Dulce de leche

(Above picture belongs to the last post...I´m sitting in the famed Cafe Tortoni, enjoying a cafe con leche with Chris)

Guest blogger today! Chris is actually typing part of the post instead of making his contribution by reminding me of all the things to blog about. See if you can figure out who blogged what!

Mmmmm...the classic Argentinian sweet. Chris thinks I have overloaded on it as I like to put in on my morning croissant. Think of it like Nutella on a sugar steroid. The various forms we´ve eaten it in: straight out of the jar (ok, put on a croissant), sandwiched between 2 cookies to make a much better Oreo-type of cookie, and ice cream. Oh so yummy. We tried the dulce de leche ice cream from a local chain, Freddo (Italian for frozen). It was pretty good, but if you know us...you know we had to find a small artisanal ice creamery to get the really good stuff. Our search ended at a small place called Nonna Bianca in San Telmo. The ice cream was artery-clogging rich and cavity-inducing sweet, but worth every chilly bite.

Oddly enough, it was just down the street from La Brigada, a Parilla that serves spoon-tender beef, that we ate at earlier in the week. La Brigada, which was an amazing deal in terms of price and good food (the garlic fries were yummy as well!) is so into its beef, that it uses the hide to cover its menus!

Otherwise, it´s been another lazy day, wandering around different areas of the City Center and doing some shopping. I actually regret a little that Buenos Aires is first on the list instead of last because I could have done tons of shopping otherwise and headed home instead of lugging it around with me for 2 months. So, very little shopping. More ogling at all the leather goods. Chris is probably happy about the no shopping though since he gets bored watching me shop.

After finishing up shopping, we meandered over to Plaza San Martin in Retiro to sit on a bench and people watch. It´s a beautiful plaza with plenty of giant shady trees. There´s a little playground in the middle for the niños to monkey around in. We also discovered this hill overlooking part of the plaza where all these people were making out. They sure aren´t shy here! Seriously, winter is just an excuse to lie on top of each other...or stand really really close and keep each others´tongues warm all over the city (on a park bench, at a cross walk, in front of the patrolling policemen, in front of a passed-out-drunk homeless dude...really anywhere). Finally, we saw some suavely dressed dude trying to hawk some knock off cologne/perfume on a couple of American chicas. He was really turning on the South American charm, and they were giggling like Japanese schoolgirls. We were secretly hoping he´d come over try his magical ways on us...but he didn´t.

Now we´re going to head out for a late night dinner and try to party it up like true porteños...well, as much as our geriatric selves can take.