BienBebidos!!

Hey all!! I'm writing after just getting back from yet another adventure, but to Mendoza Argentina this time! To start off I would just like to say that Argentina is amazing and I really want to explore it more! I've heard Buenos Aires is its own culture on it's own...I hate how money limits things... Argentina and Chile are very different from each other despite they obviously both speak Spanish. For one they speak Spanish differently, meaning they speak a lot slower, but use voseo which is the informal "you" in Spanish, which I'm just now sort of learning down here... rather than saying "y tu?" they say "y vos?" Really weird to go from Chilean Spanish to Argentinean Spanish. Needless to say Chilean Spanish is one the hardest types of Spanish to understand because they drop "S", speak really fast, and blend their words together. So going from understanding Spanish in Chile to understanding Spanish in Argentina wasn't too horrible, but still a little difficult! The other difference from Chile to Argentina is that Argentina is a lot more clean! This is to say there isn't much pollution, not as many people smoking (finally got a break from Chilean chain smoking) and there are NO stray dogs!! Chile has a serious problem with stray dogs... it's disgusting!! The other interesting thing is that nearly all Argentineans asked us what we thought of Obama because they're really curious... it really tested our Spanish skills trying to have a political conversation. Overall Argentineans are really excited for Obama!

Ok on with the actual description of our trip! We, (Jeannie, Rande, Kaeli, and I) 4 Colorado girls once again, took a bus at 7:30 in the morning to Mendoza, which is about 2 and a half hours from the border of Argentina. We spent about 2-3 hours at the border waiting to get through customs! It was a long weekend so a lot of people were going to Mendoza to hang out in really warm weather, enjoy wine, and eat a lot of good food! We got to Mendoza around 8 pm after a spectacular drive through the Andes mountains!! Mendoza is a lot bigger city than we expected! After our last excursion to the Atacama desert in a tiny town, we had the image of a pueblito in our head rather than an actual city! ( The bummer was we had to take taxis everywhere, this includes a story). Even though we got in at 8 we didn't have dinner until nearly 12! We had a hard time navigating at first because we just expected that we could walk every where, which was not the case. Turns out that this is the Argentinean way of eating.... really late at night, which reminded me of eating in Italy! Anyway we had an amazing dinner at a restaurant called Don Mario's. Argentina is famous for their meat, leather, WINE, Italian food, and of course ice cream! We spent a lot of time this weekend eating really good food and drinking really good wine! Where the Atacama was famous for it's environment and picturesque view, Mendoza is known for it's food!

Saturday we rented bikes and did a wine tour! There are 11 plus wineries around Mendoza, which we obviously couldn't possibly go to all of them, but we hit 2 wineries or bodegas and Chile produces Cabernet , an oil factory, and a chocolate factory! It felt great to get on a bike though my rear end was a little angry for being out of shape for such riding. The farthest winery was 12 km away or 7.5 miles on townies (We rode 14 miles in total!). It was pretty hot out so it was quite the trek out there. The coolest winery was actually a French winery, where I learned a lot about different types of Malbecs (Argentina produces Malbecs and Chile produces Cabernet Savignon wines). It's good I'm learning all about these wines since I get asked a lot in the French restaurant I work at in Crested Butte... good for my future career as a waitress. After tasting 4 different kinds of wines we went on to the oil factory, which was really interesting seeing how extra virgin olive oil is made from olive trees! We got to taste a bunch of bread with sun-dried tomatoes, egg plant, or just plain bread (our lunch). We then hit one more winery, which wasn't the greatest, but still fun. Then finally we hit up the chocolate factory where we really hit the jackpot! We got to try a bunch of liquors of different types of chocolates (I tried the Irish cream... amazing), we tried actual chocolate.... delicious, then different marmalades... there are no words, and finally we got a completos or hot dogs with all the makings... all for the grand total of 10 pesos or $2.50!! Glad we didn't spend money on lunch! We started the day at 10:30 and ended at 6:30 just in time to see the sun set and the start of the Argentina vs Peru game, which happened to be at the same time as the Chile vs Colombia game (we won and are going to the World Cup in South Africa now!!!). Needless to say it was an amazing day, but it didn't stop there!! No we still had dinner and the bars to hit! We went to an Italian restaurant for dinner and it was a fiesta in all of our mouths to put is in words to describe just exactly what we tasted!! It was so good! We went bar hopping and it was just ridiculous! Almost too many people and toward the end of the night I was pretty sick of being pushed around and had glass in the bottom of my chacos which made dancing a little uncomfortable! However it was pretty awesome 80's and 90's music, both of which I love! Saturaday was a day I'll never forget and I don't know if I'll ever top how much fun we had riding bikes! (See videos at the end of the blog)

Now on to Sunday.... We knew we wanted to go shopping, but it was Sunday so all the stores were closed so we ended up going to the mall. The one lesson I learned with taxis', either all or just Argentinean taxis, they take advantage that you don't know where to go! We told him we wanted to go shopping so he took us to the mall.... I felt like I was in the US. It gave me a hint of what kind of culture shock I might face when I get back. I was pretty angry with our driver because 1. we wanted to keep together because we had to split up into two cabs... we lost the other cab.... 2. we wasn't focusing on the road rather telling us over and over how beautiful we were.... 3. the mall turned out to be in basically a whole other town!!! We ended up paying a bunch for the worst taxi ride of our lives plus we lost our other half of the group! SOOO NOT COOL! The three of us paid the guy and he knew we were upset for him miss leading us and loosing our friends because the other taxi driver was driving too slow... However it turned out fine in the end because we found our friends who were dropped off in another part of the mall, so we were reunited once again! We had a good lunch, but I really didn't want to spend my day in an Argentinean mall that made me feel like I was back in the USA! Fortunately we ran into an US man with his Argentinean wife who told us to go to the Plaza Libertad to go shopping and hang out... this man was a hoot and talked our ears off. They wanted us to come to their house for dinner, but we had to tell him we were leaving that night for Chile. So we went to the suggested Plaza and as we're walking up I see two VERY familiar faces... Drew Holbrook, who has been working at the ski resort in Chile called Portillo, and Quinn Langsfeld!! Both boys whom I've known my whole life and here we are running into each other in Mendoza Argentina... man this world really is small! We chatted for awhile and made plans for Quinn to come see me in Valparaiso within the next month or so! How fun!! We had an amazing, but sort time in Argentina. The group we were with just worked smoothly together and we laughed and laughed all weekend!!

On the way back we had an extensive search at the borders! Just another story.... I had purchased an orange and apple in Chile, but apparently we aren't allowed to bring them back over the border even if they're fruit from Chile! I guess there are fruit flies that are in Argentina that aren't in Chile and if they get in they can ruin plants, which I think is a crock.... At first I was going to just try and sneak my apple and orange over the border in my shirt because it was my breakfast the next day... then I saw the dogs sniffing everything and I knew I would get caught that way. If they catch you bringing fruit or vegetables over the border without claiming them then you can receive up to a $22,000 ticket!!! Holy Cow that's a lot!! So I took the fruit out of my shirt, claimed them before some dog tackled me, and they ended up throwing my fruit away in the end even though they were from Chile!! I was pretty upset, but thinking back I was incredibly stupid to even think I could get away with that... you would think I was sneaking over drugs rather than an 80 cent orange and apple! Oh well it's a story to tell the kids....

So that's it!! We're back safely in our homes with nothing stolen or any tickets received for sneaking over fruit! Life is great and I actually just purchased my plan ticket to Punta Arenas in Patagonia for my birthday and the first two weeks in December!! Just another adventure to add to the books. I have a lot of planning to do for that trip, but I'm so excited to go backpacking by the infamous Torres del Paine!! My heath is good only with weird bites on my body probably from hostel beds, but my cough is basically gone!! I hope you guys are all in good health! Sorry this was such a long blog, but there was so much to tell!! Love you all! Besitos y Abrazos!! Chao!!

Amelie