Dinner and Sobremesa (March 27)

Having recovered from yesterday’s great birthday celebration, Barbara and I decided to play it low key and take care of basic necessities. So off we went to Disco supermercado to replenish food supplies as we needed to get ready to entertain our friend Santiago at our apartment prior to going out to, you guessed it, another dinner.

While shopping, Mary, our twice weekly cleaning person, stopped in to do her thing, which includes using the brand new washing machine the owner installed during our stay. She’s been having problems with getting the machine to work correctly so I volunteered to help (of course there are no directions for the machine and the controls are all labeled in Spanish).



You must understand that Mary speaks not a word of English so what happens when she’s here is a true comedy. Mary seems to think that we understand her rapid fire continuous stream of conversation, because of our lucky use of the words “Si and No”. Occasionally she realizes that all is not right with us so she repeats herself and perhaps demonstrates to increase our understanding. That being said, after we got the machine to work she told us how it proceeds to “caminar” (walk) across the floor during spin cycle, below is a picture of our fix:



Having solved our new world’s problems Barbara and I did what any properly retired couple would do in preparation for the evening….we took a nap.

Santiago arrived at 7:30 and over beer and wine etc., we had a lively conversation about life in Argentina, politics, and lots of comparisons to the US. It’s really interesting to hear about views of the US from an international perspective. We agreed and disagreed but clearly recognized a number of basic “distrusts”. It seems politicians around the world are cut from the same cloth.



We headed off to the 788 Food Bar for one of our favorite entrees “brown-sugar braised pork” and spent 3 hours continuing the discussions. After espressos and café con leche we headed back to the apartment for more wine and conversation (this after dinner continuance of the evening is known as sobremesa) and before we knew it, it was 4:00am. Santiago had to be at work at 10:00am so we had to cut the evening short. I don’t know how they do it, but this is not uncommon at all.



Barbara and I got into bed and we were wired. How we ever got to sleep is unknown at this point.

Recovery (March 28)

Believe it or not we woke up at our normal time (for those of you still working we will not get into details, as you might want to scream) – slowly, and I mean very slowly, we came alive. By this time, it was time for lunch, so of course we went out in search of perfect empanadas.

Our friend Rick just called, having surfaced after a marathon of company form the States, and asked what we were doing for dinner. I almost considered saying let’s go out, but fought myself hard and just barely resisted the urge to say yes, as another evening of great food and conversation could start us thinking about the Betty Ford clinic. So Rick and agreed to wait a day or two and get together Sunday night. Priorities you know!