Foreign food!

Belgian chocolate, Belgian beer (two of them), French cheese, a mild version of ranch salad dressing, almonds, French raspberry jam, falafel mix, elbow macaroni noodles (I can't wait to make macaroni and cheese!!)... These are among the things I bought today at Jumbo, a very large, very upmarket grocery store in Palermo. All very expensive, and all delicious. Jumbo has been described to me as the "international" grocery store, and it is. I marvelled at the varieties of real blue cheese (sorry Argentinians, but several other countries have you beat in cheese), camemberts and bries, even cheddar (!!).

It was amazing to walk down the aisles -- they are so very different from my local grocery stores. Real Heinz ketchup (though I'm not really a fan of ketchup), French mustard (this I bought, too), real American yellow mustard, teriyaki sauce, Thai noodles, Spanish peppers, American cereals (Trix anyone?), delicious European chocolates (sorry again Argentines, much of the world has Argentina beat for chocolates -- I know Patagonian chocolate is excellent (muy, muy rico), but I've not found someplace to buy it in Buenos Aires), even Cuban cigars. I'll have you know I perused said cigars for at least 10 minutes, but declined to buy any since I don't know what the turnover is on these, and they weren't kept in a humidor, and I wasn't about to pay near-Canadian prices for a cigar that was perhaps dried out (yuck). But oh, I was very, very tempted.

In all, it was a beautiful experience, though very expensive, and I will likely return before I leave.

And armed with pockets of pesos!