Having alluded to a forthcoming “all the foods I ate” post for close to a year now, I figure it’s about time to ante up.  And so I present this picture-heavy display of various cuisines I was cognizant enough to take pictures of while abroad.  It’s far from complete and woefully lacking in description and character, but, as always, is better than nothing.

Peru

My time in Peru was divided between kooky “jungle medicine” tours in January and my Machu Picchu adventures in June.   Since food from the earlier trip was covered in this post, I’ll only cover the latter delectables here.

Alpaca.  Like its cousin, the llama, these South American beasts of burden are used as pack animals, tourist attractions (Peruvians love to dress them up in brightly colored clothes and then ask for money after you take a picture of one) and, of course, food.  They’re surprisingly good, too, and not nearly as tough as I would’ve guessed.

Alpaca with a side of... well, I'm not certain what this was, but it was vaguely reminiscent of grits.

In Lima, I decided to give cuy (guinea pig) a second chance. The results? It's still as worthless a meal as I found it before. Not bad, per se, but so much effort and mess for about four bites worth of meat. What's the point?

Rocoto Relleno. Stuffed peppers. A popular dish in the south of Peru, though this was a particularly fancy version as it's from Cuzco and marketed to tourists.

Rice pudding with raisins from a street vendor. The woman had a cart with four different flavors that I couldn't tell the difference between. Warm and tasty, though as with most street food down here, it'd never pass a US health inspection

Chile

I didn’t grab many shots of Chilean food.  Santiago had many seafood restaurants, though I couldn’t find sea bass anywhere.  Also, I really don’t much care for fish, so these restaurants did nothing for me.  Combined with the fact that Chile was the most expensive country I visited in South America, I didn’t eat out very much.

The restaurant informed us that this was a traditional Easter Island soup. Not bad, but nothing special

Ecuador

Food from Ecuador was also mostly covered here, but I’ve got a few additions.

Sugarcane juice. These machines take a stalk of cane, run it through and then dump out the excessively sweet (shouldn't be surprising) juice. It's also possible to just buy a stick of surgarcane and chew on it for a bit, if that's your thing...

One of the main food attractions of Banos is the toffee, even though I've never met anyone that likes it. This toffee is made by repeatedly pulling at it from a metal pole affixed to the wall (as seen in the background), then wrapping the pulled toffee around said pole and pulling again until it reaches the desired consistency. This open-air-dirty-pole method likely wouldn't work in the states.

Brazil

As popular and enjoyable as Brazilian barbecue restaurants are in the states, I wasn’t overly impressed with Brazilian food.  Maybe we went to the wrong places.  My friend Jaimee joined me for much of these spots and we had similar lackluster reactions to the country’s offerings.  We visited one steakhouse that, like its US counterpart, involved serving men roaming about with a wide variety of all-you-can-eat meat to slice for their patrons, all with several buffet style tables of fresh food in the background.  It was good, but bore little difference from what one would expect at similar restaurants in the states.

A popular local delicacy that I never quite figured out was manioc, a powdered form of cassava root that, throughout Brazil, is served with slivers of beef jerky.  This side can be found served with almost any meal in Rio.  Despite its ubiquity, we found it fairly bland and pointless, like eating bits from the bottom of a jerky bag that had been dropped into sawdust.  Meh.

Top of the list in Brazil was the açaí (pronounced “ah-sah-EEE”) smoothie.  Mixed with bananas, ice and sugar (apparently the fruit is, by itself, quite bland), this densely blue drink is both energizing and uniquely flavorful.  I made a point of having at least one of these daily.

Pastels (pronounced, in that bizarrely Portuguese way, as "pahs-TEY-ees"), are the Brazilian equivalent of empanadas. Unlike their baked Argentinian equivalent, these are larger and often deep fried. In addition to the standard chicken and ground beef flavors, "pizza"-filled is an option in many places, and not too bad

Crepe on a stick, filled with thick pockets of dulce de leche caramel and then covered in chocolate. We found this one at a random beachside stand between Sao Paolo and Rio.

Coconut water. Jaimee's favorite. Vendors were located everywhere with large coconuts on ice. Upon ordering one, they would use a machete to open it, then serve the beverage with a straw.

Steak, pineapple, sweet potato puree and, at bottom, manioc with jerky

Açaí berries with a glass of the puree on the side (pic not mine)

Nearly everything is available on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, including a wide selection of food. This vendor carries a small cooler of cheese and a small over to bake said cheese, which is eventually removed and passed over on a stick

Uruguay

I only visited Uruguay for about three days, and the food wasn’t terribly different from what we found across the river in Argentina.  One treat that we were told was Uruguayan in nature was Clerico. Much like its red sangria cousin, clerico is a white-wine based fruit punch served with an ample supply of fruit.  My mother’s not much of a drinker, but she was so taken with it that we ordered two pitchers.  From a recipe online:

Clerico, with mother in background

And the winner is…

Argentina

(pic not mine) Argentinian style pizza. It's more common to have cheese, like the right half. Dough is excessively bready, for my tastes, and every slice gets a single olive.

The cuisine of Argentina is, much like its urban architecture, more heavily influenced by Spanish, Italian and French culture than anywhere else on the continent.  For instance, no breakfast is complete without medialunas (literally: half moons), the Argentinian name for croissants.  Breakfast is meant to be simple and light, to the point where those seeking fare more substantial than the standard coffee, orange juice and medialunas are generally out of luck.  Ham and cheese sandwiches are also fairly popular for breakfast, though for some reason no one believes in making these with more than a single slice each of ham and cheese, regardless of the thickness of the bread.

Brazil, the -guays, Chile and Argentina all have variations of the empanada (Note: there is no tilde over the ‘n’ and thus these are pronounced em-puh-nah-duh, and not “em-pan-yah-duh” as I mistakenly said for the first week or two that I lived here), for which I am thankful.  The doughy half-circles are sold with a wide variety of different stuffings in the middle.  Ground beef is typically my favorite when selecting one of the quick, warm mid-day snacks, though another variety includes a densely starchy corn pudding that’s also quite good.  Most vendors sell chicken varieties as well, but empanada de pollo always ends up tasting a bit dry.  There seems to be an unspoken rule that the dough that wraps each different filling be folded in a specific way to make the varieties more recognizable.

Rounding out the fast food selections is a wide sampling of standard sandwich fare.  Like anywhere else on this continent, hamburguesas are widely popular, as are “hot dogs” (that’s how they’re called here as well).  However, why one would go for a simple hot dog when choripan are available, I’m not sure.  From “chorizo“, the insanely good Argentinian beef sausage and “pan” for bread, this sandwich slices a massive chorizo down the center, coats it chimmichurri (a spice rack’s worth of different seasonings all in an oil and vinegar base) and serves it on a fresh French roll.  There’s a reason why there are so few American fast food restaurants here — they’re unnecessary.  Of all the countries, I think Argentina had my favorite street food.

A variety of empanadas, filled with beef, chicken, egg, onions, tuna, cheese and other fun ingredients

As fun to make as they are to eat

My friend Nicole displays an Argentinian hot dog with one of the more popular condiments here: potato chips

A choripan covered in chimichurri sauce. These epic sandwiches still make my mouth water and typically go for no more than $1.50

My attempt at making chimichurri. This attempt yielded incredibly tasty results, but it was closer to a salsa than a chimichurri. Still, as I had plenty of corn chips, this mistake wasn't much of a problem.

All of these are merely lead-ins, of course, to Argentina’s most famous of coronary-inducing main courses.  No, not red wine, though there’s plenty of that to be found here on the cheap as well.  I’m talking, of course, about steak.  Massive, bloody, succulent, affordable steak.  How affordable, you ask?  Well, this massive cut of tenderloin that I used to make about seven large cuts cost me the equivalent of four US dollars:

Yeah.  I miss that.  Parillas are Argentinian barbecue restaurants, and typically you can find several on the block of any busy street.  Restaurants like these specialize in meats, typically served with a side of meats and your choice of two additional meats.  Sometimes, these meals come with a small side salad, though it should be noted that the salad is made entirely of meat as well.  In short, Argentinians like their meat, and tend to order a large platter brought out to the table on a hot plate (often with a compartment for hot coal kept underneath to keep the food warm throughout dinner) with about 4-8 different meat varieties.  Purees of either regular or sweet potato are available, though that’s generally it as far as non-meats go.

The only downside to this is a general lack of options for dinner (which, I’ll remind you, is eaten between 10 pm and midnight throughout most of Argentina).  Most restaurants (and parillas for that matter) also serve a handful of pasta and noquis (gnocci) dishes, though the pasta options are almost identical throughout every restaurant in the entire country.  As much as I miss the steaks, I think the lack of options in Argentina would’ve gotten to me over time.

A parilla, with food guide (note: pic not mine). I mostly agree, though I found in many cases the chorizo I had was from beef and not pork.

The best steak dinner I had in Buenos Aires, by far, was at La Cabrera. There's always a line to get in, but they provide free champagne and cuts of steak (on toothpicks) to those outside, so even waiting is a pleasure at La Cabrera. Each serving gets four large cuts of meat with six dipping sauces each and then eight more hot tapas (not yet pictured). Epic, decadent meal, and one of the culinary highlights of Buenos Aires.

A more primitive parilla. In Ushuaia, a guide brought us out on kayaks to a cold island in the middle of nowhere and proceeded to build a fire for his makeshift parilla. There, an hour from civilized land by boat, sitting on fallen logs, we had a meal almost as perfect as the one above.

And for dessert?  Helados, and lots of it.  Meaning iced cream, the typical Argentinian helado is closer to Italian gelato than anywhere else I found in South America.  The frosty treat is popular across the continent, though harder and more similar to US iced cream elsewhere.  The Argentinian style is rich, creamy and ubiquitous.  There are almost more helado shops than parillas, with each one trying to out-gourmet the next.  Equally widespread are alfajores (al-fah-WHORE-eys), which some friends and family were lucky to get upon my return home last May.  These treats are made from two cake-like cookies pressed together with dulce de leche (caramel) in the center, and then usually coated in a thin layer of chocolate.  I found them “OK” at best, but the locals love ‘em.

A standard sampling of helados

A typical alfajore. I actually found pictures of my favorite style, but I only found said style once. These are the more readily available variant.

A typical Argentinian bakery. These are also tremendously widespread, and nearly every one seems to do a good business. Argentinians love their pastries.

Because who hasn't ever thought, upon eating a candied apple, "If only this had popcorn on it..."

Candied fruits, also with popcorn. I couldn't bring myself to try one of these, due to the thickness of the shiny, sugary glaze covering the fruit. Interestingly enough, I never saw these again until China, where they're also quite popular (sans popcorn, though)

Oh yeah.  Mate. Argentinians love their tea, and specifically, yerba mate.  Mate is a holly plant used to make tea throughout most of southern South America, though most popularly in Argentina.  As boiling the leaves tends to make them unpleasantly bitter, mate is instead steeped in hot water.  Due to high amounts of caffeine, the drink is a stimulant and is considered a social beverage in Argentina where it is passed around in small cups made from gourds called guampas.

Mate in Argentina, from Iguazu Falls in the north to Ushuaia in the far south, is inescapable.  Argentinians carry their guampas with them everywhere, typically with a small bag of tea, a bombilla (metal or wood straw used for drinking the tea while filtering out the leaves) and a thermos of hot water.  The leaves typically pack enough punch to be used for 7-10 servings of hot water; when they fail to provide any flavor, the mate is discarded and the gourd promptly refilled.  On buses, Argentinians pass their gourd around like a joint in a college dorm room.  At parties, it’s as likely that they show up with a thermos of hot water and a bag of mate as it is that they’d bring beer or wine.

Personally, I like the flavor but never quite got used to properly handling the bombilla.  The majority of these straws are made from metal, which doesn’t have much of a problem conducting heat.  Combine this with the near-boiling temperature of the hot water and it’s searing pain on the lips.  Though the response from all Argentinians is the same: “Oh, you get used to it…”

A bag of mate, along with two goards and a bombilla straw (pic not mine)

Colonia, again.

It´s the perfect spot for older travelers with an eye for cobblestone streets and colonial style architecture, and at an hour´s boat ride from Buenos Aires, it´s one of the better standard day trips here.  Plus, why not give the lady another stamp for her passport?

A gorgeous day in Colonia, Uruguay

The only noteworthily bad thing about this excursion was a dune buggy rental gone wrong.  We were warned not to take the dune buggy onto the beaches, and complied.  But the parking lots are all dirt, and I drove through one, apparently sending some of the mud up into the wheel wells.  It didn´t seem like much to me, and given time, I could´ve just wiped it off.

¨I say no beaches!¨ the man barks at me.  ¨This mud here, now I must clean.  One hour time.  My hour.  FIFTY dollars!  Is my time!  One hour my time!¨

¨Dude, are you kidding me?  I´ll go wipe it off now and be back in five minutes!¨

¨No!  You, I cannot trust now.  How can I trust you, with mud?  I cannot.  I must go.  One hour.  My time, so valuable.  Fifty dollars!¨

It´s a scam.  I get him down to twenty-five, and it´s the worst I´ve ever felt after semi-successfully haggling.  The buggy was mildly fun to have for the afternoon, but I don´t recommend dealing with rental douchebaggery to anyone else.

Other than that, this entry´s not even that pic-heavy.

My mom in our hostel. This was my mother´s first hostel experience, and a mostly good one. It was a little hard getting adjusted to sharing a bathroom and not getting towels and other hotel amenities with the room, but it was quiet, nice, clean and cheap.

My muddy dune buggy. Note dashing pirate figure in background.

Clarico! A sangria-like punch popular in Uruguay that should be popular all around the world. Literally just white wine, an assortment of fruit and sugar.

In terms of character, ambiance and food selection, my mother prefered the two restaurants we ate at in Uruguay to nearly everywhere else. A live jazz band played this night and we stayed until the end, when my mother purchased their CD. No word yet on how good it was...

Avenida 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires, the widest avenue in the world

Three days to go before my mother´s arrival in Buenos Aires, and while I look forward to seeing her, the seconds are ticking by until my travels take a strange and inevitably different twist.  I´ve never been much of a one-night-stand person, though the transient nature (and occasional loneliness) of long-term travel make this a necessity at times.  Added to this very human compulsion is the fact that it´s three in the morning and I just woke up to find my bed rocking repetitively to the sound of soft, female moaning from below.

Really?

It´s nothing new in hostels, but it´s a rarity in a full room.  I wouldn´t think to trammel the action from the lower bunk if it didn´t directly hamper my sleeping, but it did.  I cough once, then again.  Eventually the international diplomacy is taken outside to a balcony that looks out unhindered and unblocked onto Buenos Aires below.  The sexiness of such a public display wakes me further, but despite certain seals on propriety already being broken I could never be so crass as to do anything about it, and I lay in bed for an hour or more waiting for sleep to retake me.  Some time before passing out, the couple moves to the bathroom.

Most of the room (there are six bunks) wakes early the next morning for a planned trip to Uruguay.  It seems universally agreed upon that Uruguay offers little reason for extended pass-throughs, but single-day trips across the brown and brackish river that separates Buenos Aires from Uruguay are standard fare.  Montevideo is a more popular destination in the summer time due to its large, attractive beaches, but it´s April now and the weather´s cooled significantly.  As Montevideo is three hours past the smaller town of Colonia, we opt for the latter.

Uruguay

Patrick and I, on the deck of the buquebus

Buquebus is the name of the river shuttle company that handles service to Uruguay, and it can be found directly next to the Retiro bus station (the largest in BA).  Two boat options greet us, offering rides to and from Colonia that last either one or three hours (with costs that are about as proportionally different from one another as their trip lengths).  It´s early still when we´re ready to depart — around 8 AM — and we opt for the slow journey there, with a faster one coming back.  It´s not a bad deal around thirty dollars, and another stamp is added to the passport.

Despite a significant tourist infrastructure in Colonia, the town seems more geared to older travelers, with a focus on its quiet streets and centuries-old architecture.  The closest correlations in the States would be places like Annapolis, MD or Williamsburg, VA.  A lighthouse looks out over the water, allowing for glimpses of Buenos Aires on non-smoggy days.  We´re just lucky enough to see a blotchy line of distinctively urban gray far in the distance before it fades back into semi-unnatural haziness.

Out along a small peninsula of fancy restaurants and tourist shops, we sit by the water´s edge for lunch.  The pizza´s passable — and better than the thick, bready pizzas of Argentina — but doesn´t compare to the mind-blowing gnocchi (here spelled ¨ñoquis¨).  Surrounded by the river on all sides, there´s plenty of shoreline to walk around, though the muddiness of the water is unwelcoming.

The equivalent of a quarter gets us a bus ride across town to the old bull ring.  The massive structure was built in 1910, only to be closed in 1912 after only eight fights due to Uruguay declaring the fights illegal.  A fence closes off the deteriorating ring from the general public, but based on multiple gaps in the fence and a quantity of other tourists inside, no one takes the closure seriously.  Inside, Patrick and I perform a mock bullfight to an adoring crowd of four before beginning the long walk back along the beach to the city´s center.

An 8 PM ticket on the ultra-fast hydrofoil leaves us just enough time to take in an Uruguayan sunset and a few drinks before heading back for the hour-long boat ride.  It´s the perfect way to spend a day, but I likely would never come back here.  Unless I´d be entertaining my mother a week later…

I attempt to lift one of the drawbridges leading into old Colonia. I fail.

¨Manning¨ the cannon

Along the broken exterior walls of Colonia´s lighthouse

From the lighthouse, you can just make out Buenos Aires in the background

One of the cobblestone streets of old town Colonia

The ¨three bears¨ of police boats

English Zoey tripping slightly outside the old bullring

Breaking into the bullring

Patrick and I simulate a bullfight

I simulate a bloody, crushing defeat

Uruguay 2009

Dusk in Colonia. Gorgeous sky.

The Last Long Nights

There´s talk of Polo lessons during the days — the sport appears to be second only to fútbol here in Buenos Aires — and apparently no background skills are necessary, but both my opportunities are rained out.  Exhaustion causes me to skip ¨La Bomba del Tiempo,¨ a popular drum show.  It sounds completely uninteresting to me, but turns out to be one of the better weekly events in Buenos Aires.  Weeks later, I would attempt to talk others into going, only to have them reflect back at me the same casual indifference that I feel toward it now.

Buenos Aires subway cars are all open from one to the next, leading to an interesting perspective as trains go around curves.

Instead, the two remaining days and nights are dedicated to soaking in the Buenos Aires nightlife, as the city (and country, really) is notorious for following a different waking schedule than the rest of the world.  Dinner, for instance, tends to be served around 10 o´clock at night, every night of the week.  This doesn´t just apply to the younger, wilder crew — old people, families, etc, all find their way out between 10 and midnight, and while restaurants are open from 8-10, they´re largely deserted.  Mornings are for work, only until noon, when everyone returns home for siesta, generally sleeping until five in the afternoon.  It can be frustrating when something is direly needed during the day, only to find most of the small stores closed for the entire afternoon.

Bars tend to get the most business then between midnight and two, generally as a precursor for the wildly popular club scene here.  Every night, there are two to three popular clubs that seem to be highlighted, only to be forgotten about during the remaining nights of the week.  Everyone insists on Club 69 on Thursdays (more of a spectacle than the others, the club features breakdancers and garish transvestites to create a uniquely bizarre atmosphere), but the massive club´s largely forgotten about by the hostel crew on every other day.  I was curious as to whether these clubs are closed down entirely on nights that they weren´t promoted, or if alternate nights simply targeted non-tourist clientele.

Strange characters at Club 69

Promoters canvas the hostels, taking down names and offering ¨discount¨ VIP tickets, which include a free ride to whatever club is being promoted — rides back to the hostel are each individual´s responsibility, and typically involve an expensive cab ride.  At two in the morning, Club Bahrein is still mostly empty, leading me to think that tonight might not be its night after all.  My fears are unfounded; by 2:30, the dance floor is full.  By 3, it´s uncomfortably crowded.  In the bathroom someone tries to sell me cocaine — it´s the first time I´ve even had the drug (or any drug, really… other than my Peruvian jungle experiences) mentioned to me since Ecuador.

It´s my last single night in town and I´m feeling my independence rapidly slip away.  Tomorrow morning, I´ll be glad to see my mother after nearly seven months apart; tonight I mean to bask in the city´s late-night vitality and ardor one final time, with such enthusiasm that I worry I may be creating expectations that Buenos Aires won´t possibly be able to live up to.

Along the streets of Buenos Aires

A Californian girl and I opt to introduce the international world to Beer Pong, as Europe, Australia and South America are strangely unaware of the popular North American sport.  A trio of Brazilian girls latch onto us and seem fascinated by the subtle, thirst-quenching nuances of the game.  They´re terrible at it, but tenacious enough to keep playing until we head off to another club — a local one this time, within walking distance.

Elsewhere, we dance and drink, pose for pictures and laugh uncontrollably.  One of the girls and I hit it off and she sits on my lap as we talk on a sofa in a dimly lit corner of the bar.  Now outside, it´s raining lightly and we´re kissing each other under an air conditioning unit to stay dry.

¨I promised myself I wouldn´t do this,¨ she says in perfect English.  Of the three girls, only she spoke my language fluently.  ¨I have a boyfriend in Sao Paulo.¨

I kiss her again, unaffected by this information.  Several months on the road have left me unhinged from the unspoken proprieties that exist to keep society from crumbling into a global version of MTV´s The Real World.  She pulls away again.

¨I think he is gay, though.  I think most Brazilian boys are gay.¨ Before I say anything, she corrects herself.  ¨Not really.¨

Our group, my last free night in town

¨I´ve only met a few.  Pretty sure they weren´t gay,¨ I say.  I think back to a group of mostly male Brazilians that latched onto Jaimee and me at one of the street parties, lightly dressed as Roman soldiers, pharoahs and mythological figures.  The cupid kept hitting me with his arrow, though I assumed his gaity was simply proper role-playing and not, well, gaity.  And then there was that trannie motorcade… ¨Or at least not all of them were gay.¨

¨No.  No.  Too many boys in my life are gay, I think.  Are you gay?¨

¨I hate sports and can sing along with most of Les Miserables.¨ She laughs as I kiss her again, pushes my hand down as I make a physical gesture of my sexual allegiance.

Around us, the city is alive with people rushing by, taking no notice of yet another couple passionately embracing against a wall, like the countless embracing pairs painted onto shirts, keychains and wine holders at every tourist market.  Nearby, a younger couple share a fold-out chair at a small cafe, protected from the rain only by their table´s thin, canvas umbrella.  Taking breaks to talk, their eyes are mere inches from one another and their locked gazes far more lavish and promiscuous than their soft, innocuous kisses.  Forget Paris (not that I´ve been there to remember it in the first place) Buenos Aires is a city in love.  A city in love with being in love.  And tonight, I am one with this city.

Later, as we kiss for a final time, the transient nature of such encounters is once again hammered in.  On the road, we form brief, powerful connections formed by either the standard rules of attraction put into overdrive by immutable travel deadlines or by the incidental bombardments of loneliness that are the biggest drawbacks to this solitary lifestyle.  Meaningful, ¨real¨ connections one day will be nothing more than additional names on my roster of facebook friends the next.

In the computer lab of The Milhouse, after a long night

It´s 6 in the morning and my mother arrives in Buenos Aires in two hours.  While Bianca from California and I sit upstairs at the computers, Patrick returns from a night clubbing just in time for us to say our goodbyes.  He´s in town two days more, and there´s some talk of meeting up for lunch, but he´s fully on siesta schedule now, and we both know a meet-up is a slim chance. By next week he´ll be somewhere in western Africa, but we say we´ll keep in touch and it seems more likely this time than with other people I´ve traveled with.

At the airport, I stand slouched over with the taxi drivers and their big white signs, and the families and friends of eagerly anticipated arrivals.  Children shuffle around me, waiting on relatives, and an old woman shrieks and runs past the greeter line to hug an older male that must be a brother.  Tears pour from her eyes at an unnaturally steady flow as she places an unrelenting grip around him, rambling something meaningful and heartfelt to him that is too broken by her emotion for my poor Spanish comprehension to understand.  In my exhaustion I start to feel cold and self-critical.  Will I be greeting her with warmth and excitement as she comes through the door, or simply stumble over with the emotional fervor of a distant co-worker?

It´s late now.  She should be here.  Is it wrong that I´m mentally comparing her conspicuous absence to that of luggage that hasn´t appeared when everyone else from the same flight has already retrieved their things and gone?  A mom-sized silhouette appears behind the opaque glass doors.  Her eyes expand to match her large grin and I shuffle over to her through the crowd.  We hug each other tightly.

¨Ooooooooh I missed you sooooooo much,¨ she says, without letting go of me.

¨I really missed you too,¨ I say.  And I wasn´t even certain until this moment, but I generally mean it.  ¨I love you, Mom.¨

¨You´re so thin.¨

¨Thanks…¨

¨You´re too thin!¨

¨Ok.¨

The next two weeks will be interesting.