A Park Day... Argentinean style.

El Bolson, Argentina

March 14, 2007
S 41°57.942
W 071°32.091

There are things we miss about home such as friends and family, but we have done our best to stay in close contact through our blog updates, emails and the occasional phone call. We’ve realized most of the things we miss are the small things; not our home, bed, clothes, TV, stereo, and definitely not our jobs. Instead we miss coffee at Trieste, “park days” in Washington Square, Giordano Brother’s sandwiches and live-music (especially Marc), and a good breakfast.

We realized today we haven’t had a real breakfast since we left at the end of January. We’ve had some nice breakfasts with fruit, granola, juice, coffee and bread/pastries, but no O’Reilly’s Irish breakfast. We decided we really wanted some bacon and eggs… a real Americano breakfast.

We were quickly lured into a place boasting Desayuno Americano—exactly what we were looking for. The breakfast included café con leche, eggs, juice, toast with butter and local jam, ham and bacon. It sounded hearty and it was… it was everything we haven’t had since our last breakfast at O’Reilly’s (minus a perfect pint of Guiness). We walked out of the restaurant, completely satisfied, and good for at least another six weeks.

Sometimes when you are on vacation you do things you wouldn’t normally do at home. This might include hitchhiking, eating ice cream (twice a day), or buying homemade beer from a complete stranger in the park. We haven’t tried the hitchhiking yet. However, we’ve definitely had our share of ice cream including flavors like banana split, cassis, dulce de leche, coconut, dulce de leche con brownie, cherry, and countless other flavors that are still a complete mystery. But today we tried our first homemade beer purchased from a stranger in the park.

Marc received an email from Mike recently mentioning opening day of Washington Square Park 2007 in our San Francisco neighborhood. This was the one thing Marc knew he would miss from home, and after hearing from Mike we did our best to create our own opening day in El Bolson. The main parque, which hosts the craft faire on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, sits in the middle of town and usually has a fair number of characters roaming around. Similar to Washington Square, but not nearly as entertaining… there was no sign of a Moving Man, no Earl with his guitar, no Crazy Tom, no Fat Bum Guy, and the smell of marijuana wasn’t floating in the breeze. We still packed up the “park backpack,” South American style, with our mate, thermos, camp-stove (to boil water for tea), a few snacks, our radio (damn, no Giants games) and had our own park day in El Bolson.

After sitting down and getting comfortable we were offered a Cerveza Artenenal. The vendor, a long haired Argentinean hippy in need of a hot shower, was walking around with his Styrofoam ice chest. He politely explained (in Spanish and broken English) that he brewed and bottled the one liter bottles of beer himself and it was all organic. Marc politely declined, but something about the beer, and all the beer in the area, intrigued me. I suggested we try it…what the heck. I was fairly confident that it wasn’t laced with LSD, or spiked with a date rape drug… but if it was it would have been an even a better story. Plus, how could we go too far wrong for seven pesos ($2.25 USD). The bottle was sealed and he popped off the cap right in front of us. The ice-cold beer was terrific and another example these people treat the brewing of beer as a true art form. The only request from our vendor was to leave the bottle on the grass when we were finished. He collects the bottles at the end of the day and reuses them.

As we were getting ready to leave the park, we saw the vendor selling a bottle to a young couple next to us. They seemed skeptical, so we encouraged them to give the beer a shot. The vendor came by for our bottle; we told him to continue his art with a muy bueno and muchas gracias. He thanked us and seemed to have a genuine smile of satisfaction on his face as he walked away.

Both breakfast and our “park day” provided us a sense of normalcy in a time when we have a new place to stay every 2-4 nights. El Bolson is definitely a town where we can relax, at least for a few days. We’re still going to miss the small things, but with days like today it will help us miss them less.