Market Day in Recoleta

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Today (Saturday) started earlier than I would have liked, considering we were out at an Asada dancing until the wee hours of the morning... but it was worth waking up for. Nicole and I walked from Palermo to Recoleta, an old and wealthy area of BsAs for the weekly Hippie Market. It is a decent walk, and the weather was a little chilly, so we stepped into an Italian restaurant for some lunch (lunch in BsAs is eaten between noon and 3 p.m.). After some free alcohol, complements of our waiter who wanted to help us "warm up," stuffed spinach and cheese raviolli, and coca lite, we headed to the market.

This market was incredible! Hundreds of little booths were set up selling traditional and contemporary handicrafts. Needless to say, I heard more English spoken in Recoleta at the market than I have in all of BsAs since I´ve been here. It´s okay to be a tourist every now and then.

At the market I searched for the perfect maté cup, but didn´t find one. I think I may just have to suck it up and spend a little bit of money to buy my cup from a place down the street. (Maté is the Argentine national drink made from Yerba (pronounced jsherba) an herb that tastes like overly steeped green tea) Everyone in BsAs drinks mate from these little hollowed out gourds. You pour the Yerba into the mate cup and fill it to the top, turn over the gourd into your hand to knock out the dust, and then pour steaming hot water into the gourd. You sip the water out through a bombilla (prounounced bombeeja) and keep re-filling it until it looses its taste. Traditionally the cup is passed around in a circle as a sign of friendship. It costs about 30 pesos for a decent cup and bombilla. Since it´s so cold here, I´ve been strongly considering purchasing the supplies and a thermos to do like the locals and keep myself warm!

So, after not finding my mate supplies like I´d hoped, I looked around the market. I found a couple of beautiful leather barettes for my mother and sister, but didn´t buy anything else. I´m having a hard time figuring out what to buy for people, or how much money to spend on people, but I´ll work it out! No worries! I did fall in love with this wool pink and black poncho, but it cost 150 pesos (only 50 dollars, but still...). I think I´d like a piece of artwork from BsAs. Something sexy to capture the essence of tango and the latin american love of public displays of affection.

Nicole and I stumbled into a mall in Recoleta where it seems all that was sold was housewares. At least it was warm! We actually came across Felipé, one of our professors, and his wife and daughter. They came in from Uruguay to stay with Felipé. He´s a very attractive man with a handsome family and just very sweet to talk to. In class the other day he paid me a nice complement about being a sociologist. I appreciated it. Annnnyway... after the mall we walked along the Recoleta Cemetary, which I need to go and see some other day, and found a movie theatre. There´s one movie out about the Dirty War in Argentina that I´d really like to see... so I may have to go see that later this week or next.

All in all, today was a good day. I´ve got a lot more I still need to see in BsAs. I´m looking forward to my next weekend already!!!

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