Food, Arts and Armed Forces

Despite missing teeth, we went out yesterday. Had a very nice dinner at aforementioned Mercado Central. I had the ultimately perfect Churrasquitos c/ various Cazuelas and liked the Chimichurri best. As I went for a 14km run in the morning (i.e. ran 6km, walked the rest... :) ...) I certainly had to catch up with my protein. Had a perfect Bavaroise for a desert and a Cynar Julep to adequately finalize our dinner.

While we were having our dinner Gabriela Beltramino Borré's very own Gabriela Beltramino Swing Trio played. Perfect evening. Went for a little chat with her afterwards. Gifted singer and very nice person as well. Gorgeous... (the video is not exactly her with the Swing Trio, but at least you get a first impression of her singing voice)

Went to meet Jorge, Sergio and the other guys at Los Infernales for a Peña afterwards. As Mercado Central is actually a more posh place for - I'd say - grown-ups, we were appropriately dressed up for the dinner: proper shoes, shirt, suit jacket (... and yes, you have to leave the first three of your shirt buttons unbuttoned to be properly dressed as a man in Argentina, even if your chest is hairless like mine...). Los Infernales on the other hand is more a student type of bar. Lots of very young people there; tables and chairs all over the place. And us in our slightly overdressed evening outfit. Felt slightly misplaced. But what do you do, if you are overdressed? Get rid of the suit jacket, roll up the sleeves, put your elbows on the table and order a beer...

Had a very interesting discussion with Jorge, who is a high ranking officer in the Argentine UNFICYP regiment (as I never joined armed forces in Germany, I do not have the slightest clue of military ranks, so I can not tell you about this). The interesting thing about the UNFICYP is, that the majority of the troops are British (!) and Argentine (the difference between both regiments is only very few soldiers as of now). That is quite a strange situation if you think about Las Islas Malvinas and ongoing problems between Argentina and UK. But he took it all very professionally. And apparently there are no problems between Argentine and British forces in Cyprus whatsoever. Malvinas were a job and Cyprus is a job. I was actually very impressed even though I am a pacifist at heart and never touched a gun. All in all he is a very nice chap, who was traveling a lot due to his being with the Argentine forces. Spoke a perfect English and a really good German as well.