"Hitler Died in Argentina"

Saturday we spent wandering around Rosario. It’s somewhere between a small city and a large town, but it felt tiny after Buenos Aires. It was disarming to be able to walk literally everywhere in under an hour. (In BsAs an hour will maybe get you to the next neighborhood.)

It rained on and off all day, but we still probably walked about three or four miles. We went to a museum that smelled like mothballs and old furniture that was set up like a 19th-century mansion, and to the apartment building where Che Guevara was born. Refreshingly, there wasn’t even so much as a plaque to identify it.

The highlight of the day was probably the planetarium, where we saw two consecutive shows. The first was called “Las Diferentes Caras de la Luna,” and described how the moon and the sun were forced to end their romance when God placed them on opposite sides of the earth, sending the moon into a depression from which she has never recovered. The second one, about how black holes are formed, was considerably less terrible. I fell asleep in both.

That evening, we went to make reservations at a restaurant we had tried to eat the night before. The five of us walked into the main dining room to ask about dinner. After taking down our names, the owner asked us if we had ever “seen the place.” None of us knew what he meant, but when we said no he offered to give us a tour.

It turns out that the restaurant was in the “Instituto Martin Fierro,” a historical society and museum about the history of Rosario. The owner took us into a back room, where he gave us wine to try and showed us an armadillo skin mounted on the wall, along with gaucho boots made from horse leather that were so old they has started shredding. In the next room he showed us a helmet from the early 1800s, his brother’s helmet from the war over the Falkland Islands, and what he said was General Rosa’s mate cup.

Just when we were recovering from the surprise of going to a restaurant and ending up in a guided tour of a museum, the owner said, “Have any of you ever seen a crocodile?” When we said no, he called two boys from the back of the building. A few minutes later they entered carting a massive dried crocodile skin on their shoulders. Then the owner brought out some “salsa criolla” (a salsa with garlic, olive oil, tomatoes, onions and herbs) for us to eat while we pet the skin.

When we came back a couple of hours later for dinner, the dining room was starting to fill up with people. The owner greeted us like we were his favorite people in the world and snatched away the menu the waitress has placed on our tables. He explained to her that he had us taken care of.

He wasn’t kidding. The meal started with a platter of three different kinds of sausage (including black, squishy blood sausage, which didn’t taste nearly as grotesque as it looked), olives, French fries, cheese and empanadas, served with a Malbec wine that the owner chose himself. It was followed by a green salad and two giant slabs of grilled pork covered in a thin, crispy layer of fat and some salsa criolla.

As we were eating dessert, the music started. The first man who came on sang and played folk songs on his guitar. He was followed by a duo of an older man and a younger boy —I think they were father and son. The boy, whose guitar was covered in Che cutouts, was incredibly good and made me miss Nicky. After their set, someone from the restaurant came onstage and introduced us as the guests of honor, making us go around the table and say where we were all from. Then first man came back and played Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” in Spanish (“Maravillosa Hoy”) after dedicating it to us.

We finally left after 2 am, having paid $20 each, including tip, for the meal and the concert combined. When we got back to the hotel, the guy behind the desk was waiting to inform us that Hitler died of old age in Argentina in the 1980s.

I didn’t think it was possible, but Rosario makes Buenos Aires feel normal. I might not even know how to order a cup of coffee in this city, but at least here restaurants are restaurants and the people at the front desk of the residencia limit the educational instruction to helping me use the phone.