Dinner

Last night I had the best dinner ever. Sorry Mom, but this stuff was just cooked so deliciously. :) Martin picked Ben and I up at, gasp, 10pm for dinner. It was early for he and his wife to eat, and ummmm a little late for us. So it was pretty much a compromise for the two parties. We went to a resturant by the river that had all kinds of pictures and memorabilia up on the walls with the owner posing with all kinds of famous people. That's Argentinian famous, as I couldn't tell who was important in each picture. It made for a great atmosphere though. And there were also some beastly dogs roaming around in the restaurant, which Martin assured us is NOT a cultural difference and not accepted here as well.

As far as I could tell, it was a kind of all you can eat, family style restaurant. I really don't know what exchanges took place between Martin and the waiters, as all I could pick up was him requesting what I wanted to drink. Beer, yum. Did I mention that there is a cerveceria in Santa Fe? Yep, that's a HUGE beer making factory that produces about four different kinds of beer for my consumption. Okay, it probably makes some for other parts of the country too if you want to get down to specifics. Anyhow, the restaurant was perched on the side of the river and specialized in seafood. I think specialized is too vague a term, as all we ate was one platter of fish after another. First we were treated to fish empanatas. (Think of the type of bread that makes up a chicken pot pie and cross that with a hot pocket shaped in a semicircle and fill it with fish!) It was the best empanata that I've had so far. Mmmmmm. Then came little fishy meatballs in a red sauce. They were good, but they fall low on my list from all the other yummy things we had. Then we had a huge fish that looked as if it had just been plucked from the ocean and immediately roasted in the oven with garlic and probably some buttery goodness. It was delicious!!! We each just dug our forks into the fish (which come to think of it probably looked a lot like all those dead ones that line our field site...) and ate the meat from it. Most of us grabbed a chunk, brought it to our plates, and got the bones out of it before bringing it to our mouths. However, this didn't seem to phase Ben who I imagine got at least one bone in every bite which he had to fish out of his mouth before taking in the next bite. Once Ben cleaned off the last bit of meat from this fish, we were brought another, smaller fish that was cut into steaks and fried. Yum again. I was stuffed by that point, but they then ordered another one of the big flat fish. I didn't touch any more of it, but I definitely want to return to that restaurant!

Once we were done, Martin dropped us off at our apartment. By now it was 1am. Mind you, all we did was go to a restaurant and eat dinner. And this is early for Argentina dinner???? I slept well, though woke up every so often to the howling wind which has accompanied us for the past two days. The weather has warmed up quite a lot since arriving. Evidently, it had been raining for two solid weeks before we got here. Add that to the fact that it was one of the coldest winters they've had in a long time, and I don't feel that bad about feeling so cold those first few days. I no longer need my down jacket as much, but it is certainly very comfy in inclimate weather!

Even though I took a nice nap after work today, I think I need a bit more shut-eye before more work tomorrow. Oh, and just to give you something to do... try to estimate the amount of feathers both inside and then outside the nest cup using this picture. That's pretty much all I can see when I have to do the same. Yeah... I don't imagine the stats on this count are going to be too reliable.