Mendoza, Argentina

Luckily, PUCV has Semana Novata, which means we had a week off of classes. Its a welcome week for all the Freshman, and therefore all of the afternoon classes are cancelled and many of the morning ones as well. So, Kate, Erin and Rachel, all friends of mine (all shown in this order), woke up early on Tuesday of Semana Novata and headed to Mendoza, Argentina which is about 7 hours away.

We rode on a double-decker bus which was really fun because the whole drive is full of beautiful views! Practically the whole trip is through the Andes, and coming from flat Indiana, it was really awe-inspiring to see the towering mountains.

Here is one of the most beautiful views that I was able to capture through the window. If I'm not mistaken, I believe that this lake is actually there because it has been damned somewhere to capture the water from the Andes. Mendoza and much of the surrounding area is extremely dry and doesn't receive much rainfall, so they need to collect the extra water so they can use it.

This was the harrowing part of the journey. As you can see, we slowly winded our way up the side of the mountain and it was a bit scarey to look down and see the bus was about a foot from the edge of this gigantic drop off....duly noted in this foto...

Here is our hostel, Puertas del Sol. The owner was a young Argentinian, Hernan, who lives in the hostel and was super kind and helped us book all of the activities we wanted to do in Mendoza. One night he even took us to go buy wine because it was raining. I thought I was going to die because of the way he drove his truck in the wet, slippery streets, but it was kind none-the-less.

One day we took a wine tour through Maipú, which is sort of like a "county" of Mendoza, I believe. We rode bikes along the street and stopped off at the wine museum, did a tasting at Viña del Cerno (right), an artesinal winery that produces about 100,000 bottles a year, a chocolaterie, and a olive oil producer.

At the olive oil factory we were able to taste olives, olive oil on bread and olive oil on bread with sun dried tomatoes. It was delicious. Then at the chocolate factory we tasted chocolate liqueurs, I had Irish Cream and others we shared together were Chocolate, Chocolate with mint, with coffee and with banana. We also got to try four different kinds of chocolate that they make there which was probably my highlight of the day. Then at Vina del Cerno, we did a degustation and I tried a red wine that was a mix of old and new wine and then a dry champagne - both were excellent!

To the left is on top of Cerro de la Gloria, a "hill" in the massive Parque de San Martin. From here is obviously the beautiful view of the Andes and from the other side a great view of Mendoza. If you were to look to the right in the picture, just in front of the Andes, is where we took a horsebackriding excursion at sunset through the pampas. It was by far my favorite part of the trip with such a beautiful view of the Andes and then when we came back we had a traditional asado or BBQ with the gauchos (Argetinian cowboys) and it was the best beef I've ever tasted!

One day Erin and I were walking around saw this cool church that was being renovated so we stopped by and Gabriel popped his head out and asked us if we wanted a tour. We ended up getting a full-blown historical background tour of this church, Iglesia de la Virgen de la Merced. And this statue of the Virgin was found under the rubble of the church after an earthquake and she was fully intacted. Since then, the church has been rebuilt two other times because of earthquaks, hence the display case she's now in.

Mendoza doesn't get much rainfall so after the earthquake that destroyed a lot of the city they made the sidewalks a lot larger - which means tons of wonderful spots for drinking a coffee or wine outside - and put in these little "ditches" along the streets that bring water from the Andes into the city...I think all of us almost fell in them at least once.

Our last day in Mendoza, Kate, Erin and I decided to go to the zoo. We waited about 30 minutes for a bus and then decided to take a cab...we we arrived this sign was up outside "Por un salario digno" - "For a dignified salary". The workers were on strike...so we ate lunch and caught a bus back into town.

All in all, it was a great trip and the one souvenir that I got to take back with me with some leftover pesos, vino blanco!!!

¡Hasta pronto!

Erika

Mi Casa

Bienvenido a mi casa!

Welcome to my house!

This is my "old" room. Rossy, my mamá chilena, thought that the room was looking a bit triste (sad) so she bought a new comforter for the room to brighten it up. What do you think of the new and improved Habitación de Erika?

Rossy is a pretty intense housekeeper, like most Chilean housewifes, everything is always in its place and always clean. I've talked with other students and for the most part, everyone has said that their mothers are always coming in to straighten their rooms after they've headed off to class. Often, I come back home to find my bed remaid and my room tidied up even though it was pretty clean to begin with.

Rossy also spends a lot of time in the kitchen preparing meals for the family (above). We usually have a really light breakfast of coffee or tea (coffee for me!!) with bread and/or crackers with cheese or butter or jam and maybe yogurt or fruit. We usually eat it in here:

This room also doubles as Rossy's "classroom" because she tutors kids after school and on the weekends. Then lunch is always really big and served around 2:30 of 3 but some people wait as long as 4 or 5, this is more on the weekends, though. We usually have some kind of meat and some other side dish and then a salad afterwards and always tea or coffee, to help with digestion - again, coffee for me, I need a pick me up after all the food! Everything is always served on seperate dishes so there's no mixing of tastes and when we have our hot drinks its always got a little saucer under it! I love it! We eat in here in the dining area on the weekends:

Then anywhere from 6 to 8 is "once" which is the snack and always with tea or you could have coffee too. Sometimes we have scrambled eggs on bread with tea or just a snack or we go out to coffee and maybe have a "media luna" (literally "half moon", but its a sweet baby croissant). Lots of people go out for once too for special occasions, like birthdays. You usually get a meal deal kind of thing with your hot beverage, bread, a sandwhich and a slice of desert.

Then dinner can be anywhere from 9 to 12 and we usually have the leftovers from lunch or sometimes something even smaller and always a "agua de hierba" which we would call tea but here they always specify between tea - the dark, traditional kind, and herbal "water" or tea like chamomile. If guests come over then they would be seated in our "Sala de estar" which is directly across from the dining area shown here:

Well, I hope you enjoyed the tour!

Besitos!

Carretes

Carrete is a word that one learns quickly here in Chile because it is de suma-importancia (very important) because it means FIESTA! And let me tell you fiestas abound here! The nightlife is super bien here because its lively, they have good music and everyone dances - chicos, chicas, viejas, viejos...TODOS (guys, girls, older people...EVERYONE!)! The music is amazing, and they play all the best of latin, american (especially the 80s) and reggae music. I've decided that this is why American bars are so boring because its hard to come by good music...anyway...

....here are a couple of photos from a birthday carrete for the girl pictured here in the white shirt, Sarah, who turned 21 last Friday.

She decided on Karaoke (ka-r-a-o-ke in spanish) at a bar called Alcazaba. First of all the night here begins around 10:30-11pm for those who wish to get Happy Hour (don't prononce the "h" if you want to say it in spanish) drinks which are usually 2 for 1 until midnight. Normally, the chileans go to someone's house before heading out because it's cheaper to drink beforehand than drink the majority of your beverages at the bar - this is called the "preparty" is the pre. Normally around 1-1:30am is when the party picks up and the people start dancing, in our case this is when the karoaking started.

We quickly discovered that karoake in Chile is NOT like it is in the US where you go and laugh a lot at people singing stupid songs and are usually shocked into laughing again when someone actually sings well. Here in Chile, the people like to sing romantic songs and are actually pretty good at singing, and I guess they don't really like to make fools of themselves. Well, we decided to have Erin, one of my friends from California, sing Shania Twain's "Man, I feel like a woman." Classic American girls night out song, right?

So, while Erin is sang, myself and the other girls danced and sang "back up." The Chileans found this very amusing. And although only one of us was seriously hampered by a few too many piscos, the rest of us were very sober. However, I think that the Chileans assumed that we were all borrachas. Nevertheless, it was amusing and afterwards we found out that our pictures were taken and they put them on a site that has pictures from all the carretes around Chile (and of course you can pay to buy them.).

Hope you find them amusing, I did....ciao!