Boca Lago Takes San Vicente by Storm

I love old people. So with a rummy tournament and South America's biggest bingo game, you can imagine that I basically had one of the best weekends ever.

We begin Friday night at Club Bochazo, an outdoor restaurant/mini sports complex. We were there for the Perrera (dog shelter) fundraiser, a rummy tournament with a 2 peso buy-in.

The night began with a tango show by a group from Rosario. Then the rummy tournament began - average age: 65. Perfect.

These people were serious about their game (at one point, an old man told me to take my drink off the table because the watermark might wet the cards). Still, I won the first round. All sense of good sportsmanship flew out the window. I was absolutely elated. I ran up to Daniella, the exchange student from New Zealand, and Mariela and Victor, my host parents, and screamed excitedly "I won! I won!" Of course, there were two more rounds, and I was the first person out in the second round, but ... that's not important.

Other highlight of the night: someone told me that I looked intellectual because I was wearing my glasses and a nice long sleeve shirt. Score.

Saturday night was San Vicente's biggest event of the year - the Bingo. Bingo in Argentina basically means any sort of gambling, but San Vicente's bingo really was bingo as we know it in Senior Centers and Old Age Homes everywhere. A few thousand cars were given away, in addition to tens of thousands of pesos. I played the binguito - a 25 Peso buy-in for a 30,000 peso win. I lost. But it was still a fun time. Toward the end of the night, we listened to Soledad, a famous Argentinean folk singer and she ROCKED it. Afterward, I headed to the terminal for a late night snack and chat with friends from Maria Juana (my favorite Communist included).

Monday afternoon, Daniella and I headed to Santa Fe to spend the night in her host family's apartment there and meet up with exchange students in the morning to renew our visas. The highlight of the visit: I got to eat Mexican food. Twice.

Hence: I am very excited for my trip(s) to Mexico and Ole Mole this summer. The only foods that can even compare to choripan are quesadillas and burritos.

Now I'm headed to Buenos Aires tonight for a week or so with the padres in BsAs and Bariloche.