Old Friends
Today we went to breakfast at the spot we had tried to go to earlier in the week, but was closed. Magdalena’s Party is run/owned by an expat and had familiar foods on the menu so we were excited for a bit of that homestyle eating. When we got there the place was completely empty which threw us off a bit because we had passed a bunch of places that were full of people. We’re still a bit off with our breakfast/lunch attempts so we wrote it off to ill timing and ordered. I got the french toast which was great. Michele got a bacon, egg and cheese on a bagel. Bagels are not common in BA, so it was quite the treat for her!
We finished up our meal and were a little surprised to hear that they didn’t serve coffee. What kind of brunch spot doesn’t have coffee? But oh well. It was still an enjoyable experience for me. Michele thought the place was a little weird.
Seeing as we needed our coffee fix for the day, we walked around the corner and stopped at a small café called Mocca Mousse. It was a small, cute, place with red velvet chairs. We enjoyed a quick Café con leche and then headed home.
We had been hoping to head to El Tigre for the day, a spot we had heard about an hour north of the city where you could take boat rides along the delta. Unfortunately we got back from breakfast/coffee a bit too late and we weren’t going to have time to get there and back before our evening plans.
I had made plans earlier in the week with German, an old elementary school friend who had moved back to Argentina after 5th grade. He was a kid who had played on the soccer team that my dad had coached when I was growing up. We had spent a lot of time together at soccer practices, games, and other school activities.
German had reached out to me a few years back on Facebook. Turns out he was, like me, an aspiring musician. He had heard some of the music of The Higher Concept and had messaged me saying he had enjoyed it. A few months ago he saw my post on Facebook about moving to Argentina. When he realized I would be coming to Buenos Aires he hit me up. We had been talking back and forth through the messenger app since Michele and I arrived and decided that we would join him and his lovely girlfriend Karina for asado at their apartment on Friday night.
We had no idea what to expect. It had been 22 years since I had last seen him, but it turned out to by one of my favorite nights of our entire trip. We arrived to their apartment building after a twenty minute cab ride from our apartment and were buzzed in by Karina who came down to let us in. German, she said, was working the parilla (grill). We went up the elevator to their apartment and were greeted with Life’s Good, The Higher Concept song, blasting over their apartment speakers as we walked in. This put a smile on all of our faces and was a great touch!
I went to give him a hug and he tells me, “In Argentina, we kiss.” So we did the double cheek kiss euro-thing. Then he and his girlfriend presented Michele and I with three gifts! A box of yerba maté, a jar of dulce de leche, and a famous candy bar. All three were Buenos Aires specialities! And all we had brought was a bottle of wine!!
German had a very cool set up in the apartment with a live drum set and a keyboard. Outside on their small deck, was an even smaller parilla grill that was already sizzling with some slow cooking meat.
We started off drinking fernet and coke, a local Argentine drink that Don had told us about on our full day tour. “If you’re gonna try it, try it twice” Don had said, “You probably won’t like it on the first try, but you will by the second,” We were a little hesitant at first with this as our descriptor, but German made it so it wasn’t too strong for us and we both actually liked it. ON THE FIRST TRY!!
We chatted about his life after he left America, his family, and old memories from our days playing soccer. He talked about my dad, who he still called ‘coach’, saying how he remembered him as a hero the way he used to punt the soccer balls so high into the air at the end of every practice. It was wild to here him mention this as it is something I remember very fondly from those days as well. It was a tradition I kept up when I coached my younger brother Jordan’s soccer team, years later.
We started off our experience with bread and cheese which, from what we’ve seen so far, seems typical of an Argentinian asado. We moved on to a meat that they call Choripan here. German butterflied it and put it between bread like a sandwich. It is very similar to a hotdog, he explained, but I actually enjoyed it and I am not normally a fan of hotdogs.
We finished the fernet and moved on to the wine, moving from the couch to the table when German declared the meat was ready. Karina served us a nice arugula and cheese salad while German served up some excellent meat. He played me some of his bands latest music and I played him some of the newer THC tracks, as well as some of the True Gentlemen stuff I had been working on as a side project with the very talented singer/guitar/celloist Sam Oh before I left. We lamented over the difficulties of trying to make it in the music industry and the challenges that being in a band for such a long period of time presented.
We learned about Karina’s life as well. How she very impressively had three jobs, working as a psychologist AND a massage therapist in her spare time, and holding down a day job as well. She was a sweet girl and Michele and I really enjoyed getting to know her. We really appreciated the lengths she went to making us feel comfortable in their apartment and speaking english with us for such a long time, even if it gave her a headache :)
After dinner, German pulled out some of the old pics on his phone that his dad had sent him from our days on the soccer field. It was crazy to see us so young. My sister, Ali, was even in the background of one of the pictures.
Karina went into the kitchen then to make us a “surprise” dessert that turned out to be crepes that we rolled up with a dulce de leche spread. They were incredible!!
Eventually we finished both bottles of wine, but the drinking didn’t stop there. German pulled out a big 22 oz bottle of Stella Artois with four glasses and we continued drinking into the night. Around 2 am, Michele was starting to fall asleep on the couch...TYPICAL. They called us a cab and we went home.
What an incredible night and an incredible experience. I wish we had more pictures to show from it, but it’s the sign of a good time that we kept our phones in our pockets all night because we were having so much fun!