours for about a 2 dollar entrance fee. But, alas, we showed up at 9 when the concert started and they had sold out all of the seats, so we were turned away. We were in the ultra chic neighborhood Palermo Hollywood. Yes, named after California's Hollywood. So, we set out looking for a restaurant. We settled on this ultra busy joint named Las Cabras (the goats, presumably for the goat they offered on the menu). There were five of us. We got bread, 2 bottles of great Malbec (for about 3 dollars a piece), and I had a wonderfully cooked Bife de Chorizo, known in the US as the infamous New York Strip Steak. It was grilled on a wood fire, was about 2 inches thick, and probably a good 16 oz. The steak came with chimichurri sauce, a typical condiment, and a caesar salad. The whole meal set me back 45 pesos (including tip, wine, and meal), a total of about 11 bucks. Amazing! I love Argentina. We ate from about 9:45 to 12:30, walked a bit, caught a bus at 1:30 and was home by 2:00 AM...on a Sunday night. Though hardly as bad as Friday night's 6:30 AM arrival time home. It sure is tough to fall asleep when the sun is coming up. Anyways, more later. I am off to get ready for school. I sign up for my Spanish and FLACSO courses today. Cheers.