The accent is not the only part of Argentine Spanish that differs from the Spanish I speak. Of course, my own Spanish is quite a mutt; my accent is generally that of northern Latin American countries like Mexico as that is the Spanish I originally learned in high school and grew up hearing. But spending two and a half months in studying abroad and living with a host family in Madrid left some permanent marks on the way I speak Spanish, from the Arabic-sounding pronunciation of "j" to the constant use of the word "vale" ("ok" in Spain, used all the time and as a space filler) to the lisp pronunciation of "c" and "z" in a few words that I learned or used frequently in Spain. That said, Argentine Spanish has not only its own particular accent, but also it's own set of words and expressions. You always say ciao for goodbye instead of adios (although adios will still be understood), "car" is not "carro" like in Mexico or "coche" like it is in Spain, but "auto". Argentines also use "vos" instead of "tu", but they don't use "vosotros" like in Spain. So, one of the easy ways for Argentines to tell that you're not from Argentina is that you use "tu", (both the word itself and all it's conjugations) instead of a tense that pretty much only Argentina uses. It's easy enough to just say "vos" instead of "tu", but I'm not about to change an entire tense that will make my Spanish sound extremely odd anywhere else in the world. For more on Argentine expressions, I direct you to this highly entertaining YouTube video by a guy from the US who speaks perfect Argentine Spanish and imitates the way people talk in Buenos Aires (and it's very accurate given my experience so far!):
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8IpOfFlX8gc
Tonight Lindsay and I went to a fancy parrilla called Estilo Campo in Puerto Madero that my brother in law, Didier, recommended. I say fancy because there were many things about it that we're different from most restaurants in Buenos Aires: the wait to be seated instead of just sitting down wherever, the service was good and fast (although not by US standards; most places you wait a long time to get a menu, place an order, get your food, and get the check, which you will not be brought unless you ask for it), and it was more expensive (but still much less expensive than an equivalent meal would have been in the US). We ordered a bottle of Malbec that was very nice, smooth, mellow and drinkable (Latitud 33) and a provaleta (provolone cheese pan fried and served with sliced tomato, ham, and herbs on top). Both the wine and the provaleta were delicious, and the provaleta was much better than the one we had on the food tour.
For the main course, I had the "matambre relleno estilo campo", which was a thin slice of delicious fatty meat filled with a mixture of ham, vegetables and mozzarella. It was fantastic. It was also served with a side of French fries (papas fritas), and while I have not generally found the French fries in Argentina to be to my liking (too oily and not enough potato taste), these were very good.
Lindsay had the "ojo de bife", a slow-cooked, tender rib eye steak with "corralera" sauce (a yummy brown butter-based sauce) and creamy mashed potatoes with spinach. Despite both our claims that we would never be able to finish the amount of food we had been served, we both cleaned our plates because everything was so good.
After chatting, admiring the view over the harbor from our table, which was right next to the window (Lindsay and I agreed that this was one of the best dates we'd been on) and drinking more wine, we decided to look at the dessert menu. Overwhelmed by the choices, we threw out the initial plan of sharing one dessert. I had the flan with dulce de leche, and Lindsay had the molten dulce de leche cake with homemade banana ice cream. In case I have not already mentioned this, dulce de leche is incredibly popular in Argentina. It was in at least 3/4 of the desserts on the menu, and even McDonalds here makes dulce de leche ice cream in a few different configurations. It's also different than any dulce de leche or caramel I've had in the US: it's made with milk so it's incredibly rich and creamy, but not really sticky, which is the main thing I don't like about caramel in the US.
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