The Argentine Experience

Friday:
Mornings are always slow here because we get back so late and sleep til so late. I ended up sitting in my bed until we had to go to a speaker at 4 in the afternoon...
We had a speaker to give us some historical background about Argentina and here are a few key facts to remember:

1. 40 million people live in Argentina 
2. 40 percent of all of the people of Argentina live in buenos aires 
3. Second largest country on the world 
4. Public education and Health Care are free 
5. Two main holidays- May 25th and July 9th
6. Argentine gauchos- symbol of everything good Argentinian 
7. Pena- dancing and drinking , better than other tango because there are not strict codes and you don't need to be good at dancing 
8. 2% of the population acknowledge themselves as natives of Argentina 
9. Sports- soccer boca juniors and river plate teams - maradona is measuring stick compared to messi
10. Martin del potro best tennis player
11. Manu Ginobilli
12. Tennis basketball rugby are the main sports
13. Religion- only country in the region with no religion in the census but 76% catholic 
14. Largest Jewish communities in the world but only 1% of Argentina 
15. New pope from Argentina was the archbishop of Argentina 

Realllly random facts but that is all I could remember.

After this pretty boring lecture I went to the gym as a now full four month member of well club. It was a quick turn around because dinner was actually at 8:30 a pretty early time for Argentina! But of course in Argentina it did not start until 9:30. We went to a place called "The Argentine Experience" which is a closed restaurant and you must reserve a spot to be able to go. We went with our program on "students night" where they wanted to teach us some traditions of Argentina!

They gave us a Mate Juice as we walked in and changed into our chef outfits.

The table

Empenadas are one of the most famous dishes of Argentina. They look kind of like a dumpling and many different types of food can be put inside and depending on what is inside it is shaped differently!

All the kinds of Empanadas and their shapes

The ingredients we put in ours- beef stew, grilled veggies, caramelized onions, and mozzarella cheese

The outside of the Empenada

Making my empanadas!

Mine were strictly veggie...typical

So Skilled

There was a contest for who could be the most creative with their empenadas and this was my creation...

With our Empanadas they served us other amazing dishes!

Some sort of Sausage

Chimichuri- famous sauce of Argentina

Mashed Potatoes

Incredible grilled veggies

My cooked Empenada- Turned out better than I expected!

After a hearty meal we tried an important Argentinian tradition: MATE. It is a tea drinking ritual that usually accompanies most meals. At the end of the meal a group of people will all share a cup of mate. It is tradition for one person to be the water pourer and to pass the tea to a person who finishes the entire cup and gives it to the next person. 

The mate cup

The tea leaves

The straw that filters the tea

You put as much tea leaves so that the entire cup is full of tea and then pour luke warm- not boiling- water

It is extremely bitter and I really disliked it but I am glad I got to try something traditional!

For dessert we made our own alfajores- Argentina’s national sweet, where biscuits, dulce de leche, melted chocolate fondue, and coconut shavings combine to delight the senses.

The ingredients

Dulce de leche

dunked in coconut shavings

Dipped in chocolate

and YES it did taste as good as it looked. 

It was a great night spent learning about Argentine food and some aspects of their culture!