Weird hours

After nearly a week in Argentina, I can say for certain that people here keep weird hours. It is 2:15 in the morning, and we just got finished with dinner. Tonight we had a barbecued goat, with a story. First, the goat was frozen to the side of the freezer for most of the day. We had to use a hair dryer to unfreeze it. At around 8:00pm, the goat was freed, and the fire started. Now, it takes about 30-40 minutes to prepare the coals, then this particular asado delicacy requires very slow cooking. About 3 1/2 hours later, we were ready to eat (yes, that's 11:30pm). This didn't seem to phase anyone, including the 2 and 4 year old girls running around as if it were mid afternoon. Dinner unfolded over the next hour and a half, and around 1:00am we stared dessert, again, with most at the table giving the appearance that this was quite a normal time of day. People slowly trickled out at 1:30am, and now I am totally exhausted.

Lunch, of course is at around 1:30pm, which leaves about 10 hours between meals. Since the meals usually involve most of a large animal, this is not really a problem, though it does take some getting used to. As much as I like the various asado (barbecued) meats here, I'm looking forward to returning to a more familiar daily schedule.