helter skelter, paso a paso

I've experienced some typical Argentine stuff in the past few days. Most of it has been food-related: mate, which is a kind of tea, drunk in a very specific manner. Kind of bitter and green-tasting. I think it's an acquired taste. Decidedly not so: a submarino, which is basically hot (sometimes foamy) milk with a chocolate bar sunk into the middle. With medialunas, which are like croissants, for dipping in. Oh boy. I drooled over that almost as much as I've been drooling over the shoes in the shop windows. Thigh-high snakeskin boots with five-inch stiletto heels, anyone?
Various (somewhat dubious) meats from the asado (barbecue, basically - I'll stop translating things now). Including blood sausage and grilled intestines, neither of which were actually bad but I didn't quite enjoy anyway. Ugh.
Pizza with mozzarella and onions, empanadas, these marvelous cookie things called alfajores, and mountains of dulce de leche. MOUNTAINS. I'm starting to crave vegetables.

I also went to a milonga, which is a tango dance. Only watched, but it was very exciting anyway. Tango is impossibly sexy when done right, and the place it was at was sort of indescribably perfect - this huge dark, smoky, humid space with moody lighting, framed paintings, and a giant red ventricular heart/deflated parachute/wire sculpture hanging from the ceiling over the bar. Oh, and a live band (with an accordion!) at one point. The only US music I heard all night was Ob-La-Di, and that I can't complain about. I'll have to go back and take some pictures. And lessons, por cierto.

Two important words to know when taking the Subte: permiso (excuse me) and perdón (sorry). Rush hour was frightening the first time I witnessed it: people jam themselves into subte cars so tightly that their shirts end up caught in the doors for the whole ride, and you have to make sure you wade over to the door at least a stop ahead or you won't be able to get through the crush in time.

Also, yesterday was a FLACSO overnight trip to Tigre, a delta zone outside the city in Buenos Aires province. I finally got to know some of my fellow Flacsitos. It's been nice to be able to say things more complicated than "It's hot!," or "Can you repeat that?" for a whole day.
Tigre was beautiful, and probably better explained in pictures when I get around to uploading them.

Classes begin on Monday; more reportage presently.
Chao!