Viente Cinco

Celebrated my second consecutive birthday outside of the Eastados Unidos on Tuesday and yes, I am a quarter of a century old. The birthday was great, went to dinner with Justin, Tracy, Cy and Marisa (an Argentinan Accenture employee) to La Cabrera in Palermo. This was probably one of the best (and most fun) steak places I have ever been.

Before even sitting down they gave us free champagne (then more of the free bubbly at the end of the meal). We ordered Ojo de Bife (Ribeye), 2 Bife de Chorizos (similar to the Ojo) and Bife de Lomo (filets) and the four steaks probably added up to about a quarter of a cow. This was pure, unalderated beef (pretty sure there wasn't even salt on it) and it was incredible. They also gave you like 6 little side plates (some great: mushrooms, mashed potatoes, roast garlic, sweet potatoes; some not so great: eggs in beet sauce, broccoli in mayonnaise) and we got these great champagne and lemon sorbet things for desert. For my birthday, they brought an incredibly rich tiramisu with an awesome birthday candle (see picture below and left). Oh yeah, and we had a bunch of wine (we asked the waiter why the red wine was cold and he said, loosely translated, 'because you ordered the cheap crappy bottle').

Topped off the night at an outdoor bar drinking more cheap red wine then at a random house party (drinking more cheap red wine). Wednesday was not my most fun day at work.

Ok ok, so that is not a birthday candle, it is in fact the olympic torch. It cruised through Buenos Aires today and I lined up, with about 5,000 others, at the Obelisko to catch a glimpse. There was one or two pro-Tibet people, a couple hundred pro-China people (which made me really want some sesame chicken) and then several thousand police officers. Seriously, it was like the torch surrounded by the Chineese police in blue, surrounded by cops on ATVs surrounded by cops on motorcycles surrounded by cops jogging with linked arms surrounded by plainsclothes cops. I remember in 96 the torch going through Denver and there were like 10 people around it. Interesting fact: the olympic torch relay was dreamed up by none other Adolph Hitler to promote the '36 games in Berlin.

Rather than end a post about by birthday with that factoid, here is a fantastic link which really nails me dead on: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/95-rugby/

Gore