Í watched the half-moon float through clouds and trees for a few hours on the bus last night...I thought of you the whole damn time.´
There are 2 people (gentes) that we have met that stick out to me the most so far:
1. the owner of a little restaurant near the city center of Bahia Blanca. We (Natalia and I had picked up a fellow American traveller named Andy from LA, who is in the middle of a motorcycle trip around SA by this time :) had all heard that we should try the mate while in Argentina. It turns out that it is not a drink you can buy at a cafe but one that the Argentines drink amongst themselves and with friends; a sort of ritual. When the three of us walked into this cafe and asked for mate this man told us we could not buy it but eagerly sat us at a back table and told us to wait please (espera por favor!). He came back a few minutes later with a mate cup (a hollowed out gourd set in a metal stand) and a teapot of hot water. Mate is very similar to green tea and you fill the whole gourd with the dry ´leaves´and then top it with the water. You drink out of a silver straw (most of them are super ornate and very beautiful) that has little holes in the bottom to filter out the loose mate. It is a beautiful presentation and the mate is a rich seaweed green...so pretty : ) It is also a drink that gets passed around to share. We had mate and then one of the best ice cream (helado) desserts I think I´ve ever eaten...
After helado, the man (i can´t believe we never caught his name!) came over to chat and told us he was practicing english for a trip to London next year...which led into a few hour long english-spanish lesson where we learned a ton of things...most importantly: instead of the ll sounding like a y as in most spanish, it is a ch sound here (this clarified why even when reading from our dictionary no one knows what we have been saying!)
After hearing some of Andy´s stories of people inviting him in for dinner and showers while trying to fix his bike, and generally going out of their way to help him on his journey we quickly got a sense that the Argentines are some seriously genuine, friendly, hospitable, pèople.
(Since then we have had a man (who reminded me so much of my Grandpa Newman : ) spend over an hour fashioning a bamboo and plastic cigarette roller for us, a girl walk us around Monte Hermoso in the pouring rain to find us the perfect hotel, another guy sharing his mate and 90´s Argentinian music (they LOVE the 90´s here...the Bulls are huge! Being from Chicago instantly makes me cool :), and a Grandma June -style history lesson over breakfast...)
2. Maria Luisa stopped by to talk while we were enjoying our free hostel breakfast of mini croissants, cookies, and coffee to ask about our plans. She and her husband were travelling during their two week vacation by motorcycle around Argentina (all the old ladies ride motorcycles here). We told her about our Monte Hermosa plan and she shook her head said something about vivo de mer (sealife) and came back 20 minutes later with her wonderful map of all of Argentina. We got info on all the nearby beaches, a spanglish warning ´not to rub the jellyfish when they sting you but hold them up to the sun and pull them off quickly´, and then story time about the native tribe Quilmes (their cerveza is named after these guys). We left the hostel just as it began to drizzle with Maria Luisa wishing us well, the old man with the cigarette roller and Andy helping our packs on to our backs and the hostel owner calling ´ciao!´
So freakin´heartwarming <3
Anywho, a few other notes:
the peanuts here come in threes, and fours if your lucky : )
they write love letters here, we got one under our hostel door and I found one on the ground exclaiming, Ángie, oh Angie!´
Their pool table standards are incredible...the sticks usually dont even have the chalky part anymore, just a wooden nub, and there are always the wrong number of stripes-solids. When I get good at this I will be unstoppable in the states. : )
Everyone feels the need to play music out of their cell phones, even if the guy next to you is already doing the same thing.
There are a shit ton of ants and we already saw a snake.
I have been eating way more ice cream than usual and I am already starting to appreciate moving slowly and the quieter moments : )
Oh yeah, and it is totally acceptable to drink wine for breakfast. no big deal...in fact the man at the computer next to me has a healthy glass of vino de tinto while enjoying his afternoon chess game online : ) hm. ill get there...
K! Ciao! I will try to upload some photos soon : )
1. the owner of a little restaurant near the city center of Bahia Blanca. We (Natalia and I had picked up a fellow American traveller named Andy from LA, who is in the middle of a motorcycle trip around SA by this time :) had all heard that we should try the mate while in Argentina. It turns out that it is not a drink you can buy at a cafe but one that the Argentines drink amongst themselves and with friends; a sort of ritual. When the three of us walked into this cafe and asked for mate this man told us we could not buy it but eagerly sat us at a back table and told us to wait please (espera por favor!). He came back a few minutes later with a mate cup (a hollowed out gourd set in a metal stand) and a teapot of hot water. Mate is very similar to green tea and you fill the whole gourd with the dry ´leaves´and then top it with the water. You drink out of a silver straw (most of them are super ornate and very beautiful) that has little holes in the bottom to filter out the loose mate. It is a beautiful presentation and the mate is a rich seaweed green...so pretty : ) It is also a drink that gets passed around to share. We had mate and then one of the best ice cream (helado) desserts I think I´ve ever eaten...
After helado, the man (i can´t believe we never caught his name!) came over to chat and told us he was practicing english for a trip to London next year...which led into a few hour long english-spanish lesson where we learned a ton of things...most importantly: instead of the ll sounding like a y as in most spanish, it is a ch sound here (this clarified why even when reading from our dictionary no one knows what we have been saying!)
After hearing some of Andy´s stories of people inviting him in for dinner and showers while trying to fix his bike, and generally going out of their way to help him on his journey we quickly got a sense that the Argentines are some seriously genuine, friendly, hospitable, pèople.
(Since then we have had a man (who reminded me so much of my Grandpa Newman : ) spend over an hour fashioning a bamboo and plastic cigarette roller for us, a girl walk us around Monte Hermoso in the pouring rain to find us the perfect hotel, another guy sharing his mate and 90´s Argentinian music (they LOVE the 90´s here...the Bulls are huge! Being from Chicago instantly makes me cool :), and a Grandma June -style history lesson over breakfast...)
2. Maria Luisa stopped by to talk while we were enjoying our free hostel breakfast of mini croissants, cookies, and coffee to ask about our plans. She and her husband were travelling during their two week vacation by motorcycle around Argentina (all the old ladies ride motorcycles here). We told her about our Monte Hermosa plan and she shook her head said something about vivo de mer (sealife) and came back 20 minutes later with her wonderful map of all of Argentina. We got info on all the nearby beaches, a spanglish warning ´not to rub the jellyfish when they sting you but hold them up to the sun and pull them off quickly´, and then story time about the native tribe Quilmes (their cerveza is named after these guys). We left the hostel just as it began to drizzle with Maria Luisa wishing us well, the old man with the cigarette roller and Andy helping our packs on to our backs and the hostel owner calling ´ciao!´
So freakin´heartwarming <3
Anywho, a few other notes:
the peanuts here come in threes, and fours if your lucky : )
they write love letters here, we got one under our hostel door and I found one on the ground exclaiming, Ángie, oh Angie!´
Their pool table standards are incredible...the sticks usually dont even have the chalky part anymore, just a wooden nub, and there are always the wrong number of stripes-solids. When I get good at this I will be unstoppable in the states. : )
Everyone feels the need to play music out of their cell phones, even if the guy next to you is already doing the same thing.
There are a shit ton of ants and we already saw a snake.
I have been eating way more ice cream than usual and I am already starting to appreciate moving slowly and the quieter moments : )
Oh yeah, and it is totally acceptable to drink wine for breakfast. no big deal...in fact the man at the computer next to me has a healthy glass of vino de tinto while enjoying his afternoon chess game online : ) hm. ill get there...
K! Ciao! I will try to upload some photos soon : )
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