the wonder of delivered ice cream

the weekend was sunny, but now rain has crept back into buenos aires. it is actually hard to say the rain creeps in here. the recent thunder echoed like cannons and the lightning illuminated our living room. when it rains, it pours. october in buenos aires is not much different than october in northern california. some brisk sunny mornings and some dark, cloudy and rainy days. although, spring should be arriving shortly. october usually means pumpkins and post season baseball. last night, mark and i huddled around his computer to watch the yankees and indians play game 4 in new york. we argued about calls mainly due to the distorted picture on our computer screen. mark sold his soul to the devil for a small price and became a new york yankee fan. (side note: we were called "yankees" at a party on saturday night by some argentines. so, i corrected them saying, "no, mark is a yankee" and needless to say, this is one of many jokes that are lost in translation.)

on this rainy monday evening in buenos aires, our stomachs cried for ice cream (helado). buenos aires ice cream is unbelievable. it would be injust to even attempt a description of how wonderful this ice cream is. our refigerator is decorated with a rainbow colored assortment of magnetic advertisements. after reading an orange magnet about how much ice cream we could rceive for only a few pesos, our appetites were searching for the nearest phone. we gave into our heart's deepest desire like a bunch of first graders on a hot summer day willing to break open their piggy banks. calling in an order is a very scary thing to do as it has to be done in castellano. usually, mark has the duties as our fluent castellano speaker. bravely, no, sacrificially, i volunteered my castellano skills to bring this forbidden ice cream home to our apartment and better assist our baseball watching. with the phone shaking in my hands, i begin to dial the numbers. 4...8...3...1... i quickly hung up the phone, heart pounding, sweaty palms as if i was going to ask a girl out, realizing i did not know what flavors we wanted. after a lengthing dissertation, we settled on four flavor. frambuesa (raspberry), tramontana (not sure, but good), mousse de chocolate, and dulce de leche. i wiped the sweat from my brow, tightened my grip on the plastic casing of the phone and my fingers steadied to enter the digits. worried that it may be too late, i soon discovered that it is never too late in the evening for ice cream. i slowly conveyed our desired flavors and even though the man on the other end may have been slightly irritated with my castellano, i was able to hang up the phone a new hero in our apartment. not even the rain could stop the ice cream man's delivery (the rain actually did stop the internet company from coming one day). our bell rang in about twenty minutes and in shock, the three of us (mark, andrew and i) scrambled off the couch to find our spare change as if the ice cream man may leave for another block any minute now. mark stayed glued to the computer watching the slow demise of his yankee dynasty. the ice cream was in a cylindrical, white foam container. this ice cream could be the eighth wonder of the world. the yankees lost. a rainy night in buenos aires.