Episode 14: What does BA have that the UK does not - part one: the good

To celebrate (?) having just passed spending three months here, I´m going to give a quick outline of the top 5 differences that come to mind between my two longest places of residence.

1) Dulce de Leche          ★★★★The staple of Argentine pastries, alfojores(!) and general deserts. It is, i guess, a form of caramel - but eat it and suddenly you lose control of your mouth. Its a browny gooey gloop of goodness.





2) Mate     ★★★The national drink of Argentina. Very old fashioned, sort of like tea without the bag. Made with various weird drinking etiquette's, you drink it out of a small hollowed out pumpkin (although most people have glass ones these days) via a sieve/straw. Tastier served bitter (in my opinion) and only misses out on more stars because coffee is still better to wake you up and that one of the drinking etiquette's is that you cant clean the straw passing from person to person.





3) Dancing          ★★★★In the parties/clubs here, dancing has more rythmn and isnt just people blindly moving around like it is back in the UK. In fact, I thought that was the only way of doing it until I got here and immediately realised I that when it came to dancing I...well... just couldn´t. However, having taken some (incredibly popular) classes, it's all the more fun now when it comes to the dancefloor.





4) Truco      ★★★★★What a brilliant card game this is. Whilst I won´t even try and describe the rules, it´s a card game that is similar to poker in that you can win with bad cards depending on your skill - but that it doesnt take 1000 years to finish a game/ tournament. Once you've gotten your head around the rules, you´re hooked






5) Meat ★★★★★It actually deserves a 6th star. As far as meat goes, its the best and cheapest I've had the world over. Juicy and suculent, you end up piling up the cholesterol without even noticing. The only annoying thing is that for some reason, even though they clearly have no shortage of cows, leather products are still very expensive. In fact, for every one pair of leather shoes i could have around 19 (no joke) six hundred gram fillets of beef. maybe explains the fact i haven't bought any yet...


Notable Exceptions.
The people ★★★★

Friendly and outgoing, but can also be sneaky and/or emotional. Either way, makes life more interesting, especially because they talk so much that you rarely actually have to say anything. There is also no censorship or shame with speech, so for example all swearwords are kept in the songs on the radio and people often spout rude  phrases whatever the weather. Talking of the weather - it will, perhaps contraversially, come up next time (see end)


The ice cream ★★★★★

From Persico to Freddo, oooohhhhhhhh its good.

Football fans    n/a

Men women, children and babies - everyone has a team. Football is also wildly popular back home, so it doesn't get any stars here. For my only impression of a game so far, and to see how mental is it, see here

Episode 15: What does BA have that the UK does not - part two: the bad