Mate, Steak and McDonalds

So I've noticed that I walk a ton here, quite literally about 75-100 blocks per day at the very least (40 just for school). I'm not really complaining, it's just rather different for me as I drive when I'm at home and I go to a college where you can get from one corner of the campus to the other in about 5 minutes. This thought really doesn't have some deep meaning, I just thought I'd share that with you.

So to the title of this post "Mate, Steak and McDonalds." Mate is a huge ordeal here, it could be compared to the Native American "peace pipe." It's a drink similar to green tea (well to be honest I think it tastes just like green tea) that is served hot in a special cup that I don't remember the name of. There is a strict process for preparing it and it is shared; meaning you drink all of the mate from the cup, pass it back to the person that refills it (the "servador/a") and then it goes to the next person. That doesn't sound complicated but trust me, it is. Argentinos drink mate as a social activity. While mate is also found in Uruguay (what many people hear seem to call "mini-Argentina"), they drink it cold and each person has their own cup (which isn't necessarily the special cup used here).

When you think of Argentina beef is sure to come to mind. Argentinos eat it quite often. The food here is rather heavy and consisits largely of beef and potatoes. For breakfast you drink coffee (typically a high quality instant coffee if at home yet super high quality coffee is demanded if getting it out somewhere) and eat crackers/cookies with cream cheese. Lunch is eaten around 1 or 2 and is a lighter meal. Argentinos have a light snack around 5 or so then dinner is eaten around 10. In my house dinner always consists of a soup (remember, it's winter here). These soups have been great so far, but I couldn't even begin to tell you what kind of soup they were; nonetheless, they are good. Then comes the meat and potatoes. The first night we had potatoes, some type of roast and some type of grilled meat along with a pickled eggplant type thing. This eggplant is homemade and is supposed to be eaten with meat. It's actually quite good and tastes nothing like pickled things from the US. Last night we had lentils, which are not my favorite food by a long shot; however, for lentils, they weren't bad. For lunch I've had random things. Yesterday I went to a restaurant with two guys from school (one from Texas the other from Holland) and we had a steak, it was great. Here steak isn't seasoned and it grilled to perfection (just fyi, Argentinos tend to eat their beef on the more done side). Here a big "steak dinner" will cost you about 30 pesos ($9-10 US) - and that was in the expensive part of town. Today I went to McDonalds, which is quite a different experience than in the US. It's two huge levels. The first houses a small McD's ice cream stand and a coffee shop, yes it still says McDonald's and everything (it's called McCafe). It looks like any other big coffee shop, with espresso and all. Also on this first floor are modern tables and black leather sofas. Upstairs is the "regular" McDonalds and the menu was about the same as it is in the US. The place was gigantic, about the size of 8 or so McDonalds at home, and yet again, modern-style tables and black leather sofas were everywhere. There were also computers with free internet access. All of this overlooks the Cemetario de la Recoleta (more to come on that in a few) so it even has a nice view. I think that sums up all of my food experiences thus far.