The sun is still not up. We love that Argentina stays on Daylight Saving Time all yea. It was still light here at 8:30 tonigh.
I plug in my phone. I turn off the light.
I prop my knee on my pillow…
…and the next thing I know it’s 2:00 p.m.
I am groggy. My boyfriend is still next to me. This is strange, because he never sleeps that late. I can hear him breathing.
I can also hear the rain on the window next to us. It sounds like it’s pouring, but the blackout shades are pulled and I’m not getting up to check.
I roll over, get comfortable…
…the next thing I know it’s 4:00 p.m.
Adam is still next to me. It is still raining. Hard.
He is awake, looking at his phone. I grunt good morning and start to wake up.
Around 4:30 we move downstairs. It is pouring. Weather.com says it will stop around 6:30.
We decide to wait it out.
We watch as the rain lands on the deck, while we look at our phones.
I spend much of that time, trying to find a place for dinner. It’s New Year’s Day and everything appears closed. I start at the first entry on Trip Advisor in the Palermo area of BA and look for anything open.
Not open today. On a 3-week vacation, which sounds familiar. Closed. Has no website, just a link to Facebook, and that has no information. The same, only Instagram. Broken link. Website has expired. Ugh.
Adam has better luck. He’s looking for reservations for tomorrow night. He finds a place for a Marienda. (Tune in tomorrow). We book it, although he has to sign up for What’s App to do so.
6:30 comes and goes and it is still raining. Weather.com says it will stop at 8:30 now.
Fuck.
We remind ourselves that we were once New Yorkers.
Ain’t no rain gonna stop us.
We shower and head out. It’s about 7:00 now.
We wander down the street, walking under the canopy of trees that line a lot of the streets here. What would you know, the coffee shop on the corner is open. And a little busy.
We find a table inside, one of the few open and get settled. It feels nice to be up and about.
The server comes by, he looks 15. He is clearly overwhelmed. We order waters and coffees.
He comes back with those things, and we try to order a croissant. It was much harder than it should have been. We end up getting avocado toast.
This exchange prompted us to finally download Google Translate. Finally.
The food arrives and we sit there, and chat, and trade stories, and discuss the trip, and just relax. It was nice and relaxing.
Adam orders another coffee. Me another water.
20 minutes passes, it has stopped raining, but Adam orders yet another coffee and I get yet another water.
Around 9:00 we pay the check and head out.
We are in search of food.
We know there is an Irish pub about 10 blocks away, but fish and chips is not our first choice.
We walk 3 blocks and find a pizza place open. It looks okay, but we hold out hope.
3 more blocks, and another pizza place is open. I can’t explain why, but this one looks more promising.
They don’t have a website but here is their Instagram:
We go in. There are no open tables inside. We are given a choice between seats at the counter or a seat on the sidewalk, as it has stopped raining. We take the counter.
We are offered menus. Spanish or English. We choose English.
We look over the menu. It all looks delicious. We are also sitting at the counter, facing the open kitchen and we can see the pizzas being prepared. They look amazing.
We decide on our order.
Two cocktails to start. Followed by a bottle of wine. Then empanadas, a salad and followed by a large pizza.
The cocktails were great. Light and refreshing.
The empanadas were fried, and delicious. Chicken. And Cheese and Onion.
The pizza was perfect. It was covered in a huge amount of cheese, red onions, olives and other things I don’t remember.
(I ate my olives).
We eat a little more than half the pizza. And get the rest wrapped up.
We order dessert. Another version of an ice cream cake.
And you can’t end a meal here without a coffee.
Café con leche. I had two.
We finish up and pay.
We head home.
It’s humid out now. Warm. The air is thick.
There are not a lot of people on the street.
It is also dark. Adam and I take the chance and hold hands. We’ve been nervous here about holding hands in public. In the states, even in Texas, we hold hands everywhere we go. On the street. At dinner. In the mall. We find ourselves reaching for each other, then thinking twice about it.
Not to get too sappy next…
I realize a little too late that I should have pee’d before I left the restaurant. Thank god for dark tree lined streets.
Whew.
That was close.
We walk home.
It is nice in the apartment when we get there. The a/c has been running all day.
It was truly a wonderful day.
Even if it didn’t start until 4:00.
Avo Toast. It was much harder to order than it should have been.
They chill the wine in a clear plastic purse.
Me enjoying the fuck out of this pizza.
Watching cute boys make pizza.
The wood fired pizza oven that no one put wood in for over two hours.
Yay for our first cocktails since arriving in Buenos Aires.
It’s New Year’s Eve in a foreign country. We have no idea what to expect. Will there be fireworks, crazy crowds, or will it be low key?
To start, Chef had invited us to his brother’s house for the New Year’s celebration. Adam was a little hesitant, because he didn’t want to intrude on someone’s event. He wanted to make sure that it wouldn’t be a bother.
I checked in with Chef and he of course said absolutely NOT. It would be awesome for us to join them.
So, we started our day.
First off, we slept late. We were both exhausted and I stayed up later than I should have finishing my post from the day before.
It was around 1:00 when I woke up. We got up around 2:00.
We had no plan and no direction.
We knew we needed to get cash. Chef had given us 2,000 pesos the first day to get us through till we could change some currency ans that seemed like a lot. Adam looked like he’d just been handed 10,000 dollars in 10’s.
It was actually about 60 bucks.
We’d been told that we could send money to ourselves, through Western Union and pick it up in pesos, with the blue dollar exchange rate. Before we left for the day, we sent ourselves 500 bucks.
Then we were off in search of a Western Union and lunch.
It turns out to be a search in futility.
It’s New Year’s Eve afternoon, and NOTHING is open. Most places are closing early, if they opened at all. And there isn’t an open WU anywhere. Well, there was one, but they didn’t have enough money to give us the exchange. It’s approaching 3:00 and we have very little money, and no lunch options.
My boyfriend is starting to get hangry. He also doesn’t like not having a plan. He is a planner. Who needs to eat. He is getting KRANKY!!!
We keep walking, hoping that we’ll cross a street and find a not too expensive restaurant.
We could have used a card, but the only places we’d found were two restaurants we are going to later in the week.
To make matters worse, there isn’t even a place open to get a coffee.
All of the shops are closed.
We did find a liquor store and bought a bottle of bubbles to take with us later that evening.
We are looking at the map, still hoping, when I suggest we just go to McDonald’s. Well, actually Adam had suggested it an hour earlier, but I’d dragged my feet about it. It was two blocks away, we wanted to see how it compared and we knew they’d be open.
So.
We end up at McDonald’s and order Big Macs, French Fries, he got a Coke Light and I got a water.
And guess what?
It tastes exactly like Maine McDonald’s.
We eat.
Adam starts to feel better.
Now we are ready to enjoy the afternoon.
We leave in search of a mural a friend has asked me to look up, but with no hurry and no real agenda.
We turn right and walk about 2 blocks and pass a grocery store.
Adam’s favorite place in the world is a grocery store. He finally stopped asking me to go with him, because he likes to spend hours there. Up and down each row, although he knows exactly where everything he wants is.
I asked him if he wanted to go in, and so we did. It was small. About the size of our neighborhood IGA. But it was fun to see all the different products and packaging.
It was also way less expensive than in the states.
We wander around for about 15 minutes, and we are off again.
We go two more blocks down and then start to the right.
We snap photos of the fun things we see.
And then we find the mural that we are looking for.
A friend of mine, from long, long ago, reached out to say that if I was in the Palermo area of BA and happened up on mural of his friend— could I please snap a photo. I looked up the mural and turns out it is about 10 blocks from our apartment.
So, we found it, and we snapped a photo.
It’s a painting of a musician named Hernan Cattaneo. I had never heard of him but seems he’s an amazing DJ and is well known in Argentina. My friend is a personal friend of his and was excited that we found the mural.
And then we continued home.
It was warm and the apartment has a pool and someone named Jeff bought a bathing suit for the trip and so when we got back we decided to go down to the pool.
Of course, it’s approaching 5:30, the sun is behind a building, and the wind is blowing. The heated pool had a hard time keeping up. But it felt great to be in the water and we mostly just floated in the lap pool by ourselves.
Until.
Two very cute boys get in. And start floating about. It’s clear they are also of the gay persuasion. Eventually, they head toward us and the tall ginger says, HOLA!
We laugh, because it’s in an English accent. It’s clear to them we are not speaking Spanish either.
We strike up a conversation. They are from London. They are on a month-long holiday in South America. They bought a 2-pound filet today for 8 English pounds. We chat about why we are here; about Maine and all the stuff you discuss with people you don’t know.
Then Adam announces he is cold and we head to the other end to get out.
Fun fact: My gregarious, outgoing boyfriend, who lives his professional life on the floor of a restaurant is shy. Very, very, shy. I find it cute. And sweet.
We lay on our lounge chair for about 20 minutes and then head up.
We get home, and Adam immediately goes upstairs to nap. I sit down to finish my post from the night before. Which I don’t get accomplished.
We aren’t being picked up till 9:00 and I end up napping on the sofa.
At 8:00 I get up, and wake Adam. We both shower, and dress. And at 8:55 we are standing on the sidewalk waiting.
Chef arrives at 9:01 with his brother Pepe in tow. I give Pepe a big hug, introduce him to Adam and we are off.
As we drive, Chef shares that he met an old friend for coffee today. They were so desperate for a place to meet that first they ended up at McDonald’s for coffee and then a gas station, because McDonald’s closed. He assured me the coffee was good in both locations.
We arrive at Pepe’s house and the façade is beautiful. It’s old single family town house that has been turned into condos. I meant to snap a photo when I left and forgot. It was old, historic and truly wonderful.
We go in. We are introduced to the family. Chef’s mother instructs us to sit down in Spanish. We have just gotten there and so aren’t sure if we should sit down just yet, but 30 seconds later his nephew appears and has been instructed to have us be seated.
And so we sit.
And the evening begins.
Before I go on.
I was honored to have been invited. Pepe and his wife, Mirta, work with us in Maine. They are lovely, lovely people. And to have been invited into their home for this celebration meant a lot to me. The idea of spending NYE with Chef’s family seemed so much more special than a night out in a bar, or a restaurant. We get to experience the way he celebrated the holiday growing up.
So here we go. It’s 9:30. 2.5 hours till midnight.
First, we are offered drinks. We go with Aperol Spritzes.
Then the food starts to arrive.
Chef has explained how this all works.
Everyone brings something, just like a potluck at home. However, the difference is that it is prepared completely before you arrive and then served cold. That way no one is stuck in the kitchen not taking part in the festivities.
We start with charcuterie that Chef has brought. This is served with bread and olives. And the apps are finished up with beef tongue.
At this time, I should say, that before I came, I committed to eating everything offered to me, whether I wanted to or not. For example, this is my second meal with olives, and I don’t like olives, but they are a part of the meal so I take a few.
There were things on the table from last night that I would never have tried 10 years ago. And to quote Adam, I just stopped thinking about what they were and focused on how delicious they were.
I’d tried veal tongue last summer at work. Only a bite and it was good. But tonight, I’m served a whole tongue, so I go for it. And it was one of my favorite things of the night.
Everyone is at the table, and we toast the New Year and Family and the night, and we all dig in.
What follows is amazing. Adam, myself and Chef’s son are the only native English speakers. Chef speaks well, but he is hard to follow when you first meet him. And his nephew is an advanced beginner. Adam and I sit and listen as the family talks in Spanish. I pick up every 12th word. Every so often, Chef stops and catches us up on the conversation. Then someone will ask us a question, he interprets and then we answer. He shares our answer, and this goes on for a few. Then it’s back to Spanish. This back and forth goes on till the end of the evening.
And I shared with Adam today, that I never felt uncomfortable, or like an outsider, or bored. It was intense and fun and exciting. I loved every minute of it.
Soon, the apps were finished.
And the food was sent to the other end of the table, to make room for the next course. I wish I knew the name of these things, but it was all in Spanish. I also don’t have pictures of everything, because for some reason, Adam’s camera didn’t save his photos.
The next course was equally good.
It was a course of beef roulettes with egg and herbs and other things, rolled and then grilled. There was a chicken dish prepared the same way. Then there was a veal dish that had a sauce made with mayonnaise and canned tuna. Don’t judge it was delicious.
There were sides of potato salad with carrots and peas, green salad,
With this course wine is offered and toasts are made again.
And then we are on to the third course.
This is tri-tip stuffed with chimichurri and other ingredients and then grilled on an open fire for three hours. This was prepared by Chef’s father.
The wine is passed around again.
And then Gancia is pulled out. It’s the Argentine version of Aperol. They make spritzes with it, using soda water and lemon. In two seconds, Chef, Adam and I all have spritzes to drink with our wine. It is amazing and refreshing and it’s been unseasonably warm here the past two days so it was a great way to cool off.
All this time I’m looking at my watch. It’s approaching 11:30 now.
The table is cleared. Adam and I are NOT allowed to help.
It’s 11:40 and sweets start to appear. Sweets, more sweets and more sweets. Chef says that it’s called Mesa Dolce. The Sweet Table. It’s traditionally, served at 11:45 on New Year’s Eve so that you are enjoying them at the stroke of midnight.
We have an ice cream cake that was stupid it was so good. Homemade cookies and sweets. Bought cookies and sweets. They even pulled out a basket with candy bars in case that wasn’t enough.
At 11:58:30, champagne glasses appeared, bottles were popped and glasses were filled.
And then we counted down in Spanish. Well I tried, but I’d never done it before so wasn’t very good at it.
Diez.
Nueve
Ocho.
Siete.
Seis.
Cinco.
Cuatro.
Tres.
Dos.
Uno.
Feliz Ano Neuvo.
There were toasts and cheers.
Then everyone went around the room, hugging and kissing everyone.
It was very sweet.
When Chef got to me, he grabbed my face with both hands, kissed my cheek and told me how glad he was that I was a part of his team, and how grateful he was I was in Argentina with him.
It was a very sweet moment.
I got kisses from everyone who was there. Including Adam, although he was the only one to kiss me on the lips.
After the toast, more sweets appeared.
Then gifts for everyone. Adam and I got a nice bottle of wine.
Then coffee was served, with a new batch of cookies for dipping in the coffee.
And then we all sat around and talked some more.
We talked about tobacco in Kentucky vs. Argentina.
We talked about gigging for frogs vs the way they do it in Argentina.
We talked about Amarillo and Memphis, Texas and how Adam was valedictorian of his class. (He’ll hate that I’ve shared this). Adam showed photos of the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo.
We talked about Adam’s small town he grew up in, vs Sadieville where I grew up, vs. his son’s small town in New Jersey near NYC.
We talked about bourbon, and the bourbon trail.
We discussed Route 66 at length.
Someone would ask a question. Chef would interpret. We would answer. Chef would interpret.
Finally, it neared 1:30 and it was time for everyone to head home.
Chef dropped his father off at the bus station and then came back for us.
Chef, his mom, son, Adam and I, all headed home.
We kept passing night club after night club with kids lined up at the door that were just opening for the night.
We got home around 2:00.
We were exhausted.
But as I said last night.
It truly was a special New Year’s Eve. I’ve travelled abroad many times, but there’s something special about being invited into someone local’s home and experiencing the holiday as everyone else in the area does.
Happy New Year Friends, from Buenos Aires.
PS. I had told Chef that we wouldn’t be able to get money until Monday so he spotted us 130,000 pesos. In 1000 peso bills. It looked like drug money. It translates to 500 dollars.
PS. The meal from the night before for 4 appetizers, 2 bottles of wines, 2 large format entrees, all the desserts, all the sides, and 8 bottles of water came to a whopping $125 American bucks. The cost of things here is insane.
While I like adding the photos/comments in the post where they go, that adds about an hour of editing. From now on they are added at the end.
A view of someone’s backyard along the street.
Someone crotched a tree a blanket.
Beautiful home in the Palermo area of BA.
Restaurant POS’s in BA use a mouse not a touch screen. It’s true in every restaurant we’ve been in.
A Big Mac is a Big Mac is a Big Mac.
A small grocery store in BA.
The mural of Hernan Cattaneo
The three amigos celebrating the New Year.
Drug Mule money. This is what 130,000 pesos look like.
Beef Tongue. Don’t judge it’s delicious.
Beef and Chicken roulettes.
The BA version of German potato salad with peas and carrots
I'd Like to Speak to the Manager!!! 