Ice cream. This is a picture of a quarter kilo of dulce de leche, dark chocolate and walnut cream ice cream that we recently demolished. The ice cream here is very, very good. There's no Ben & Jerry's or Hagen Daz. Sure, you can buy it in supermarkets, but no one does. Instead, there are 'heladerias' or ice cream shops on every other block, and the good ones make their own ice cream. 'Persico' and 'Volta' are the best in my opinion. The name Volta doesn't make you want to eat there, but it's good. Trust me. This one was from a place called Leoyak on Asamblea at Emilio Mitre in Parque Chacabuco, and it was really good. Here is what you do when you go to get ice cream: first pay for the size you want ... anything from a 'cucurucho' (cone) for a few pesos to a kilo (2.2 pounds) which will run you from 25 to 40 pesos. You are then given a receipt which you walk over to the ice cream counter and hand to the guys when your turn comes (there are no numbers, so if it is crowded you have to sort of fight your way to the counter and guesstimate who was there before you and who came after). The size of your order determines the number of flavors you can choose from. For example, a quarter kilo always comes with the option of up to 3 flavors. There can be as many as 50-60 flavors and I have yet to walk into a place and been able to decipher all of the flavors ... dulce de leche granizado (flakes of chocolate), crema americano, chocolate suica, chocolate con ron y pasas (rum and raisins), dulce de leche con nueces (walnuts), chocolate with almendras (almonds), chocolate granizado (chocolate chip), marscapone, sambayon (a little bit of alcohol, but good), crema del bosque (more or less raspberry cream), mantecol (i'm not sure, nutty), crema rusa (good!), crema de nueces (walnut cream), pineapple, banana, peach, lemon and every fruit flavor you can think of, wine, cactus (that was in Cafayate where there are lots of cactus), and I can't remember everything else. Rosana and I put away one of these about every other day and it hasn't stopped us from gaining weight. Today we went to Once, an old neighborhood in the center of the city which is the place to go for textiles and cheap clothes. We took the subway to the plaza outside the Once train terminal. On the way back I wanted to cross the plaza to see the memorial to the kids who died in the Cromanon nightclub fire, which occurred near there 15 years ago and is permanently eched into the national psyche here. I passed it almost everyday when I road the bus from Rosana's house into the center of town, but hadn't gotten off the bus to see it. Yes, I realize this last bit doesn't really belong in a post about ice cream, but it's what we did today and I'm trying to stay current.