Birthday!!

I am officially one year older.

Today was my birthday, and it has been a really nice day!
I was woken up by breakfast on the bed, with champagne and candy
+ 2 gifts from abroad that had been delivered on the door while I was sleeping.
Pancakes with bacon for breakfast (and champagne) followed by a trip to the park
with a gossip magazine, before volunteering teaching English at a soup kitchen,
blowing out candles and eating delicious brownies
and going out for drinks after. NOW I'm 24.

It's been a while since we've blogged, but that doesn't mean we haven't kept busy.
Thursday we went to the movies with a friend and saw Precious. A good, and tragic, happy, horrible, and good movie.
The maid has finally shown up! Since none of us has ever had a maid before we were unsure what to do, so we gave her cake and soda and left so she could clean in peace on Friday.
We've gotten to know Palermo Soho and Palermo Viejo (cool neighbourhoods in BsAs) better (while she was cleaning...and/or eating cake and drinking soda and reading our magazines).
We've discovered that there is a Mate bar (mate is a kind of tea that it appears EVERYBODY in Argentina and sorrounding countries drink) right next door.
We've had choripan (a typical sausage with lots of spices)

with chimichurry (a typical sause/salsa) and now feel more argentine because of it.


We've been to Tigre, which is 1h. outside BsAs..with train it's exactly 4,40ArgPesos/6,60NOK go and come back. It's a nice small city with lots of rivers with boats, and FRESH air, perfect for a Saturday outing. Tigre should be called Buenos Aires instead of Buenos Aires being called Buenos Aires...you know what I mean, don't you?
There were lots of cool markets, and I was really tempted to buy a carneval costume, but it was a wee bit expensive

...so instead I bought an adidas jacket. It will serve for the same purpose as the carneval costume I thought.



We also went to the Mate museum in Tigre, and learned a lot about the history of mate,
and how to prepare it. We now all have our own mate cup with a special straw (called bombilla).
You have to fill the mate cup 3/4 full with the tea leaves, the tilt the cup so that the leaves will distribute at an upwards angle of 45 degrees to one side. Then you add hot water (75degrees) into the side of the cup where the leaves are lowest, till half of the leaves are covered. Then you drink. Then you add more water. And apperantly you continue that way twelve times, and then you change the placement of the bombilla till the other side (where the leaves are highest) and start sipping again.

We all felt that with this we would be able to make it at home and like it (last time I tried it was a failure)...but it just wasn't the same at home as at the museum! Disappointing. But we anyway have lots of new knowledge about Mate, and therefore feel even more argentine.

We also checked out a new restaurant in BsAs on Sunday, known for it's scandinavian cooking, design, atmosphere etc. It's called Olsen (however, it's actually written Ølsen in the restaurant). We were very curious about what to expect, and what we found was a hell of a lot of wood.
The fasade was of wood, the chairs (not very surprising perhaps), the decorations...the pillows had knitted patterns on them, there was an oven with wood in it, the waiters were not very nice...ergo: it felt like home! ahhh...Norway <3
The food did actually taste scandinavian though..whatever that means. Think white sauce, fish, jam on meat etc.

And that brings us to today, Monday, my birthday.
I hope YOU've had a good 1st of March too.
Tomorrow I'm gonna eat brunost (arrived from Norway) for breakfast. Yey.