Buenos Aires:

It’s cold here during the summer, pounding with rain and hail. The city looks like a hybrid mixture of past and present. Stoic buildings of which I’ve never seen anywhere else save for London.
It makes sense the taxis smell. Everyone here smokes. It used to make me cough yet now I’ve grown accustomed to the sweet cigar smoke. It’s amazing, watching the rain pour down the side of the mirror. Bead after slowly moving bead, they roll down and I count them, wishing them onward in the race down the window.
I look like Them and yet I’m not. I speak their language, if only reluctantly. My grandfather stops the car and here we go. The stadium looms in the distance, a testament to our Roman ancestors across the Atlantic. Here, I nickname Buenos Aires, mini Europe. Romano Architecture and churches everywhere. Gothic Cathedrals every block it seems with its dark gray exterior. We sojourn to la cancha, a mass of white and blue singing for Boca. Today is more important than anything else in the Argentine Calendar. Weddings are postponed, shops closed except for a few bars. A thermos of mate comes out from my uncle’s greatcoat and the men either smoke or drink mate as we enter el estadio.
Our seats are reserved, so we take our time, chatting about the line up. My cousin Rosio bets me 10 pesos, a red card goes up before the 2nd half. 10 pesos to me 3 dollars and I agree.
We pass street vendors selling scarves, and yerba packets and other little oddities. At it’s mouth, la cancha seems to swallow us as we enter in the main archway and climbed to our box seats as the voice begins speaking over the loudspeaker.
Afterwards, we stayed until well after dark, retelling key points and shouting indignantly at bad calls made throughout the game. Rosio ignores me after the game and I casually allow myself to forget any bet had occurred at all. In the dim street lighting, we converge upon my dad’s friend’s house with a roof top balcony. His wife and aunt disappear into the dingy kitchen making mate cocido and dinner. Yes, dinner. In Argentina, time does not determine much. You work during the day, eat during the night and no one ever seems to get tired. At 11:15pm, they bring up platters of chorizo and chimi churri sauce. My dad and his friend start la parilla and the aroma of cooking meat, olive oil and cilantro fill the rooftops, and soon someone starts playing tango.
Couples begin dancing slowly on the rooftop. Us children watch the adults making fools of themselves and we partake of the hot chorizos, milanesa, and good empanadas before the adults noticed. Hours of tango music and seeing the brightly lit skyline of Buenos Aires at night. I smile and drowsily allow the city to lull me on where it will.