Saying 'Chau' to Vamos, Tango Concert & a Chorpian

In Argentina, they almost never say "Adios!", it is always "Chau!".  It's one of the main Italian-influenced words here, along with "buenissimo!" which is used basically like how we'd use "great!" in the US.  On Friday I had to say "Chau" to Vamos, where I have been taking lessons every weekday since I've arrived, except for my one week trip to Salta.  I am actually pretty sad about this as I've met nice people and learned a ton, and it's gotten me out of the apartment every morning.  I ended up with a B1 rating on the DELE scale.  DELE is basically the same sort of thing as TOEFL, but is an organization of the Spanish government.  They do regular standardized tests throughout the world to allow people to get certified at a specific level.  I haven't done the test, but in theory I should be able to pass B1 which means that I have "sufficient knowledge of the language to handle situations which require an elementary use of the language".  I think it's probably a fair assessment!  When I return from London in 10 days, I am going to start taking occasional lessons with a private tutor so that I can focus more on my conversational skills.

Sadly, the deficiencies in my Spanish knowledge were very apparent last night, when I went to a tango music concert with my friend Nina.  We didn't know that part of the concert was monologues about the history of women in tango - I picked out words, but really had no idea what the narrator was saying.  Luckily the music was really good and it was in a nice little cafe so we could have a glass of wine and some snacks during the show.  This was my first real cultural outing and I need to do some more for sure.  I will have to do a better job of being a tourist when I am back in town!

The weather here has been absolutely beautiful all week, so today I went off to the south of the city where there is an ecological reserve.  Apparently when they were building up the city, they would dump dirt and debris into the river which created a landfill that is now covered in grasslands.  Unfortunately I decided to walk there from the subte station, which took much longer than I expected, and I was so tired when I got there that I decided to just do a quick walk into the reserve rather than do the full trail.  The reserve is right next to Puerto Madero, which is the former port, and now the modern high-rise development of the city.  I think next time I will take the bus, then rent a bike for a better exploration!

Alongside the reserve is a wide street called the Costanera Sur.  This street is lined with a number of small grill stands selling sandwiches and I decided that I needed to finally try THE sandwich of Buenos Aires - the choripan.  A choripan is just a chorizo sausage (not as spicy as what you'd get in Spain), split lengthwise and grilled, then put on french bread (below photo via google).  Since basically every place offers the same menu I went with the most crowded, figuring that the natives knew best, and it was pretty delicious.  The stand had about 10 bowls of various sauces that you could use to your heart's content - I went with a red pepper one and a mix of tomato and green onions.  I skipped the onion mayo as it was about 80 degrees out and there was no sign of any refrigeration (I am not sure if the concept of health code violations exists here!).  They ask for your name and of course "Molly" caused a lot of confusion - when my order was ready the cashier just yelled "Che, Chica!"  (Hey, girl!).  I am thinking of going by Maria in the future...