summertime in Argentina

• the week before Christmas, kids get done with school for the summer- very busy week for everyone because each child’s grade has a final ‘Acto’ (play or presentation for the parents) and many kids take a year-end English exam that they have a lot of pressure to pass
• for guys it’s acceptable to take your shirt off about 95% of the time, when inside a house it is the first thing you do
• people love to take their kitchen table and chairs out into the shade in their front lawn or sidewalk and drink mate
• almost every house has some kind of little blow up pool out front/back to sit in
• little kids are wearing just their underwear the majority of the time
• people’s favorite thing to talk about is how hot it is out
• a lot of fruit salad is eaten
• the second you get anywhere you are offered a cold glass of pop or juice
• many families take a 15-day vacation to somewhere along the coast or to the mountains (this year the economy is the worst it has been in years so there are much fewer affordable vacations available to families)
• if you go to the beach you will see a sea of beach umbrellas- almost everyone brings one
• almost all girls ages 13-30sh (sometimes 40) wear a thong swimsuit bottom with their bikini top
• if you go to any public pool they have a nurse on duty and before entering the water you have to have a quick medical exam to ensure you don’t have fungus or lice- many girls wear shower caps while swimming
• people bring giant ping pong paddles and a ball or a game like bocce balls and draw courts into the sand to play on the beach
• they still drink mate all the time, but sometimes people switch it up and have ‘tereré‘- originally from Paraguay, it is the same as mate expect instead of a thermos of hot water they have a thermos of cold water or juice with ice
• riding a packed bus or train when you don’t know who’s sweat just dripped on your face- not the most fun thing
• people eat ice cream on the daily
• frequently people bring camping tents to the beach or picnic areas and set that up to take naps in or escape the sun
• many teenagers become completely nocturnal- going out all night til 7 or 8am with their friends and coming home and sleeping until 5pm
• going outside between 1-4pm continues to be looked at as crazy due to the intenseness of the sun
• Sundays are usually spent having a family picnic somewhere- anywhere you can find grass…maybe even the patch on the side of the highway
• they love summer almost as much as Minnesotans do