First trip- MENDOZA!

First off let me just say VIVA ESPANA!!! Anyways, so we just got back from our first excursion to Mendoza! It was great! We took a 13 hour bus ride straight across the country to Mendoza! A cute little city that reminds me of Boulder, CO. It was right in the foothills of the Andes mountains. Our group included thirteen of us, 12 students from Expanish or who used to take Expanish earlier in the month who were still in Buenos Aires and Leticia (Leti) or guide from a travel agency that works with Expanish. The bus ride was actually really relaxing. We got on the double decker bus and were in seats that are similar to business class on an airplane. They almost reclined 180 degrees. Emanuel, our 'bus attendant' handed out bingo cards and we all played a bingo type game on the bus. None of us won, but the prize? A bottle of wine from Mendoza of course! We watched the movie Taken on the bus ride there which, if any of you know is about two girls traveling alone to Paris and getting kidnapped, not the best movie to play. We then had dinner which consisted of rice, ham & cheese, crackers, pudding-like substance and chicken breast stuffed with a hard boiled egg and ham. The stars on the ride there were beautiful and crystal clear! There are no lights on the roads at night and some parts of the road are pretty bumpy. I slept through until the morning. Breakfast was some crackers and jam and two alfajores. An alfajore is somewhat similar to a mallomar cookie, except instead of marshmallow in the middle it is dulce de leche. It's circular shaped and dipped in either dark, white, or milk chocolate. They have different flavors, too such as coffee and hazelnut. They are delicious!! 

We got to the hostel, settled in then went on a wine tour of two vineyards, one was older and now is organic and the other was just built four years ago and uses all modern machinery. They were both smaller vineyards and only had four different kinds of wine, but of course with the famous malbec grapes. We also toured an old olive oil factory and a small factory that made their own chocolates and liquors. They had over 20 varieties of liquors from after dinner drinks to absinthe! We got to sample the wines, olives, chocolate and liquor! It was obviously a great day for us! That night at the hostel, they had a 'choriloco' for us which meant sausage sandwiches, they were great! We then had Fernet's and coke which is a popular drink here. Fernet's is sold in the U.S. and is apparently very popular in San Francisco. It reminds me of the Czech Becherovka in the sense that it's made from flowers and cinnamon. That night our group went out to a bar, but in true Argentine fashion didn't leave until about 1 a.m. to get there. 

The next morning we woke up at 7 a.m. to take a bus to the Andes! We spent about twelve hours driving to the border of Chile. We stopped along the way at Incan ruins, a national park, a lake, lunch at a cute skiing resort, and other good views of mountains to take pictures. We had an excellent dinner that night, we went out with some of our new friends that were on the trip with us. We went to a parrilla which is a restaurant that gives you a few types of beef, chicken, sausages, and (yuck) gizzards on a mini grill that they bring out for you. It's absolutely delicious! That night, the hostel had free drinks for us! Would you EVER find that in the states? We had some drinks and hung out, then I took a nap because no one was going out until 2:30 a.m....but I never woke up until the morning. I needed my sleep though! 

Sunday, we walked around the city of Mendoza all day. We went to the Parque San Martin, which is a park about the size of Central Park. There was a really pretty fountain, an open air market, a small lake, and palm trees! The weather was gorgeous, hot almost! It was nice compared to the frigid Andes the day before. We had a really nice lunch as we watched the world cup. I asked our waiter and he was supporting the Netherlands. I asked why and he said because of tensions that South America has had with Spain in the past, and he just didn't really like their team that much...makes sense. We watched the rest of the game, got our luggage, and headed to the Mendoza bus station. 

We arrived back in B.A. midmorning and headed back to our apartment. Today is Helen's birthday, one of my apartment mates. We didn't go to class today because we got back late because of traffic on the highway around B.A. We are having a yummy dinner, baking a cake, and then going out to ice cream because that's what she wants for her birthday! Sounds good to me! Our cleaning lady came today and literally was here for four hours. She cleaned every single nook and cranny of this apartment. Her name is Gladys and she is really sweet. I also figured out how to use our bite-sized washer so we can do some laundry here! Otherwise, we can bring our sheets and things down the street and the laundromat does it for us. We made some friends this weekend on our trip and we are looking forward to hanging out with them this next coming weekend! Besos a todos!