June 3: Day 6

Today, Santi and I slept in a little bit because I am still getting used to the later nights that are common in Argentina. After waking up I had a traditional breakfast with Santi consisting of toast, dulce de leche and grapefruit juice. After this I went with Santi and his mom to his rugby club to watch his sister play hockey. The club is called Champagnat and is within walking distance of his house. It is a beautiful club with many rugby pitches and his club is very well known for their success. After a short visit to his club we went home and begin to cook asado, the slow-cooked meat that Argentina is famous for. Santi’s grandparents and cousins from Buenos Aires came and it was a great experience to have a full traditional family meal; however, it was difficult for me to explain things as their English was just as limited as my Spanish is, but, I think that it was a great visit and it was rewarding to see them understand something that I told them in Spanish. The Asado was absolutely delicious and I had all different types of meat, which I was able to choose from the butcher shop the day before. My host family was interested in the NC barbecue sauce that I brought them and were eager to try it with their meat. They absolutely loved it and ate it with every single meat. In the late afternoon, I went to the mall with Santi and his other friends to do a bit of shopping. It was an interesting experience, as the mall was different yet similar to malls in the US. Besides a Nike store, all of the stores were Argentinian. Even the menus of classic food stores such as Starbucks and McDonald’s were different. Overall, it was a very fun day for me because I truly got to see what family liked was like in Argentina, which is something I have never experienced before.

–Ben

This morning my family and I went to eat breakfast at a restaurant called Frik’s. I ordered avocado toast with chia seeds, fresh squeezed orange juice, coffee with milk and sugar and fresh fruit. After breakfast we went to the catedral de San Isidro and the Feria artesanal. The cathedral was very similar to the ones we saw in Buenas Aires in terms of the architecture. The Feria artesanal was a small market outside of the church that sold many different handmade items. After looking at the various pieces of jewelry, I bought a ring with turquoise stone for my mom. The prices of the jewelry were very inexpensive compared to jewelry from a store. After browsing around the market, we drove to the Peru Beach on the Rio de la Plata. There was a restaurant that was right on the water as well as kayaks to rent for the river. The view of the river was amazing. Next we drove down la Avenida de Libertador, which is a very beautiful road that is known for being very long and having expensive houses. At the end of the Avenida del Libertador, there was the Hipodromo de Palermo, which had a polo field, a horse racing track, a casino and lots of shops. We ate at the Tucson steak house and bar in the Hipodromo. While the restaurant had many typical American dishes, they also has asado. I ordered the Ojo de bife with salsa criolla. The meal was very tender and was very tasty. The meals were huge so we decided to save dessert for later in the day. After eating we went to the Unicenter (a mall) to shop. I ended up not buying anything from the mall because the prices were much higher then the would be in the United States. Even though I didn’t buy anything, I helped Sofi and Flori pick out decorations for their rooms at a store called Falabella. After we were at the mall, we went back to the house and made empanadas. We made one type of empanada with chicken and another with beef. All the empanadas also have eggs, olives and spices in the mixture. For dessert we had havanetes, which are cones of dulce de leche. They were very dense because of all the chocolate and dulce de leche but they were amazing.

–Ava