Here are some items for consumption in my apartment currently.

1.

I never really have cravings for potato chips, but apparently Max does (This does not extend to sweet potato chips, however. Mmm). These are actually more like rice chips, maybe? You know the sort of light, puffed air, white and orange tinged things that they put in a basket before your appetizer at Thai restaurants? They don’t really taste like anything, except for a hint of fish, and yet they are really addictive? These chips had that texture, if not the flavor. The flavor was sort of a slightly spicy sour cream and onion. My guess would be that even the specialty Lay’s flavors have to use whatever crazy chemicals are already in stock. Kind of like this bizarre experiment, but without the taste bud confusion. Anyway, they weren’t bad, and for less than 3 pesos a bag, I might bump that up to “above average.”

2.

You read that right. Tomato marmelade. Max, who has, in my opinion, an unnatural loathing of tomatoes, thinks this is really excellent. So thus everyone must love it, clearly. It’s sweet, but not too sweet, and tomatoes have the right sort of texture for jams, it seems, as they don’t get too mushy. I suppose you want to know who Don Lorenzo is. I would as well, but am not feeling like researching at the moment. We found it at the Feria de Mataderos, where they had many other marmelades on crackers, and we could have as many as we wanted. And one jar is 5 pesos, two for 9, and three for 13! I really might have to smuggle back several jars, including their dulce de leche, which I have been eating by the large spoonful. Speaking of which…

3.

Bailey’s pales in comparison. This is insanely sweet, creamy, and tasting of caramel, where Irish cream doesn’t really have a distinct flavor. And this bottle, as the label states, is spiked with anise seed, making it slightly spicy and oh, so yummy. You can drink it out of the bottle, but adding a shot of milk turns it into liquid candy. A couple we know jokingly suggested that they give it to their children to help them sleep. I still want to mix it with coffee to make a caramel macchiato type of thing. And there are so many other liquors to try! We got this one at the smaller fair in San Isidro for 12 pesos, and we have to go back soon to get more. Not just the other dulce de leche varieties (with coconut!), but strawberry, peach, limoncello…getting drunk never tasted so good.

4.

Okay, so this isn’t a food, per se, but we have been drinking it with boiling water, so that at least gives it the beverage qualification, right? Anyway, I find the concept really amusing. I mean, imagine the meeting where the executives are discussing this. Aspirin is great and all, but just imagine mixing in some caffeine or vitamin C! Consumers love hybrid products! Just look at peanut butter and jelly in the same jar, ketchup and mustard in the same bottle, the entire corn dog/pigs in a blanket concept! And hey, the idea has endless possibilities. Aspirin and diet pills, aspirin and birth control, aspirin and bubble gum! Apparently the company is just a Bayer subsidiary, but it seems uniquely Argentinian to me. With all the beef, dairy, pork, etc. consumption (usually all at the same time; let’s hear it for the milanesa completa!), a constant intake of aspirin is probably necessary to prevent a massive coronary.

So I haven’t posted anything for awhile, and I don’t want you to think that it is due to laziness. Well, due solely to laziness. Many reasons contributed to my lack of BA updates, such as:

1. I am annoyingly meticulous about what I write, in that I second-guess every word or phrase before writing it. I am doing it right now (I decided against writing, “every word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, etc.” in the last sentence because it seemed redundant and hardly lovable), even as I try to throw caution to the wind and just type what I mean as quickly as possible, before I can go back and erase it. This has been a flaw for me ever since I can remember; I never revise my work, having spent ages on it to begin with. In fact, this flaw combined with procrastination and disgust about the subject matter* resulted in a perfect storm of academic suckitude more than once in college. So from now on, my posts may not be quite as coherent or organized, but at least I will get my thoughts up before I forget the nuances of my experiences here (Grr. That sounded overly pretentious, but I am leaving it alone, damnit!).

*A primary focus of my Comparative Literature major was reading works in their original language. So when one of the books assigned for “Literature and Film of the Cuban Revolution” was a translation from the English version, I thought it pretty ridiculous. The author didn’t even write the Spanish translation, and it seems contradictory to a major theme of the book to read a version in Castellano. So that paper didn’t go so well. Ahem.

2. Our internet in the apartment ranges from barely adequate to completely non-functional for hours at a time. Granted, I could write a post in Word or Pages and then paste the entire thing, but that would be sans the links, photos, clever pop-culture references (heh, I take that one back) that make blogs fun! We have been to various Wi-Fi cafes, but my laptop battery is pretty pathetic (no doubt my fault, as I never bothered to calibrate it). Plus, Max and I take advantage of decent bandwidth to make calls or play games. And the cafes have their own inconveniences, like having to get a new access code every 45 minutes (avoid The Coffee Store for internet, but not for coffee. You have to pay a little extra from a chain to receive something not burnt or weak in Argentina) or waitresses flat-out refusing to help (Via-Via on Chile between Defensa and Balcarce has the bitchiest woman I have ever encountered. I may have to write a post just about her) or networks disappearing periodically. And taking the subway to get to a cafe is a pain in my messenger bag shoulder and taking a cab kicks my bank account in its stomach ulcer that is leaking funds at a horrifying rate and…excuses, excuses. And here’s another one!

3. It is extremely cold in our apartment on normal days, and it has been unbearable lately. Of course, I do feel pretty luck to have been around for this weather anomaly, and the pictures on Max’s site are really lovely. But it is so cold in our living room right now! The radiator works whenever it feels like it, and it is in the upstairs bedroom. Heat doesn’t go down, or so pop science has told me. Our guests may need to bring sub-zero sleeping bags just to survive. And I can’t bring my laptop upstairs for more than hour due to the battery reason mentioned before. I am pretty sure that Max would be upset if I moved the transformer (We may go to see Transformers! aka “Loud Cars Smash Bang Twist Shia” just to get into a warm room for a few hours. Ratatouille, however, was really cute.) to the bedroom and Apple toys are twice as expensive here, so I won’t be buying adapters anytime soon. Hopefully, the Antarctic air will blow away soon, and I will be able to walk around and do something worth blogging about.