After the gig we went to a little parrilla for a bite to eat... Anyone ever had chitlins? or chitterlins? or, as they're called here chinchulines.

Well basically it's a bit of intestine (and empty which is a step up from andouillette ( the only food my dog ever refused to eat)) which is soaked in milk and then grilled. I'm not sure why but many people I've spoken to rate them among their favourite foods. Liz had them too as part of our parrillada (mixed grill) and her response: a bit like... chewing on a very rubbery slightly meaty penne pasta.

Some people have mentioned a bit of a food bias in the entries here (I hadn't noticed). Well the reason, now I come to think of it, is probably because whenever people go out here, food is involved. Very few people go out just for a drink, there's always a plate of picadas or a bowl of papas (or batatas: sweet potato) fritas...  ¶ 7:30 PM 1 comments

  The début of Urbano and Her Perversions took place last night... We played in the cellar of a bar/restaurant called Catulo Castillo which used to be a bit of a Rock Nacional shrine (I think that means they don't have to clean up much).

Amazingly it was standing room only which was pretty good. Half a dozen of the flickrianos turned up, our Spanish teacher and one of her students, a couple of Liz's students... they're the one's we brought along anyway.

Guadi, in the picture, writes most of the songs, she's got a great voice but unfortunately she's off to the US today and won't be back until November, so our second gig will have to wait.
  ¶ 7:24 PM 0 comments

  This afternoon we had a bit of a shower...

Okay, fist sized lumps of ice fell from the sky breaking windows, windscreens and trees. Admittedly the fist in question belongs to a six year old but compared to our wimpy summer hail this was pretty impressive. We have big windows and I'm just grateful for the direction of the wind otherwise we would have had more than just the odd ricochet, which were scary enough...

It coincided with a heavy downpour (and gave me a whole armful of vocabulary for tonight's lesson.... raining cats and dogs always goes down well) which meant that streets flooded and tree debris caused traffic jams.

And at the same time it was still 15C... we're still waiting for winter. One of the strange things here is the whole seeing your breath when it's not cold thing, but 85% humidity will do that.  ¶ 1:19 AM 0 comments

  Okay, so it's Monday morning, we've finished our first shift and we're both a little subdued.

We had a busy weekend. On Friday we went to see another selection of short films at the biblioteca nacional. One was a documentary about obsessive fans... we've all seen similar on BBC2 but the subjects of adulation were different. Sandro, a singer who seemed to model himself on Elvis in 1963 inspired Tom Jonesian levels of devotion from all sorts of people (including a couple of impersonators, one of whom was incredibly creepy: imagine mixing in equal parts Elvis, Liberace and Bella Lugosi). There was also a guy who collected a 1960's version of Kinder surprise toys and a bloke who said that, on the whole, he actually could imagine killing someone over the Torino car
because "it's as important as my son."

Then on Saturday we met up with the Flickrianos for a birthday celebration... we were a little Argentine about it... we went out for post-dinner drinks at 1am... latecomers were still arriving as we left at 4.

And Sunday was a rehearsal/party with the band... Liz came along and was chatting away to everyone while I pretended I was eating (or is it playing the harmonica?). Another late-ish finish hence both of us yawning like walruses this morning....  ¶ 2:12 PM 1 comments

  John:
This is what it's like to meet a group of friends...

You spend ten minutes kissing and saying hi...

You do the same when you leave...

I'm all in favour of it...
  ¶ 8:50 PM 1 comments

  John: I'm just off to the biblioteca nacional to see some short films, not even a foreign country can keep me away from the movies...

We've been doing a little extra work this week, there's a student from way down south (Comodoro Rivadavia in the province of Chubut) who's had an immersion course... 8am to 6pm for five days... and he was still smiling at lunchtime.

English is hard (II)
Okay, an apparently simple thing... asking a question...
Directly: Where is the restaurant?
Indirectly: Do you know where the restaurant is?

Why do we change the order of the words? Please... somebody... let me know, I can't use 'because that's the way it is' either.

And one other thing... it doesn't matter what the word is, when you repeat it a dozen times it loses all meaning (I was doing that today with 'smudge' because that's a real problem to pronounce.
  ¶ 8:41 PM 1 comments

  Today is the día del amigo here. Apparently it's to commemorate the moon landings but the combination of a Valentine's Day style marketing campaign from restaurants and agressive promotion by the mobile phone companies means it's become really quite huge. We will not be getting a table in any restaurant tonight...

But that's okay because we're off to the pub tonight with the Flickrianos.

And in the spirit of the day, here's something for the amigos back home (Especially Adam, Noel and James... Anne, this doesn't really fit with 'organic maths') it's an alternative James Bond scene.

We've seen in the paper that you've got a bit of a heatwave going on back home... well winter appears to be, well, missing here... it's a beautiful cloudless day, 15C outside and we're getting a bit fed up of using the term 'gorgeous' to describe the weather... maybe we'll change our minds when we get to describe it as 'sweltering'... time will tell...
  ¶ 1:56 PM 0 comments

  Liz: I had a visitor this weekend, my old schoolfriend Heather (centre) who is married to Flaco and has been living in Argentina for five years. The last time I saw Heather was at her wedding in Halifax in July 2003...so we had a lot of catching up to do :)
Heather teaches a at bilingual secondary school (teenagers...aaarrgh!) near Cordoba city, which is a ten hour bus ride from B.A., and they have Winter Holidays at the moment. Heather and Flaco live in a wooden house a twenty minute walk from the Ruta (main road) in the foothills of the Sierras Chicas. Their neighbours are all gauchos who don't own cars, just horses. John and I have been invited over for Christmas and we hope to rent a cabaña nearby. Apparently last year was so hot they spent the day in the river...and the night grilling on its banks.
  ¶ 7:38 PM 1 comments

  Not my lunch you understand... I'm a pretty easy going chap when it comes to food. A background in microbiology and a fairly cast iron stomach is a good thing when it comes to adventurous eating (with the exception of the fish I had in the Farm+cia restaurant on Thursday: I was ill all of Friday and not much better on Saturday).

I'll try most things, especially where there are hot coals involved but the proximity of this to (a) the garbage (b) the gutter and (c)the dog faeces put me off just a tad... had to take a picture though

And it smelled so good.....

Update: My flickriano amigos say that it's an Asadete (a little asado {barbeque})  ¶ 7:10 PM 1 comments

  I was in Pizzeria Napoles, picking up some empanadas for lunch yesterday when a couple of the staff (there are at least 12 of them in there) motioned for me to come over...
"What did you think of the world cup,"
"Terrible," I said.
"What about Stoichkof?"
"erm... which country does he play for?"
"Ukraine. Aren't you Ukranian?"
"No I'm Irish."

Much smacking of foreheads and "I told you's" later they started grilling me about the difference in language between San Francisco and Ireland... then England....

I'm happy about this because the whole thing was in rapid fire Spanish and I could understand maybe 50% of the words, and most of the context...

They really liked it when I managed to dig a pound coin out of my bag and that went for a tour of the Pizzeria with an exclamation of "look, un libre de inglaterra."

Oh and the empanadas from this place.... mmmmmmmm, warmed up in the wood pizza oven... mmmmmm
  ¶ 3:33 PM 1 comments

  Carlos:Hi Julio.

Julio:Oh, hi Carlito! (moves in for a kiss)
(they kiss on the cheek)

Carlos:How's the kissing thing going then

Julio:Oh, so so.

Carlos:How many knife fights is it now?

Julio:I stopped counting.

Carlos:What else are you up to these days?

Julio:Well I had a great idea.

Carlos:(mutters)Oh hell!

Julio:What?

Carlos:I said, oh well, let's hear it then?

Julio:Well. You like pork don't you?

Carlos:Mmmmm sweet sweet pork

Julio:Good. But what happens after you've killed your pig?

Carlos:I dunno, I suppose the butcher gets paid.

Julio:Damn Bourgeoise.... no, I mean what happens to the rest of the animal after you've had your chops and your bacon.

Carlos:There's a rest of the animal?

Julio:Yeah, you know, feet, stomach.... bits and pieces....

Carlos:So... we already know what goes into chorizos

Julio:Yes but the other bits... the bits that don't make it into sausages.

Carlos:I don't know but I reckon you're going to tell me...

Julio:We make Locro

Carlos:You're loco.

Julio:No, Locro... I saw some of the Indians making something with llamas up in the North... I reckon we can use the bits of pig... we'll make a killing...

Carlos:Someone will, at any rate... so... what's so special

Julio:It's a corn and bean stew... but we put in all of the trotters, toenails, rubbery bits, anything that you can't foist on the chorizo makers... and you sell it...

Carlos:No one will eat it... it's not physically possible to chew bone...
Julio:That's the beauty of it... we can make it a national dish, that way everyone will want to eat it, we can make it a tradition to eat it on... say... May 25th, I can see it now, all over the country people will have pans of pig bits boiling in beans and they'll do it in the name of national pride...

Carlos:I can see it too... you're going to be strung up by your own bits... Haven't you had enough knife fights for one lifetime.

Julio:Aww come on... be fair... why not come and have lunch...


Note: Locro is actually really really nice, but it does contain trotters and tripo gordo (large intestine) and knuckles and all sorts of inedibles that give it flavour but you don't eat... well you suck the rubbery flesh from them and suck down all the porcine goodness you can... at least I do anyway... and tomorrow, the 9th, is another traditional day for eating locro, it being independence day and all...
  ¶ 11:56 PM 1 comments

  Liz: I've been secretly hankering after one of these 'Superpanchos' since we got here. They're sold at most of the kioskos (corner shops) and there are Pancho stalls in all the parks. (I've got a bit of a thing about hotdogs, which started when I was little and these days makes a visit to Ikea (almost) bearable).
I'd noticed that here, as well as the mustard and ketchup, they sprinkle these little potatoey bits on the top too...




John: But this was my pancho, Liz had her own... follow the flickr foto for that picture.  ¶ 7:39 PM 0 comments

  We went to the BAFlickr meetup again last night, the picture is Lucas, the barman and part owner of the KingsTown bar. It's only nine blocks away from our apartment and Lucas is very keen to make it as much like an English pub as possible.

He's never been to England so his conception of what an english/irish bar should be like is mostly from his time in the US. He's very enthusiastic, asking both me and Liz what he should add, change or get rid of to make his bar more like a 'proper' english bar.

Among the options we could have told him...
-Close the bar at 11 (for a retro English feel)
-Force everyone to drink more
-Turn the volume of the music up until you can't hear
-Serve Tetley's

It's never going to be a perfect copy but we told him that he'd got most of it right... tables and chairs, barstools, chicken in a basket, chips and proper barfood. He has a dartboard, he's got a last orders bell (that he rings at 3am on weekdays and 5am on weekends), he serves Glenfiddich and Jamesons and Guinness. The music is almost all English or Irish... and you have to buy your drinks at the bar, something the porteños find a little 'strange'.

The two suggestions I gave him were to offer some other games, dominoes and the like... and to maybe serve a ploughman's lunch... he liked that one, and he's already planning to serve bitters (from a little Argentine microbrewery).

Any other suggestions?
  ¶ 6:17 PM 3 comments

  The petshops are now selling these off really cheaply


and the dog-on-the-street is currently wearing an Evo Morales thick wool knit affair...

But I thought you should all see it.... maybe next time in the UK we could see a few more rotweillers and pitbulls in the white for us... or not
  ¶ 7:31 PM 0 comments

  We spent some of the afternoon today in the Rosedal, the rose garden in Palermo, along with a few hundred other porteños enjoying a gorgeous blue sky and warm sunshine... the downside was that we were also reading the papers about the England game.

sigh....

The Rosedal is one of the well used parks, partly because they don't allow dogs in there... anywhere else in BA and you better check really carefully before you sit down. Mind you, in the Rosedal itself there are lots of benches and signs saying keep off the grass. We wandered out there with the mate kit (the flask and suchlike) and spent a pleasant hour or two attempting to decipher some of the stories in La Nacion. My favourite was from a reporter at Wimbledon (an Argentine) bemoaning the lack of coverage of the football at the All England club.

And our Spanish is improving slowly, I could understand the cold caller we just had asking about our electricity supplier.
  ¶ 8:44 PM 1 comments

  Notice, if you will, the drink of choice of these ardent fans, during their most important game....

Coke.

Admittedly there were one or two bottles of beer on the tables, usually a litre shared between two or three.

As soon as it went to extra time I started to annoy Liz by saying "The Germans always win on penalties." Because, well I am pundit supreme, and my knowledge of football is second to... third to... oh hell I can't back that up.

Anyway, yesterday the city wasn't full of the happiest of Argentines.

We ended up in a Peruvian restaurant after going to see some weird short films at the Biblioteca Nacional (A retelling of the medusa legend, animated, set in BA and about three pop stars... well you might think it's weird and you'd be right) and in the restaurant I did see the most stupid man I have seen in a long while, wearing a Germany 2006 tee shirt. I'm expecting to read of his demise in this morning's paper.    ¶ 2:21 PM 0 comments