San Antonio de Areco is a small village about two hours north of Buenos Aires. It is known mostly for its cowboy (gaucho) culture. My friend Paul from the US and I took a few days in late December to check it out and visit an estancia there. A day at an estancia typically consists of horseback riding, swimming, relaxing and eating. Throughout the day, empanadas are served and at lunch, a huge asado is prepared, with all different cuts of meat and unlimited wine.
The town was quite charming and the hotel had complimentary bikes to use to explore the city. There appeared to be no crime whatsoever and the people were extremely friendly and hospitable.
While I am not going to profess to be perfectly fluent in Spanish, I did get a huge laugh out of a comment Paul made as we walked through the town. In one of the shop windows, there was a sign that read, "Hay Sandwiches!". Obviously sandwich means the same in both English and Spanish but the word "hay" means "there are" in Spanish. So, while a Spanish speaker would see the sign and realize it meant the shop had sandwiches, a non-Spanish speaker would think they were serving sandwiches made of hay, which is exactly what Paul did! He didn't find the humor in his mistake.
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