MATE, the national obsession

Mate (pronounced mah-tay). It is both the container and the drink, though the actual stuff that goes into the little mate cup is called yerba. I heard it once described as what green tea and grass would taste like if you put them together. That’s about right. I liked it. Our hosts, Cynthia and Ernesto treated us to mate on our first afternoon, and it is an afternoon ritual in Argentina and even more so in Uruguay, across the Rio Plata.

This is me fakin' it.  We did have mate
 with our hosts, however.

It goes like this. Dry yerba is placed at about a 45 degree angle (if possible) into a mate. Then a very small amount of hot water – never boiling – is poured into the mate by the host. He gives the mate to one person who drinks all of it through the silver metal straw called a bombillo, and then passes it back to the host, who adds a bit more hot water and then passes it to the next person. This continues until everyone has had a drink, all sharing the same bombillo. (Kinda like passing a joint.) The bombillo is flattened at the mouth end and has one type or another of filter attached to the end down in the cup in order to keep the yerba from clogging it. Never stir or move the bombillo once it has been put into the mate.

I’ve seen people here carrying a thermos of hot water and a mate cup and drink as they “need” to in the afternoon and saw two guys on the subte (subway) passing the cup and a family at a park sharing the drink.
More info:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_%28beverage%29

Buenos Aires – Observations

3 apples, 2 bananas = 91 cents; apples cost from $1 – 1.50 per kilo or 45-68 cents a lb.

Subway (Subte) ticket = 1.10 pesos or 28 cents; bus ticket maximum is 1.25 pesos or 32 cents.

Buses are very, very frequent, and are run privately, not by the city.

Do you want to park on the street? At a meter it’ll cost you 1.40 pesos (or 35 cents) per hour. Choose a lot and it could go to $2.50 an hour.



Need gas? 3.23 pesos/litre or 82 cents = @ $3.25 gallon. No bargain there.



Mothers Day with reflection



A café con leche is around $2.00, with three medialunas $3.00. A medialuna is shaped like a croissant, but smaller and more bread-like.

Mothers’ Day is this Sunday (Oct. 17) here in Argentina!



Every restaurant that we’ve eaten in so far has had leather placemats, some with the restaurant name embossed on them. Use those cows!

Remember when you learned that double l (ll) is pronounced “y”, so parilla is pronounced "pariya"? Well, forget about it. Here the double l is pronounced “sh”, so you eat at a “parisha”.

And they don’t speak Español. They speak Castellano, which, obviously, is pronounced “Casteshano” in Argentina.

No one says “Buenos dias.” They all say “buen dia,” which, of course, makes all the sense in the world.  (Good days - with an s?  Where did that come from?)