Parrillada

Last night was Aldo's brother's last night in town, so a bunch of us all met for dinner at a parilla (grill) near the apartment. Nice place, two floors, giant grill at the front. This isn't Lomo, with frou-frou ribeye medalions on a bed on eggplant. This is grilled beef like you mean it. They ordered the Parillada, which is the whole grill. They bring out a huge iron platter with the usual cuts of beef, plus liver, kidneys, various intestinal lengths, glands, brains, and other unidnentifyable bits. I got a shish kabab and ate whatever no one else would off the platter. You can't scare me, I've been to China. Aldo wanted to take his brother to Opera Bay to show him the club scene down here, but when we got back from the restaurant, Aldo passed out, snoring, in his clothes. His brother ended up calling on a chica he'd met down here. Too much beef and wine.

Made french toast this morning. The syrup was the really hard thing to find. $10 for a bottle of imported canadian grade A amber, but the taste is incomparable to the imitation stuff. Some mornings I really do miss IHOPs and Perkins'.

We're all tired. No one did anything or went to any bars this weekend. The question is: how let down is Claudio going to be come Wednesday? At least I have my visa for Brazil taken care of, although I still need to check and see if I need to get a yellow fever vaccine to get back into Argentina from Rio and Sao Paolo. We leave next weekend for an entire week.

Went to a birthday dinner tonight for T, one of the 4th years on this trip. His girlfriend came down for a week to visit him, and the two of them could easily be models. T looks like he walked straight out of a Abercrombie and Fitch advertisement (he actually used to work there), and his girlfriend is gorgeous with a kind of Kiera Knightly look to her. They were both mugged at an ATM this afternoon. The mugger showed them a gun in his waistband, and they sensibly handed over thier money. There's really no avoiding these kind of situations if living in the big city. They were in a bank foyer on a main street at 6 PM in daylight. There have been numerous pickpocketings, and cameras stolen, but this is the first mugging I've heard of happen in the group. I've taken to leaving my ID and credit card at home when I go out. There's really no reason to have it as everything takes place in cash.


The trees are finally leafing again, with vibrant fresh green leaves over the streets. Got my first mosquito bite down here, despite the fact that it was cool enough tonight to warrent a bufanda.