mate lattes!

Thursday, March 26th, 2009
This morning we left the apartment early. We headed into Centro to a Starbucks near where I teach. For four months I haven't been to Starbucks. I like Starbucks, but I came here for an Argentine experience, not to live my U.S. life in Argentina. However....they do have "Mate Lattes" at the Argentine Starbucks. That's something we can't get at home! I was prepared not to like it. Since it was Nicholas's first experience with mate of any kind I suggested we share one. He said, no, let's just commit. I was glad we did. I loved the mate latte!! It had the mate flavor but was mixed with milk and sugar. Yum! We both enjoyed our individual mate lattes with an expresso brownie that was good!! (nice and moist)

(photo below: a tall and grande mate latte with some agua con gas and an espresso brownie)After our mate lattes I headed into the office to teach and Nicholas headed down Florida Street to do some shopping. When I got up to the office my first student was on a business trip so she wasn't there. I had an hour to spare, so I walked along Florida. I hoped to find Nicholas, but I knew the odds were against me since it's so crowded and he could be in a store. Just 2 min later I saw him looking into a storefront window! My luck!! So we had another hour together of shopping before I had to leave for my next student.I just taught two students. At one point there was a huge bang or an explosion. My face froze with a look of concern. My student laughed and said that I should be used to that sort of thing in the Centro. There are always protesters and banging. I was surprised that he didn't even flinch or look at the window, just laughed at me....eventually I laughed at me too.

At 1:15 I met Nicholas at the Obelisco. We arrived at the same time: 5 min late. We both had trouble pushing through on the sidewalks. After meeting we pushed our way back down the sidewalks. I asked him how his shopping went. He said many sex shops tried to pull him in. It surprised me because I haven't seen many, but I'm also not that observant. I guess they don't try to get women to enter their shops? How different we're treated when we aren't together. This whole week I haven't caught any men staring me down or making their cat calls (literally like call me like a cat. sh sh sh sh)

(photo below: obelisco)At 2pm we met with a student of mine and afterward we shared a small ice cream at Freddo. I didn't want my own, I'm not a fan of Freddo. Then we continued to walk along the harbor in Puerto Madero.

(photo below: Nicholas became a coin collector. Throughout the day he went above and beyond and asked for coins! I'm set for a while now)(photo below: two coffees in Puerto Madero. We also had a wonderful lunch.)
After walking around Puerto Madero we walked through Plaza de Mayo that is in front of the casa rosada (where the president works). We just missed the "Mothers of the Missing" demonstration. Around 5:30 we hopped on a crowded subte to head home.

It was another day of a lot of walking, I think it was another 6 miles by the days end, so we took a nap so that we could have an Argentine night.

We left for dinner around 9:30pm. We walked to Las Cabras in Palermo Viejo. This was my favorite dinner. They had REAL caesar salad! I also tried a piece of Nicholas's lamb meat (I don't eat meat because I don't like the texture) and I thought it was good...to me, better than the best steak "del mundo". We also ordered a mate and a Fernet and coke. Unfortunately mate is only served until 7pm and they didn't have Fernet, but since we were 'touristas' they made an exception and brought us mate. By the time we finished the mate I think it was more sugar than mate. Dinner was amazing. Really amazing.

After dinner and two full stomachs we walked to Canning (a tango hall) to see a modern tango band called "Tanghetto".

I made reservations for us two days prior, but I didn't think the lady understood me. To our luck she did and we had a small table next to the floor. I enjoyed watching the tango dancers, I think I enjoyed looking at their shoes the most. One lady had patent leather shoes with sparkles, rhinestones and little feathers! How cute! By far my favorite. I still don't have a strong desire to tango. It still hasn't hit me like salsa did when I first saw it. We also shared a Fernet and coke and a bottle of agua con gas. I'm not a big fan of the Fernet; it seems like it's a guys drink. After about an hour Tanghetto started to play. I really really enjoyed their music. I'd love to go see them again.

On our walk home we passed a store front window with a mannequin wearing rubber panties. I thought this was very humorous. Who needs to see that? The window was also full of incontinence products.(photo below: rubber panties on a mannequin)
We arrived home around 4am.

For me, I really love walking in the evening. At home Moira and I would always go for night walks in the summer time. I like how it's cooler and quieter at night, but it's something I don't do here. I guess I would be fine, but I'm sort of a safety freak so I always get a little anxious before going out at night alone and I always take taxi or colectivo. So, it was so nice having Nicholas with me walking in the city at night.

What a good day.