Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.
After Office
One thing that they do down here on occasion is called an "After Office" (I am sure there is a Spanish phrase for it that makes more sense). Right after work (around 6 or 7) the office people head to a local pub of gathering place to let off steam, hang out, etc., and then around 9 or so they head home for dinner. This is what I did last night with 7 or 8 of my class that I am training. My coworker had some last minute work he had to get done so he could not join us. At any rate, we piled in the cars and headed to the place where the After Office was going to happen. I really had no idea what to expect and I had initial thoughts of turning down their invitation but they were really wanting me to join them so I came (plus if I did not go, there was the danger of helping my coworker with whatever he had to do). The place we arrived at must have had about 50 pool tables, a small bar, a juke box that played music on very large speakers throughout the entire place and a 6 lane bowling alley. I had a feeling we would end up bowling as the team knew that I used to be a professional bowler. We sat down in a small area that has some couches and the team ordered many large bottles of beers and began to pour them into tall skinny glasses. Now, I am 37 years old and I have never once in my life ever even tasted beer. They could not grasp this concept, that a man in any country could go his whole life without drinking beer even once. After a considerable amount of peer pressure, I let them pour me about 1/3 of a glass (the glasses were quite small). We must have sat there talking and joking for about an hour (this is how long it took me to finish my beer as well - this my be my first and LAST beer!). I talked with several different people including a person who was the national chess champion of the 16 and under division when he was 16. We must have talked about chess for about 20 minutes. Then we decided to bowl one game. It was 4 Pesos to bowl a game and you did not get any bowling shoes like you do in the US. Also, the pins were on strings so that they could not bounce around much when you knocked them down. There were about 10 of us bowling altogether and more beer was ordered (I had had enough at this time still with my 1/3 of a glass). The game took over an hour and I am proud to say that I did win (but not by much). I was also giving some coaching to a few of the people. A coworker that was from Buenos Aires who is staying at my hotel accepted a ride back to the hotel and ended up eating in the hotel restaurant. Not much to report on the food really but the whole night was great. If you had told me 6 months ago that I would be drinking beer, discussing chess, and giving bowling lessons in Argentina, I would not have believed you.
Tour De Cow
Tonight we went to another restaurant that is famous for bar-b-que. I really have given up on what to expect when I go out with the local people here. We arrived at the restaurant a little early for dinner (8:30) but we had some wine (just one glass for me thanks) and some appetizers. We were told that they would basically keep bringing us meat from the open wood grill until we begged the waiters to stop. We started with some kind of salami and also French fries with scrambled eggs (very common down here). There was some bread of course and then started a myriad of meat portions. I must stop and tell you that although the people I am training speak very good English, they do not speak "food" very well so even as they attempt to explain what we are about to eat, it is often still unclear. Tonight was no different as they tried to explain where each piece of meat was on the cow. We started off with some sausages. They decided to make us try everything first before they would tell us what it is we were actually eating. This was a good idea as you will find out in a moment. There was a small wood cutting board like plate in the middle of the table that you shared with the person sitting across from you and the waiter would bring a few small pieces of meat at a time and deposit it on the wood plate. I ate so many kinds of meat I cannot possibly remember them all but I will try. Anyway, there were two kinds of sausages and one looked very different than any sausage I had ever seen. It had a softer texture and (after we tasted it) we were told that it was blood sausage. It was not too bad but I do not think I would ever order it (on purpose anyway). Next came some ribs (I think, again the were pretty much pointing at their bodies and we had to imagine what part of the cow would be the equivalent. A piece or two later we ate what was "the part of the cow that makes the spit." This was a very strange taste and texture but it appeared to be one of their favorite pieces of meat. Later we ate "the part of the cow that is where the urine is kept." They said that this part is very difficult to make as it must be soaked and washed many times to get the taste of what was in it before out. After all this I was ready for anything. The next piece of meat was the highlight of the meal, but not for the taste. I tried a bite and it was very chewy. Then they tried to explain what it was. My host started out by making a hand motion like he was going to tell me something very important. He then started with, "In the human body..." I stopped him right there. This guy was looking in the air like he was attempting to speak the words in the most elegant way possible. I said to him, "wait, if this piece of meat can only be described by you with this type of build up, then I do not want to know." He pressed on, "In the human body, you have the stomach and you have your rear end. This is the part between." You might have had to have been there but as I was attempting to mimic him in his very poetic description to me, we laughed until we cried. After that, it was a running joke to say the part of the cow in the most poetic way possible. After we waved the white flag for mercy we asked the waiter where a good ice cream shop was. Now I was dying with all this meat in me but ice cream did sound good. We stayed at the table for quite a while discussing our favorite movies and our favorite quotes from movies. We eventually left and found the ice cream place and sat and talked for a while there as well and then headed back to the hotel at around midnight.
The last two nights have been incredible. Training is going well too. My US coworker is leaving Saturday night so I will be alone for a few days. Maybe then I can catch up on my sleep as these late nights are killing me.
Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.
Jon
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