Preparation Day - Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010

It actually felt good to sleep in until 7:30, but we couldn't force any more. So, we got up and decided we better get the day going in case the weather turned to rain again. The sky looked threatening, but nothing ever happened -- probably because there was no moisture left due to the amount we received last night.

We still had the President's car, and we parked it here in our secured parking space overnight. He called Rich last night about something and said after we were finished using it to just drop it off at the mission home. Their Mission President's Seminar ends today and they would be home later in the afternoon.

Since we had the car, I wanted to go to WalMart shopping. But first, we decided to go to our little empanada shop on Constitucion and stock up on a few to eat for lunches throughout the week. We also stopped at a carneceria (meat market) close by to check out buying some beef to make barbeque beef on buns next Saturday.

We are having four elders for lunch as Elder Pugmire goes home in two weeks and he wanted a farewell dinner. Due to the limited things I can make for a crowd without the availability of ingredients I am used to, I have decided to cook some beef in our small crock pot that Sister Argyle rounded up for us when we came. Crock pots are not sold here in Argentina -- don't know where this one came from, is missing handles, is well worn, but works. I will probably have to cook the meat in shifts throughout the week in order to have enough for four hungry elders and us. It should be do-able, however.

Argentines are big on beef, naturally -- being the beef capital of the world. And, they cook EVERYTHING connected to the cow. So, we foreigners have to be knowledgable and careful in making our selections. Tapa de Nalga or Tapa de Asado are the preferred cuts to be used for this type of meal according to Sister Argyle. I usually go where she shops for mission food, but it is close to where the mission home is and is four train stops away. We are trying to find a clean and decent place to buy meat, including lean hamburger here in San Fernando. There has to be some, and we think this place we scoped out today will be okay. We have purchased hamburger there before to try them out and we didn't get sick, so thumbs up. Kicos it is!

After our morning walk up Constitucion we headed out in the car to WalMart. We don't make it out there very often because without a car, we can take the bus so far, but then have to walk a pretty good distance the rest of the way. So having access to the car today, we took advantage of it and went to Wally World.

One of the advantages of shopping at WalMart is that sometimes, just sometimes, they have American made products on the shelf. Heinz catsup, French's mustard, Paul Newman's bottled salad dressings, Rosarita refried beans, Tabasco Sauce and a few others seem to be among items that are commonly there. They are not in abundance, only five or six of each at a time. But, if marshmellows are seen on the shelf, or any canned soups appear, they are snarfed up by us Americans in a heart beat. That was the case today. I couldn't believe it, but there were three cans of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup and a few cans of Tomato soup starring me in the face. I bought all of them. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I have never seen any canned soups there in eleven months. Now, if they would just get some Cream of Chicken soup. I brought so many good recipes with me that require Cream of Chicken soup and I haven't been able to make one of them. Canned soups are unheard of here.

After strolling up and down the isles making our selections, we went to the front of the store to check out and gasped at what we saw.

This picture doesn't do it justice at how stacked up the checkout lines were. It was unbelievable! They have checkout stations like at home all lined up across the front of the store, but they have a wide, wide area between them and where the shopping area begins. We can see why. They need the room for the bottle neck of people and carts on a day like today. All we could do was pick what we could determine was the shortest line. Rich got in one of them and I went to a couple more areas to pick up things and bring back to the cart.

Rich timed it when he got in line and by the time we finished and pulled away from the checkout, it was ONE HOUR -- and there were four, maybe five carts ahead of us. The checker bags her own items, but they don't have the swivel type bagging device like we are used to.

We decided we aren't doing that again. We will not be coming on a Saturday anymore. There were a lot of back to school shoppers, so that could have added to the crowd. The summer vacation is over and the Argentine schools start pretty soon. The International School where the Argyle children go is already in session.

After taking all our groceries up to our apartment and putting the items needing refrigeration away, we left everything else and decided to return the President's car to the mission home. There was a soccer game today at the stadium just a short distance from us, so the traffic was heavy and people were parking cars up and down Libertador which is our main route to the Argyles.

They were not home from the seminar yet, so we just dropped the keys off with Austin and head out to the train station to get back to San Fernando. We had our umbrellas in hand should the darkened skies produce more rain. We were grateful to make the trip safely and dry.

So, after another Saturday of shopping we were glad to be home for the evening. We put the food away, cleaned up the house, and turned on our downloaded Olympic Ice Skating events. We watched the finals in the pairs skating which happened several days ago. It was new to us, and we enjoyed watching a little bit of the Olympics. It has been a good "P" day.