Pop Goes My Heart

Hello americanos. Hope you all had a fabulous weekend. I sure did.

Friday afternoon we went to this restaurant we had heard lots about called California Burrito Co. It’s basically Chipotle/Moe’s/Izzos with the build your own enormous burrito bar. Some expats opened it. t was a lovely taste of home. I ate a big ole chicken burrito and loved every tortilla bite of it. We came back home and chilled for a while. I got some coffee. Then we were off for our asado adventure.

Asado is an Argentina barbeque. Being meat obsessed, it’s a big deal here. One of Santa Barbara’s friends lives-lives here. He lives in a real house in a real neighborhood a bit outside of the city. He is fabulous and so nice to help us out when we are confused about how to do things here. It’s always fun to see him in his little Spanish world as he’s probably 6’4 and very American college dude looking yet speaks rapid Spanish and has a real Argentina life. Very Vince Vaughn meets Buenos Aires.

So we take the metro to the train station and the train station to his barrio. Brie’s got her backpack full of our spend the night clothes. This is an overnight adventure. Prepare.

We get to Florida, our destination about an hour of traveling involved. Erik picks us up in his roomies car and takes us to his house. His house is so cool. It looks like a mini Alamo. Very college boy with empty bottles as decorations, black and white rat pack posters, pool table – hello college I’ve missed you.

We met his roommates – one an aspiring actor wearing a batman t-shirt along with a vest, the other a cool lawyer with lots of cool shoes whose mother owns one of the trendy clothing chains of Argentina. Meet Juan and Fede. Hola.

We began our evening playing pool, occasionally helping in the kitchen, downing beer and wine to ease the nerves – the usual. More friends arrived. All are very entertaining. Argentina drinking games ensued – most of the games are universal. Insert inappropriate words for numbers, categories of cuss words, same old same old but enhanced in Spanish. I’m actually glad Federico taught me all of those slang words because I think I may have won a round of the categories game when I surprised everyone with “Used Condom”. Thanks Frederico! The most useful Spanish I know!

Juan had been preparing the asado for a while now. And now it was time to eat. Oh what a feast. Maybe 3 or 4 courses of meat. Real cow. So good. Best not to wonder which part of the cow you’re getting – just go with it. The final part was this pork bacon type thing that is maybe the best thing I’ve ever eaten.

I learned during dinner that my Spanish has a Southern twang. Not a good thing. I was devastated. Stupid Ole Miss. Why why why. Sometimes the Southern thing is endearing - not in this case. I was so sad. But moving on with another glass of wine or 3 and we’re good to go.

To be honest I have no idea what we did all night. I observed, I danced, I consumed. We hung out in the backyard. We played more games. No clue. It was one of those nights you know was probably the most fun you’ve ever had but you have no idea what was going on. Lots of moments when we girls would catch each other’s eye and be like – WTF is going on here!

Eventually things start winding down at say, 4. Some people go home, go to bed. I had caught my second wind and was ready for more. Lucky for me, Juan did too. He sat me down and told me all the things he loves about America and put on a Frank Sinatra dvd. Woo me why don’t you. It was maybe the funniest thing I’ve ever sat through. I tried to keep a straight face but that’s hard to do with old batman saying – America! Such opportunity! I love Frank Sinatra! About 6 Brie came in and declared we were going to bed. Erik lent us his room for the night. We all had a lovely slumber party.

I would have to say the highlight for me was watching this video that Erik and his friends made for one of their friends who just got married. It was a remake of the music video in Music and Lyrics, everyone’s fave Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant romantic comedy, of the 80s song “Pop Goes My Heart”. It was hysterical. About 5 Argentina dudes lip syncing to the 80s tune and dancing and acting and it was amazing. Even more amazing is that I got to see it probably 11 times throughout the evening. Hopefully it makes You Tube soon and I can share it with all of you. Also hoping that Juan’s commercials are there as well.

We awoke quite confused as one does after a fun night. Where are we??.... We giggled and exchanged tales from the night before and went to go wake up Erik so we could get the heck out of there and back to the residencia.

We made it home. Napped. Recovered.

I went on a 3 hour Western Union adventure. Everywhere was closed. I finally found one and got the money my loving family sent. Unfortunately, they would only give me US dollars that I can’t exchange until Monday when the banks open.

We went out to dinner last night at this amazing Italian/Fondue place. We all got homemade pasta. Mine was ravioli filled with broccoli and garlic with a tomato basil sauce. One of the best meals I’ve had here so far. The owner, Jorge, an Italian man, talked to us and recommended dishes, and was so the host with the most. I would love to go back there again.

Quite good eating this weekend come to think of it.
We had amazing cab drivers that night. I can’t recall the name of the, once who took us to dinner but he loved Aerosmith and we sang Love in an Elevator and he told us that his building does not have an elevator so he does not make love in the elevator.
The cab dirvers here are maybe my favorite people. And they always want to talk about the American government or economic crisis or election. I could write a novel on the opinions of cab drivers in Buenos Aires about George Bush.


After we went to our fave ice-cream place. We took lots of pictures in front of Congreso which for some reason was all lit up.

Sunday today was the norm. Spent in Café Martinez eating medialunas, drinking cafe con leche, reading books. I’m a bout halfway through the Kite Runner and a third of the way through my Spanish novel.

Tonight we’re going to see a movie – Noches de Tormenta (Nights in Rodante in English). You can take the girls out of America but you can’t take the desire to see a sappy Nicholas Sparks movie out of the girls.

Hasta luego.

Charlotte (Pronounced Char like charbroil + lot like a lot but with emphasis on the lot. That’s my name here.) CharLOT.






Hola burrito restaurant


















Fiesta fiesta. I'll try to find more pics from this epic night.












Congreso in pink























Hola madre



Putas juntos