We've Got No Beef With the Food

After the tour, we got back in time to take quick showers and head down to the welcome reception for the expedition.

Carol and I are not the most social people with strangers, but, feeling refreshed, we forced ourselves to barge into on-going conversations and introduce ourselves.  With 102 guests and some number (10 or so) trip leaders there, we met probably a 16 or so people, as well as some pleasant Malbec.  It was a nice start to the expedition.

It was nice personally meeting our expedition organizer, Holly, a woman who we had bombarded with email questions, particularly after Christmas, as it dawned on us that the trip was coming up quickly.  She has spent the better part of two years working on this, so she has been easy to work with and quite enthusiastic.  Our trip leader also spoke, which served only to increase our enthusiasm for the trip.

(I later jokingly told Carol that I had sized up the room, and figured if disaster struck, we could probably kill and eat about half our expedition-mates until rescue came

After the reception, I took a short nap in our hotel room, whilst Carol read.  Then, we walked down a block to a steak place called “Fervor” for a dinner of famous Argentinian beef (I’d heard of it, so it’s not just semi-famous).

Reminiscent of Spain or Italy, the place did not open until 8pm.  When we left at 10pm, people were still coming in for dinner.  At 8pm, when the place was mostly empty, I felt like a senior citizen at the Blue Plate special in Florida.

The service was great, the food was great, and the wine was great.  I order a $30 bottle of Malbec-Syrah blend, and it was fabulous.  Try spending $30 on a good bottle of wine at a steakhouse in the US.  It would be more like $90-120!  I had the Carne Especial (“meat special” if my translation is right, and it usually is! Ha!), and Carol had the rib-eye.  I won dinner – as the carne especial was quite special.

After dinner, we walked back up the hill (Carol walked over 10 miles for the day, and I was close to that distance – 9.65 miles).  In the room, we straightened out all of the luggage, and put the four bags we checked outside the door for pick-up.  After that, I fell asleep quickly, dreaming of penguins, whales, seals, icebergs, and ice mountains.