Asado

One night in Argentina, my parents, Lexi, and I left for an exciting class about the wonderful art of Tango. The Tango dance had its roots in the late 19th century. Immigrants to Argentina would make songs about a few things, mostly homesickness. These songs eventually formed a dance, called the milonga, a dance centered around the embrace. Milonga slowly evolved into the tango dance we know today, with influence from Europe. This dance was taught to us in four forms, some easier to learn than others.

Learning to Tango

After a good couple hours mastering the dance (we’re not much better at it now than before we started) we had a traditional Argentine meal. Steaks and sausage and blood sausage were the food of the evening, as we talked with our hosts. Two of them, cousins, had Italian immigrants to Argentina in their ancestry, and the third was a Romanian woman who’d met her Argentinian husband while learning in a European dance school. After that amazing night, the group was taken to a tango place, while I was taken home and slept the night away.

Exploring one of the most famous neighborhoods in Buenos Aires, La Boca.

My family and I have been in Buenos Aires for a few days. Our biggest reasons for doing this are to escape the summer heat of Texas and so that I can improve Spanish. Here is a short record of our time so far.

With the Italian influence in Argentina, many delicious pizzas can found!

Here in Buenos Aires, we’ve already formed our routines. Before I started my Spanish school, we’d always go to a new neighborhood each day. One night, my dad and I went to a neighborhood called Palermo-Soho, a smaller neighborhood in the Palermo neighborhood. We ate really good pizza, then walked around a plaza called Plaza Armenia. We found a really good milkshake place, and then went home. After my Spanish school started, our routine changed. At 4p, dad comes home from work, and he takes us somewhere new. One time, he took us to a cafe with a long history for dinner, La Poesía, then another for dessert. He really knows which places are cool.

Milkshakes at a diner in the 1950’s American style

One of the best things about Buenos Aires, specifically San Telmo, where we’ll be for the month, is the nearby market. It has so much good food! My favorite is the ever-abundant empanadas, pockets of bread stuffed with various ingredients, baked to perfection. Multiple places sell them, and I love them so much I could eat them three meals a day.

Another thing we’ve done in Buenos Aires is go to a book store called El Ateneo Grand Splendid. It was a remodeled opera house, so, naturally, it is an amazing, beautiful book store. Walking through the front archway into this massive, elegant space with a giant mural on its ceiling is quite a sight. It has a great cafe, too, and its desert was thoroughly enjoyed.

One time on a Thursday and Friday we went to a small town called San Antonio de Areco. Our stay there centered around a nearby ranch called El Ombú. We rode horses, ate a traditional meal consisting of various meats call “asado”, and experienced a beautiful song and dance. Riding horses through the beautiful Argentine countryside, locally called La Pampas, was quite an experience.