Cena Fiesta y Never go to Boca ala Noche

Wow, what a week. There hasn't been a moment to sit here and tell you all about it. Mi novio DL arrived a week ago--a completely impromptu visit from the land of Healdsburg and it was a delightful visit. While the mosquitoes dined on the fresh new blood from California (they had already tired of ours) Chrissie and I quickly trained Dan on the on the ways of BA--sleep late, Nucha breakfast, espanol classe (we sent him off to different assignments during our classe), cocktails, dinner, maybe more cocktails and then maybe sleep. It was wonderful.

Even more wonderful was our most memorable meal in BA thanks to Lucia International. Dan cooked a delish meal for our espanol profesora, Angeles, and Chrissie's friend from London/Australia, Anthony. What an amazing night of many accents, many views and the fantastico experience of our global world realized around a mesa of comida y laughter.

Our espanol professora started us off with a yummy bottle of Argentinian champagne that Dan paired with a bright crostini of peppers and olives. We then sat down to the traditional Argentinian Lomo (bife tenderloin) atop a "San Telmo" potato cake, topped with an amazing pepper/tomato/fennel sauce.

It was truly our best meal in BA. The lomo melted in our mouths, the potato pancake was both local and international, the sauce tantalized our tongues. It was remarkable, as were the bottles of wine--malbec, cab, and a chardonnay that was oaky but tangy. We ended the evening with the best helados in the world topped with macerated strawberries. Que lindo! We were up until 3:30--a record for us in the town that parties until 8am.

Stories speak louder than the written word. Please forgive our amateur filming, but it was really a great time. Enjoy the video below, but please do read on for the next night's adventure that again kept us up and atom until 3am!

La Boca A La Noche

OK, so we did what every guidebook, every local, every tourist tells you not to do: We went to La Boca at night, and we went there on a Friday night, and we went there for a Boca Junior's futbol game...perhaps the riskiest of all. The bad news is that we don't have any photos as proof of our attendance of a Boca futbol game, the good news is that we lived to tell the story.

8pm Friday night: Dan and I are napping after a long day of shopping and late lunching; Chrissie arrives home from class after a few hours of shopping.

"Did you get my text?" Says Chrissie. I tell her--No text received.

Breaking news: The Boca Juniors game we hoped to attend Sabado dia was actually tonight, in 1 hour 15 minutes.

Reponse: I wake up Dan, we conference and we all agree, let's give it a go.

Action: Stripped down to jeans and jumpers (no makeup and no jewelry) we go downstairs to grab a cab. Three times we ask, each cabby shakes their head furiously, which means NO WAY I"M NOT TAKING YOU TO THE BOMBONERA STADIUM FOR THAT MAD HATTER OF A FUTBOL MATCH. But they tell us we can take the bus.

Result: So we do. We have no idea where we're going, but we brazenly take our first bus ride directly to Boca Bombiera Stadium. One bus that passes us is rocking with music, rowdy fans and arms out the windows. Old women in the bus are rolling their eyes but we are getting more excited.

We have no idea how to get into the stadium without a ticket, but we do (those of you willing to ask how to scalp a ticket for a boca game can email Chrissie separately, she'll have a story complete with switchblade and back alleys). It was risky, but it was worth it and we had an amazing time. The fans were screaming, playing loud brass and drums, and shaking the entire stadium. We went along with it all (sans the cursing, well, maybe a bit of that but in English vs the espanol Puta puta puta). We did this all from way up in the nose bleed section where we were told, by the chico who sold us our "entrance" that we "could sit anywhere." Low and behold this was not true as we sat right in someone's season ticket seats. He was kind, we apologized and we eventually found seats of our own. It was an unforgetable evening. When they put three mnutes on the clock at the end and the score was Boca 1, Estudiante's 0, Lucia predicted, "a lot can happen in three minutes." And sure enough it did--the game ended in a tie 1-1. We made it home safely, managed a few cocktails at our favorite local Bar Danzon, and hit the hay by 3:30am. Muy fantastico!