Many things have happened since the last time I updated you, so this will just be a post of me going through my magical journal and seeing if anything interesting happened.
Starting about three weeks ago: my host family celebrated Passover! I did not know they were Jewish, but they're at least Jewish enough to celebrate this holiday, with interesting food and family time. I will tell you about the food in the food section later. My host mom's son took a lot of pictures with his good digital camera, because I don't think he has a phone? But that's okay, no judgement here. Mostly I spent the night entertaining the one-year-old, who I love. She is my favorite. And she also like actually likes and trusts me now? And she always wants to feed me her tomatoes, because Matilde never gives me any because she thinks I don't like them, which is not true, but I can't make her understand but it's fine, but the baby feels bad that I don't have any tomatoes apparently. She's very considerate. But also, they just gave her a whole plate of tomatoes for dinner one night, and I was very confused, because if I were a baby, I would not be a fan of this arrangement, but she just stabbed them with her fork and shoved too many in her mouth at once. So I guess it's fine.
That same week, I went on my first real trip! Some other people from my group and I took a bus to Mendoza, Argentina, so that was really cool! Our bus was supposed to leave at 5pm, so we got to the bus station at a reasonable time of like 4pm. But our bus didn't leave until 7pm. No. It arrived at 7pm, so we probably left at like 7:30. But we had some fun bonding activities, such as buying beer and drinking it? And buying wine and putting it in water bottles to smuggle it onto the bus? So that was fun! And then it took like 2 hours to go what should have taken half an hour, and we were all starving, (I told Emily, my seatmate, that I was hungry probably like 18 times in two hours, I'm sorry Emily), and they were making us watch weird, terrifying movies, like The Last Witch Hunter and Jorge Curioso so it was a bad time. And I didn't really sleep that much, because buses are hard to sleep on. And the drive that was supposed to take 14 hours took 18 hours, but when you add in all the waiting it was like 21 hours, but you know what? We all made it there and didn't die. So that's good.
We stayed in a hostel that wasn't super great, but it was very cheap, and also it had a turtle mural on the outside wall, and also we had some very VERY good asado (which is like barbecue, basically just meat, yes, Dad, you can call your grilling asado if you want.) So it wasn't all that bad! The shower was a little cold. A little is probably an under exaggeration.
On the Friday when we were there, we decided to go for a hike! So we got up early that morning so we could get to the bus station to take a bus up the mountain to another mountain path where we could eventually reach a waterfall! I think the bus ride was very interesting itself, and was full of good mountain scenery. It was like an hour and a half, and then they just dropped us off at the mountain trail and said, "Yo we'll be back in like 10 hours, try not to get lost" and then left.
It was really nice to walk through the mountains and stuff and feel like I was actually doing adventuring, but also, this mountain hike I think was literally the hardest physical thing I've ever tried to force my body to do. I, the small infant from Minnesota/Iowa, apparently do not do well at high altitudes. After like two hours-ish of hiking, I had to tell the rest of the group that I couldn't do it anymore. Like, that's not even a lie. I would know if I were lying to myself because I would feel bad about it, but I was not lying. I could not go any further up that mountain. And I was disappointed, but I really did try my best. I took my time on my way back down, because the rest of the group still had about 5 hours of hiking to do, so I was in no hurry, and I wanted to catch my breath, and make sure my legs weren't permanently damaged.
As a reward for you still reading what is inevitably going to be a kind of long blog post, I will now share some pictures of the scenery that I took on my way down:
This (above) is the nicer part of the path. By that I mean we didn't walk directly through trees. But it was still full of rocks and danger, but it was nice and pretty. To the right is a great view of a mountain, along with the first sign of fall that I have really seen my whole time in this lovely country. Quite scenic.
Also, I have some ponderous, contemplative videos I recorded of myself coming down the mountain. One is kind of long (like 5 minutes) and the other is a short follow up video to the other one. I kinda want to put them here? But I'm not sure if anyone wants to watch me ramble about weirdness for five minutes. We'll see. I'll think about it, and you can try and convince me.
At the bottom of the mountain, I found a hut to eat lunch in, which was good, but scary. It was made of stone and had graffiti all over it, and I called it home, because it kept the wind off me, when the wind blew only from one specific angle, so it was good. Yeah, good.
The rest of the trip was spent hanging out with our friends, and partying at the hostel with the hostel "peeps" as is the vernacular. They were very nice, if not clean, and as I mentioned above, they made us some good meat. So it was all worth it. The other people in my group went on a wine tour, but as I am not a fan of wine, I didn't really want to spend a bunch of money on tasting things that are like drinking the elixir of death itself, so I stayed home and probably napped and hung out. There were also many journeys to find milkshakes in Mendoza, brought on specifically (as I understand it) by the weirdest fast food chain I've seen called Kingo's which advertised 30 peso milkshakes, but failed to provide. So we had to settle for more expensive milkshakes, and also it was raining, which was good? But overall we had a fun time!!
The bus ride home was less eventful, although it still took a very long time. I did not get home in time for my class, which was actually okay with me, because I had not written my essay for class. Remember the last post in which I mention avoiding writing an essay by instead updating my blog? Yeah, it was that essay. That I still hadn't done. It's fine. This school doesn't really count, does it? I don't think so.
The last couple of weeks have been pretty uneventful, apparently, according to myself, who keeps my own journal? I've been sick for a while with a nice cold. I went to four pharmacies the other day to find some sort of Kleenex and I failed in my quest. I was the saddest. Also, I hurt my knee doing something (I keep saying it was the hiking, but I'm not actually sure, but we'll keep going with the hiking idea.) I think it's mostly getting better, except when I have to climb stairs. It only vaguely hurts now. (Also, unrelated, people here have made fun of my for how I say "vague" and I'm not even sure how I'm saying it weird. It must be that Minnesota accent coming out now.)
And I've played with a baby a lot, because we are friends. My translation professor thinks I am cool because I speak English and actually come to class, which is nice. I think he only knows my name and no one else's. I'm basically the teacher's pet and I don't actually have to be good at school because he knows I don't know Spanish as my native language. So that's good.
Tomorrow I'm going to a polo match again, so that will hopefully be fun! Matilde warned me to wear sunscreen and bug spray because of all the sun and mosquitoes that will apparently accompany me everywhere I go. And I think that's all the exciting news! Wow! So many things! I hope I didn't forget anything. The next trip I'll probably be taking is to the giant waterfall called Iguazu, so I will be sure to tell you all about that adventure when it happens! Bye forever!!
PS: Fooooooddddd?????:
- Two new kinds of wine, both red, both terrible
- Matzá - unleavened bread for Passover
- New torta with fish, cheese and egg
- Literally raw fish in a cream sauce - the worst
- Quiche of fish? (Why was there so much fish??)
- Matzá balls in chicken broth (still not a fan, good thing I'm not Jewish)
- Knish - kind of like empanadas but specifically Jewish, they have potatoes and onions, at least the ones we had here!
- A new pizza flavor with beef slices, bacon and olives (we gave all the olives to Benji because is the fiend who likes them)
- A drink called Suizo, that was apparently supposed to be like a mocha, but it still tasted too much like coffee for me
- Mente chocolate - a different drink that was cold and delicious and had no coffee!
PSS: Here is a picture of Xander in Mendoza, hanging out on the window sill, listening to some chill guitar music played in the open air
Okay also PSSS: Sorry I never do this and I know this is so long, but I'm putting this at the end so you can skip it if you want. But here are the videos of me rambling like a fool. The first one is long, beware!
Ha okay sorry, apparently the file is too big for Google to handle? So I lied. Maybe I'll send the videos to you if you specifically ask me. Sorry fiends. I tried.
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