Cafe Tortoni, Comedy & La Manzana de las Luces

Yesterday after class a group of decided to go to Cafe Tortoni.  Apparently this place opened up in 1858 and has been open ever since.  The inside still looks like it could have been in 1858 and the waiters greet you in tuxes.

In reality you are paying for the history and ambiance.  The coffee wasn't spectacular and the churros were average.  The waiter was really nice and spoke some English and tried to interact with us pretty well.  If nothing else, I can say that I did it.

After the trip to Cafe Tortoni I made arrangements to eat dinner and head to a comedy show with a local and a friend.  We first met up at his apartment and I was amazed by the size of his balcony.  It was a private balcony almost as big as the whole apartment.

View from the balcony

When we arrived at the comedy show I was able to try Fernet, which is very popular here in Buenos Aires.  I believe they were giving away free samples because they are marketing a new mint flavored Fernet.  I thought it was actually pretty delicious... but I had also had about a bottle of wine before we went to the comedy show.

Fernet display with bottle.

In reality I only understood about 5% of the comedy show.  It caused me to reevaluate what I define as a "fluent" speaker of another language.  I think part of being fluent is understanding cultural context and cues along with vocabulary and syntax.  At least I was able to understand some of the body language and I'm a little sad that I didn't understand more because based on audience reaction... these guys were hilarious!

Several times throughout the show they came out in this car and performed skits.  Here's what I figured out from what I saw in the show:

Top Left:  This guy is the obvious gay one.

Top Right:  This guy really likes to make sexual movements with his hips.

Bottom Left:  This guy is passionate about whatever it is he was saying that made everyone laugh.

Driver:  This guy was wearing suspenders and could make me laugh with his facial expressions.

Today after lunch and booking my tour to Mendoza I went to La Manzana de las Luces.  I really just wanted to see the secret passageways that are underneath the building.  It is 12 pesos to enter and I tour guide gave some good information.  She spoke really quickly, but I caught a couple stories about murder and deceit.

The tunnels weren't as awesome as I was hoping, but it was a good little piece of Argentine history and for the equivalent of $2.75 USD - it was worth the 40 minutes tour.

Headed down to the tunnels...

Tomorrow I head to Uruguay for a couple of days...

Ciao,

Tim