Under a very hot sun, with only a slight breeze from the oceanfront just a few feet away, my good sister-friend from Rapa Nui and I were looking at the various stalls set up along the oceanfront, in conjunction with the TAPATI annual celebrations.
Let us have an Empanada, the snack cum meal of Rapa Nui usually with thick chunks of Tuna (which her husband may have helped fish!). She led me to AHI AHI, one of the three or four restaurants sitting side by side.
Rapa Nui attracts tourists like bees to honey, and all restaurants seem to be full all the time and the waitresses are usually chilean casual workers, usually young men and women, taking some time off to see the world.
I noticed the waitress, assumed her to be Chilean, and watched with astonishment as she juggled orders, service and at the same time managed to keep some sort of composure.
My sister friend said hello to her as she came over to our table and she ordered empanadas for us and a hamburgesa for her pregnant daughter in law.
These offerings are rather large and one can barely eat ONE empanada or the large hamburgers.
we had a lot to chat about and when we finished the young lady came over and took our money.
That is how I met Micaela.
We were about to leave when my sister friend casually mentioned, she is not Chilean but Argentine. Of course, that spiked my interest. At one time Buenos Aires was my favourite city and had a great time exploring it, various famous cafes and restaurants and the usual sight seeing and meeting up with old and new friends. It also happens to be the place where my close friend from Cuba, a brilliant psychiatrist lives.
I called her over, Micaela is from the BA provinces and was here for a while, after graduating with a degree in Tourism. The usual question to me, where are you from and I said: I am Australian but I live in Cuba. She jumped with joy as Australia was her next destination. We spoke briefly and excitedly and I promised to help her in the search for a good place in Australia to live and work. Australian government has a programme for young people to come and work in the country and perhaps even migrate there, as long as they can speak English well, have an university degree and can contribute to Australia.
I mentioned to her that I would be in Buenos Aires in a few weeks time, alas, a couple of weeks short of her return to the Port City. Then she said, I have a close friend there, who is also thinking of going to Australia, her name is Ana, and then gave me details, assuring me that Ana would like to meet me and perhaps even help me with my tourism needs in Buenos Aires.
We said good bye hoping that I would meet this young woman from the Argentine countryside again, at least I would be able to give her some advice about Australia, the brown land that rounded up my personality.
After Rapa Nui, I went back on a tortuous route to Havana and then Miami and began the second part of this trip, at first to Mexico City, then to Montevideo of Mario Benedetti and now to Palermo of the city which had captured my imagination many years earlier.
Ana and I met at a coffee shop Lattente, in Thames Street, reputed to serve some of the best coffee in BA. I requested Colombian beans and a cortado which is like a macchiato with a little bit more milk, similar to our beloved Cortadito in Cuba.
The young lady poured the coffee but there was no sugar in sight. You dont need it, you would enjoy it without sugar. Sure enough the flavour of the coffee was such that I had forgotten my sugar addiction to coffee, a gift of my island, Cuba.
Recent studies of my own MICROBIOME had revealed that I must cut down on sugar and sugary substances and I was going to listen to my microbiome.
I am in Argentina, close to Uruguay and Southern Brasil where the MATE drink was born and cultivated. The herbal tea, which the Indians drank for its many purposes added with medicinal herbs is a bitter tasting concoction which is mixed in a hand held pot which is called MATE and stirred with a BOMBILLA. I plan to drink MATE and cut down on my Coffee with Sugar. In Rapa Nui I saw raw pure STEVIA (beware of Stevia sold in the USA it is adulterated with corn sugar), which I hope to obtain to curb the moments of nostalgia for that Ethiopian bean with such a pungent and delicious taste packing caffeine.
Ana soon came and I mentioned about MATE and she being from the provinces of Argentina, knew one or two things about MATE. Next door to the cafe was a shop, manned by a young man who looked an argentine from the NorthWest, and we spent a while looking at various MATE and bombillas and I decided to buy them, and I had already stocked up with a special MATE from Uruguay (Uruguayans think that MATE is their national drink and that Argentines just copied them).
We had a nice chat as we walked around the delightful streets, many of them paved, of Palermo. We stopped at a Creperie, and it was good to see the crepes being made, and thought of the fond moments, hundreds of times, that I had eaten at Creperies in their native land, Bretagne in France.
Argentina like Uruguay is a carnivore country and if you want to eat vegetables, you are in a bit of a quandry. I ordered a crepe with spinach, aubergine and cheese and watched as the young man poured out the wheat mix on the round plate and smothering it with his ladle to make the crepe.
Ana and I continue to talk, I had made small talk with the workers at the cafe before. When I ordered the crepe, they asked what name, Ana, she said and when they announced Ana, i went up to them, and said, I am Ana, and we all had a laugh.
I enjoyed my crepe especially the crunchy feeling of the spinach leaves and the berenjina (aubergine).We continued our chat and we heard the name Ana announced again, but we were not waiting for anything. A few minutes later, the friendly waiter with whom i had laughed moments earlier,
came over with a Dulce de Leche crepe, and said: someone
with the name of ANA had ordered a dulce de leche crepe but no one picked it up. Since I had announced that I was Ana, they thought it fit to offer it to me.. nice gesture. Ana who was with me, relished her dulce de leche crepe and i tasted the familar taste of dulce de leche.
We walked around Palermo once more and a few minutes later said good bye.
I told her about Australia and once again stressed about the importance of speaking English properly if she is going to work in Tourism industry in Australia.
A recent BBC article had stressed the importance on spending time each day when you are learning a new language. and the authors recommended that half an hour with a native speaker PER day will allow you to achieve fluency in the language within one year if it is a class 1 easy language or class 4 difficult language. I am trying to improve my French at this moment, which is considered class 2 difficulty for an English speaker, but not spending enough time speaking to native speakers, but try to read Le Monde Diplomatique when it arrives on my Inbox.
But my next destination is France..
with my MATE y BOMBILLO and Yerba Mate in my hand..
Let us have an Empanada, the snack cum meal of Rapa Nui usually with thick chunks of Tuna (which her husband may have helped fish!). She led me to AHI AHI, one of the three or four restaurants sitting side by side.
Rapa Nui attracts tourists like bees to honey, and all restaurants seem to be full all the time and the waitresses are usually chilean casual workers, usually young men and women, taking some time off to see the world.
I noticed the waitress, assumed her to be Chilean, and watched with astonishment as she juggled orders, service and at the same time managed to keep some sort of composure.
My sister friend said hello to her as she came over to our table and she ordered empanadas for us and a hamburgesa for her pregnant daughter in law.
These offerings are rather large and one can barely eat ONE empanada or the large hamburgers.
we had a lot to chat about and when we finished the young lady came over and took our money.
That is how I met Micaela.
We were about to leave when my sister friend casually mentioned, she is not Chilean but Argentine. Of course, that spiked my interest. At one time Buenos Aires was my favourite city and had a great time exploring it, various famous cafes and restaurants and the usual sight seeing and meeting up with old and new friends. It also happens to be the place where my close friend from Cuba, a brilliant psychiatrist lives.
I called her over, Micaela is from the BA provinces and was here for a while, after graduating with a degree in Tourism. The usual question to me, where are you from and I said: I am Australian but I live in Cuba. She jumped with joy as Australia was her next destination. We spoke briefly and excitedly and I promised to help her in the search for a good place in Australia to live and work. Australian government has a programme for young people to come and work in the country and perhaps even migrate there, as long as they can speak English well, have an university degree and can contribute to Australia.
I mentioned to her that I would be in Buenos Aires in a few weeks time, alas, a couple of weeks short of her return to the Port City. Then she said, I have a close friend there, who is also thinking of going to Australia, her name is Ana, and then gave me details, assuring me that Ana would like to meet me and perhaps even help me with my tourism needs in Buenos Aires.
We said good bye hoping that I would meet this young woman from the Argentine countryside again, at least I would be able to give her some advice about Australia, the brown land that rounded up my personality.
After Rapa Nui, I went back on a tortuous route to Havana and then Miami and began the second part of this trip, at first to Mexico City, then to Montevideo of Mario Benedetti and now to Palermo of the city which had captured my imagination many years earlier.
Ana and I met at a coffee shop Lattente, in Thames Street, reputed to serve some of the best coffee in BA. I requested Colombian beans and a cortado which is like a macchiato with a little bit more milk, similar to our beloved Cortadito in Cuba.
The young lady poured the coffee but there was no sugar in sight. You dont need it, you would enjoy it without sugar. Sure enough the flavour of the coffee was such that I had forgotten my sugar addiction to coffee, a gift of my island, Cuba.
Recent studies of my own MICROBIOME had revealed that I must cut down on sugar and sugary substances and I was going to listen to my microbiome.
I am in Argentina, close to Uruguay and Southern Brasil where the MATE drink was born and cultivated. The herbal tea, which the Indians drank for its many purposes added with medicinal herbs is a bitter tasting concoction which is mixed in a hand held pot which is called MATE and stirred with a BOMBILLA. I plan to drink MATE and cut down on my Coffee with Sugar. In Rapa Nui I saw raw pure STEVIA (beware of Stevia sold in the USA it is adulterated with corn sugar), which I hope to obtain to curb the moments of nostalgia for that Ethiopian bean with such a pungent and delicious taste packing caffeine.
Ana soon came and I mentioned about MATE and she being from the provinces of Argentina, knew one or two things about MATE. Next door to the cafe was a shop, manned by a young man who looked an argentine from the NorthWest, and we spent a while looking at various MATE and bombillas and I decided to buy them, and I had already stocked up with a special MATE from Uruguay (Uruguayans think that MATE is their national drink and that Argentines just copied them).
We had a nice chat as we walked around the delightful streets, many of them paved, of Palermo. We stopped at a Creperie, and it was good to see the crepes being made, and thought of the fond moments, hundreds of times, that I had eaten at Creperies in their native land, Bretagne in France.
Argentina like Uruguay is a carnivore country and if you want to eat vegetables, you are in a bit of a quandry. I ordered a crepe with spinach, aubergine and cheese and watched as the young man poured out the wheat mix on the round plate and smothering it with his ladle to make the crepe.
Ana and I continue to talk, I had made small talk with the workers at the cafe before. When I ordered the crepe, they asked what name, Ana, she said and when they announced Ana, i went up to them, and said, I am Ana, and we all had a laugh.
I enjoyed my crepe especially the crunchy feeling of the spinach leaves and the berenjina (aubergine).We continued our chat and we heard the name Ana announced again, but we were not waiting for anything. A few minutes later, the friendly waiter with whom i had laughed moments earlier,
came over with a Dulce de Leche crepe, and said: someone
with the name of ANA had ordered a dulce de leche crepe but no one picked it up. Since I had announced that I was Ana, they thought it fit to offer it to me.. nice gesture. Ana who was with me, relished her dulce de leche crepe and i tasted the familar taste of dulce de leche.
We walked around Palermo once more and a few minutes later said good bye.
I told her about Australia and once again stressed about the importance of speaking English properly if she is going to work in Tourism industry in Australia.
A recent BBC article had stressed the importance on spending time each day when you are learning a new language. and the authors recommended that half an hour with a native speaker PER day will allow you to achieve fluency in the language within one year if it is a class 1 easy language or class 4 difficult language. I am trying to improve my French at this moment, which is considered class 2 difficulty for an English speaker, but not spending enough time speaking to native speakers, but try to read Le Monde Diplomatique when it arrives on my Inbox.
But my next destination is France..
with my MATE y BOMBILLO and Yerba Mate in my hand..
