The Blog of the Culkin Women: August 5

This was probably my favorite day of the trip. In the morning, we moved from the Hotel Lion D'Or to the wedding hotel, which we decided to slurge on to be part of the wedding scene. Because, you see, everyone in the hotel was going to the wedding. The Hotel Lion D'Or was charming though. Like many of the places we stayed, it seemed like it had a once glorious past and was full of beautiful art deco details, even if our room was small and windowless. It was the one place that didn't include breakfast, so, before our move, we had a tasty breakfast of yes! media lunas and cafe con leche at a little cafe across the street. Both of the hotels were in the Recoleta neighborhood, which was lovely, much more elegant and quiet than our previous quarters in the downtown Microcenter area.

After our move, we went to the Recoleta Cemetery, which was just around the corner. I love visiting cemeteries and this one was amazing--full of beautiful but creepy mausoleums, including one for Evita. It also houses another band of friendly "wild" cats. There was one kitty hanging around in front of Evita's tomb who was beautiful and charming and very vocal and demanding--I thought perhaps Evita's spirit had inhabited her. We spent quite awhile photographing tombs and felines, then checked out the craft fair outside. Unlike many of these fairs, this one was full of things you actually want to buy--elegent scarves and handcrafted silver and leather goods.

The time arrived to begin the wedding festivities. We were invited to a "Thank You For Coming to the End of the World" lunch hosted by the bride and groom at the restaurant Rio Alba, near the race track. We finally got to say hello to Ariana, the bride, and meet the groom, Michael. Then we were seated with Nancy, my old boss and good friend from the NYU archives, and her family, and Dan, another graduate student friend, and his boyfriend. It was nice after a week of touristing in a country where we didn't speak the language to meet people it was easy to talk to.

But on to the food. Neilson and I agree that not only was this the best meal of the trip, it may have be among the best meals of our lives. We started out with platters of olives, cheese and various fatty meat products, followed by salads. Everyone was offered a choice of salmon, chicken, or steak, but our table voted unanimously for steak. Of course! The restaurant is well-known for its excellent service, and our waiter handled carrying out ten large juicy steaks at once with grace. Perfect crispy french fries (plain and with garlic and parsley) then appeared on the table, along with grilled provolone. The grilled cheese, another Argentine speciality, was delicious, although so rich several people mentioned they might be slipping into a food coma. But that was not all--vanilla gelato studded with dulche de leche and topped by nuts ended the meal. And of course there was plenty of wine and mineral water, "con gas" and "sin gas."

Eventually we all rolled out of the restaurant to try and recover from the meal with a walk back to the hotel. Amazingly, people wanted to go out to dinner eventually. We choose a place just across from the cemetery, Munich Recolta, which had walls covered with the heads of various animals and great old waiters who had worked there for years. We retired early to make sure we had energy for the big day to follow.