Wednesday 9/26

Jeff and I went for a walk in our barrio (neighborhood) and found the small LDS chapel which is about 4 blocks away. We went inside for a bit and realized we were not in the meeting house, but rather the institute building that is situated next door to the chapel. It was a really nice building. They have rooms labeled after some of the prophets both old and new. Jeff took me there so I could experience the feeling of being in a familiar place.

We walked a few more blocks to his friend Sebastian's place. Sebastian is from Argentina but speaks fluent english. Very nice guy--one of Jeff's classmates from San Diego. He greeted me with the Argentine kiss (basically touching cheeks while kissing the air). He told me that he and Jeff greet each other the same way too. Very funny guy. I could see Jeff pull away ever so slightly. It reminded me of the movie Tommy Boy where Chris Farley's character tells his new step brother (Rob Lowe) as they are meeting for the first time, "Brothers don't shake hands--brothers hug".

Sebastian's parents were in town so we met them as well--very nice people. They were having tea and visiting with Sebastian before leaving to see his brother for dinner that evening. We visited with them for awhile until his parents had to leave. Both Jeff and I were starving and wanted to go to dinner around 8pm, but Sebastian reminded us of the fact that Argentines don't eat until about 9 pm or later. It took us awhile to figure out what to do for dinner--whether to go out to eat somewhere or call on of the numerous places in the area and have it delivered. Side note: Sebastian and his wife, Andrea have a fridge full of magnets for all of the surrounding businesses in their barrio. You can have pretty much everything delivered to you including helado (gelato/ Italian ice cream. mmm). We didn't sit down to eat until about 10:00pm.

We walked about a 1/4 mile down the streets to one of Jeff's favorite Argentine restaurants (although I can't remember the name of it to save my life.) I do know it was voted one of the best places in town to get Parilla--a meat lover's dream come true. Parilla or as the say in Argentina "parisha" is a mound of various cuts of meats that include: sausage, chicken, tenderloin, intestine (Jeff liked it, me--not so much), the throat lining (not bad with lemon and salt), blood sausage (I'll let Jeff comment on this one), liver, and other cuts of juicy steak. Andrea met us there after class (she's taking english lessons). The meal was wonderful but neither one of us is used to eating that late so we both felt like we were about to pop. I felt like I'd swallowed a 5 pound bowling ball.

Dinner ended around 11:30pm and we all piled into a taxi to get back home. It was a great evening with only one snag which we didn't find out about until the next morning--Jeff's wallet was nowhere to be found. We think it fell out of his pocket after he paid the taxi driver. What a morning--both of us had a meat hang over and Jeff was supposed to be at a breakfast at the embassy for the department he is reporting to, but ended up having to call the office to let them know he would be coming in later. We scrambled that morning looking everywhere to see if we had misplaced it somewhere in the apartment. Once we realized it wasn't here, he had to rush to work in order to call the bank to cancel his card. Thankfully, no fraudulent transactions were made. I think we lost about $130USD in cash, Jeff's driver's license, and his medical insurance card. Being able to cancel the card that day before anything else happened--priceless. Jeff is still sad about his license and so am I. I'm going to have to do any driving here if we decide to rent a car and I'm not looking forward to it.