New Traditions

    Tonight I experienced a new tradition that I'm going to have to bring back to the United States with me.      When college kids here are ready to graduate, they take a final test after they have completed all of their classes. As far as I understand, they can take this test whenever they want after they have completed their classes, so they have as much time to study as they want. My host brother has been studying to take his final engineering test for 2 months. I have no idea how he had the patience to wait for 2 months. So this morning he took his test and passed and is finally done with school! Him taking the test was a surprise because he all of a sudden decided to take it, so I came home from class and the family told me we were celebrating. We had a wonderful family lunch, and I thought this was the celebration, but we actually had a second celebration tonight for dinner. He had over a bunch of friends and I helped with cooking sandwiches and guacamole in the kitchen.
    There is a tradition here that when somebody finishes their last test, all of their friends get to attack them and throw food and all sorts of other concoctions on him. After our dinner, my host sisters started mixing up a nasty bowl of lettuce, bread crumbs, mouthwash, soap, mayo, tomato juice, raw eggs... pretty much anything they could find in the kitchen or that was left over from our dinner. Other people were making their own batches too, full of similar ingredients.
  






  




Then we hoaxed Agustin into the street and started the attack. He knew this was coming; we'd been shooing him out of the kitchen for a while.  His friends threw ink on him, his sister Marcela threw powdered soap on him. Within minutes he was covered in eggs, all of our concoctions, water, soda, mayonnaise, and a whole lot more. Agustin took it like a champ too. He ran away a little to avoid it, but pretty much let us do whatever we wanted.
    But the fun didn't stop after the food fight. His friends got out the scissors and started cutting his hair, and cutting his clothes.  They chopped off tufts of hair, leaving bald patches on his head! I couldn't believe that he was allowing this to happen. The food was fun, but they totally ruined his pants and shirt, even though they were already ruined from all the food. I felt a little guilty taking my turn to cut his hair and pour coke all over him, but did it anyway... Agustin retaliated a little in the end when he started whipping us with the pant leg that had been cut off. But even on our way back inside his friends were still throwing leaves and dirt on him. All the neighbors were out watching from afar to avoid getting in the mess.
    Hopefully taking my last test of this semester doesn't warrant this type of attack on me in December!

Peanut Butter!

Peanut Butter is not a popular food item here. Some stores sell a very weird form of it, that I've heard is awful and not even worth trying. There are a lot of vegetarians in our study abroad group, so they are used to eating a lot of peanut butter for protein and we've all had peanut butter cravings since we got here. Honestly, we probably wouldn't be craving it so much if Jose had never told us about the lack of peanut butter here. But yesterday a group of us satisfied our cravings by making home made peanut butter! We all bought some peanuts, and snacks to eat the peanut butter with, and met at our friend Audrey's house, where we roasted the nuts and crushed them in a food processor with sunflower seed oil (thats all they sell here) and honey. The batch turned out great, and we ate it with cookies, chocolate, apples, bananas and crackers. And we all have some left over too to prevent more cravings for another week or so.

Ta da!

Shopping Week

    My program while abroad, IFSA, lets us spend the first two weeks of classes "shopping" for what we want to take at the local universities. This allows us to try out a bunch of different classes and then decide which ones are right for us. This is such a helpful tool as an international student because some of the professors are much harder to understand, and I think I underestimated how hard some classes would be.
    In Mendoza, we can either take classes at Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, or at Universidad de Congresso. Cuyo is a public university, and Congresso is a private university. However, the system for public vs. private schools is the complete opposite than in the States. Here, attending public universities is free, which means that a lot more teenagers want to go to college after graduating their escuela secondaria (high school). This makes it a very competitive process to get into the public universities, and the ones who are not accepted have to pay to go to college at the private universities. As a result of this process, the public universities are actually the more prestigious schools, with better professors and better reputations. The classes are much larger; some have a couple hundred students. Cuyo has 39,000 students, and University of Buenos Aires, also a public university, has 310,000 students attending, whereas Congresso only has 2,000 students and the classes are much smaller. There are benefits to each type of university though. To me, Congresso seems much more organized and inclusive because there are fewer students.
    My first class of the week was Historia de Espana and it was a fifth year class in the history department. I'm not going back. I understood probably 20% of the class, and even though the professor said she was speaking slowly for me and the other 2 intercambios in the class, we still didn't follow much. I was much more relieved when I went to my second class on Tuesday, Modern History, and the professor was much more willing to help out the foreign exchange students. She is going to allow us to retake tests if necessary, do more written work instead of oral, have time for us to ask questions in her office, and she said as long as she knows we are trying, she will give us credit. Another class I'm taking, that is with my IFSA program, is about the underdevelopment of countries in this region, which I am excited to learn about because there are many very prominent differences between Argentina's and the US's level of development and industrialization and I'm interested to learn more about why.
    I had my first homework assignments this week, which involved a lot of Google Translating. It helps that my modern history class is about topics I am familiar with already, like feudal systems and religion in society, so I at least have the background knowledge when trying to understand the lecture in Spanish. However, in my readings, there are a lot of words I don't even know in English, especially words pertaining to religion, so I'm doing a two step process of translating and using the dictionary to figure out what my homework says.
    Tango class is also offered during the semester, and I haven't decided yet if I'm going to take it or not. I don't have much dancing skills so maybe this is a great opportunity to learn. The last class I'm taking is a Música Popular Latinoamericana, which is about popular music in South America, starting with Brazil. We learned all about the instrument and different types of music. This class is two hours, once a week, and it started late and ended early, and over half of it was spent listening to music. The professor and students were sharing mate during class, and he repeated himself quite a few times. I'm not normally the kind of person to take the easy way out, but I'm guilty of that in this situation.
    A couple things I've noticed during classes: PowerPoints are used here a lot in classes, and my first couple teachers really struggled with using it and the other technology in the classroom, like the projectors. They've had to ask the students for help to work it properly. I've also seen professors ask the students for white board markers, which is interesting because I wouldn't normally carry that kind of supplies around. I miss a lot of details in class, so I try to take good notes. I didn't catch when my teacher told us that all of the PowerPoints were online, so for the first two classes I was frantically taking notes trying not to miss anything.  It is also common for two or three professors to teach one class. They assign different homework and I haven't quite figured out how this works yet. Food and drinks are not acceptable in class here, but it is okay to be late and walk in and out. I haven't been able to read my professor's writing very well, so I keep having to ask her to repeat herself, and when I needed to send her an email but couldn't read the email address she wrote down for me, I had to send  it to various combinations of what I thought she wrote down until it successfully sent. 
    The most confusing part about classes is the photocopy system that they use instead of textbooks. I've spent a lot of time waiting in line at the fotocopiador in my facultad, and today I bought a 118 page photocopy of an entire book for 4 dollars. I don't understand how this doesn't infringe on copyrights.
    I'm really excited to finally have a normal schedule and daily routine now that classes are starting. I will feel more like I live here rather than I'm on vacation. I'm also excited to start meeting local students in my classes. I'm going to need their help studying.

No Regrets

    It has now been one month since I left my comfort zone of Colorado and started living like an Argentinian. The time has flown past and I can't believe I only have four months left. The scary part is that the first month was more like a vacation, and now I have to start focusing on classes for the next four months. I've got long walks into the city and the park each day, with plenty of time to think about my life here and everything I left in Colorado. I think about what my semester abroad would be like if I'd chosen to go to Spain, Chile, or maybe an English speaking country. Speaking Spanish every day is the hardest part, especially when switching back and forth from English, but I'm glad I accepted the challenge instead of going to a country with my native language. I can tell I'm starting to get better and gain confidence while speaking Spanish. I've started having conversations with my taxi drivers more, they often compliment me on my language abilities as we talk about the weather and food- simple concepts. I'm starting to talk to people in my classes. One girl invited me and Skylar and Sam to have a coke with her and her friends after class Thursday.  My biggest goal for the next few months is to meet more locals. I already love all the kids in my program, but I know I can't spend my whole time here with other international students, or my Spanish won't get any better.
    I wish I'd packed a little better; with the amount of productive laziness I've been producing so far, I really miss my big comfy sweatpants that I left at home. My shoes are also destroyed from all the walking I've done in the park and the city where there is so much dust and dirt. I've worn my black Northface every day while here and could've used a different jacket, but overall it is good to pack light. I'm probably going to buy so many alfajores (two cookies with dulce de leche filling) here to bring home that I'll need to get rid of some stuff in my suitcase anyway to make room.
     I'm really surprised how easy it was for me to leave my home. I've lived in Colorado all my life, went to college thirty minutes away and saw my family all the time. I was prepared to freak out a little when I got here, but still really haven't. Maybe by the time finals roll around it will have hit me that I'm living in another country.
    I also didn't really know what to expect of Mendoza when I arrived. I knew that it was next to the mountains, a smaller city and a wine region. What I didn't know was how much I was going to love the city, the cafés, the park by my house, and the dulce de leche. My biggest worries when arriving were the language barrier, and what it would be like to live with a host family. My family took away all my worries once I arrived (except for that alarm I set off the first day). They are so patient with me and help me with my Spanish. It's different living at home after living in a dorm for two years. In a way my room here is still like a dorm, because I have privacy and freedom and can leave when I want, but then I also get homecooked meals and get to experience the culture of an Argentinian family. 
    The next few months will be full of excitement and stress. I have my first written test in my modern history class in a week and a half. But we're also planning more trips out of Mendoza, and it will be getting warmer here when spring arrives. We've already had some very hot winter days, so I'm expecting summer to be really hot. Sometimes I forget that Mendoza is considered a desert, but it explains the hot temperatures during the day and freezing cold weather at night. I'm already planning my parents trip for when they come visit me in December. I'll be taking them to all the places I've written about so far, and I'm sure that list will grow as I experience more too.
   

First long weekend: Córdoba, Argentina

    Me and seven other friends ventured out of Mendoza this weekend for a four day break. Friday we did not have class at Cuyo because it was an anniversary of the university, and Monday nobody had school because it was a national holiday, Dia del Niño. We left Thursday night on an overnight bus for a 10 hour ride to Córdoba, one of the provinces in between Mendoza and Buenos Aires. We arrived at 8 a.m. ready to explore Nueva Córdoba. Downtown, we followed our map to see all of the important landmarks, mostly churches and statues. We went into a Jusuit crypt that was turned into a museum with artwork. We found some good restaurants throughout the city for meals all weekend, mostly consisting of coffee, empenadas or pizza. We also had to try the ice cream to compare it to Mendoza's, where everyone is so proud of their ice cream.
    While walking around Córdoba, we noticed that all of the names of the streets, parks, and plazas are the same as the names found in Mendoza, except in different locations. We saw all of the common names we have become accustomed to in Mendoza, such as San Martin, General Paz, 9 de Julio, Sarmiento. After learning Mendoza's layout, seeing the same names in different places got really confusing. I've never seen this type of construction in two cities, where all of the names are repeated. They are the named after important places or people in Argentina, so each city must want to use the same names.
    We went to Park Sarmiento for a little in the afternoon, which is very similar to San Martin Park, very close to where I live in Mendoza. We went to three art museums in the park to see some very interesting abstract art and sculptures, but we also saw very disturbing art about the Dirty War in the 70's when there were many child kidnappings and murders done by the military governmentin Argentina.

Casa de Che

    On our second day in Córdoba, half of us went hiking and the other half went to Carloz Paz, a city nearby that had a lot of tourist attractions including many markets and a chairlift above the city. From there we took a tour bus to Alta Gracia, where Che Guevara's house is located, the Argentine Marxist Revolutionary who had a lot of influence in Argentina. From there we stopped at a little village along Lake Molines where many locals were selling wine, salami, and cheese. From the lake we went to Villa de Belgrano, a German settlement that was also pretty touristy, but also had some great beer and chocolate tasting.

Lago Molines

Cu-Cu Clock

   






 



Double fisting beer and ice cream in Villa de Belgrano

    After spending three nights in Cordoba, I'm definitely glad that I chose to study abroad in Mendoza instead of a bigger city like Cordoba or Buenos Aires. There were too many people and it was hard to know where to go to have fun because the city was too big. The hostel we stayed at was trying to promote their friends' bars and boliches, so they didn't give us a real answer for where were the best places to go. We ended up trying a couple bars and boliches near our hostel, but we were all exhausted from traveling anyway that there was no reason to stay out super late. Although it was a much bigger city with a lot more people, we were all confused because so many places were closed during the day and at night while we were there. They have a few peatonal streets (pedestrian streets) like we do in Mendoza, which are normally very crowded with people and restaurants, but the restaurants on the peatonals in Cordoba were all closed. This caused quite a few detours during the weekend as we kept trying to check out restaurants we'd heard about, but then finding them to be closed. So instead of dining out every night, we made two homecooked family dinners in the hostel. One of a vegetable pasta, and the other of gourmet grilled cheese. I haven't had many sandwiches here and I'd been starting to crave a good grilled cheese.

Our colorful hostel

    On our last night, we wanted to see a show in the city. A newspaper we found had a list of shows, and we went through somewhat randomly and picked one near our hostel that was only 40 pesos. It was called Pernocta: hedor de confesiones. This translates literally as Overnight: stinks of confessions, so we thought this might be intriguing. We were not prepared for a very serious and emotional "play" about how hard it is to be a dancer. It only lasted half an hour, which was good because we'd had a lot of wine and couldn't handle the serious nature of the play. This left us needing more wine, so we found some at a kiosk for much cheaper than you can find in the grocery store, and spent Sunday night playing games at the hostel with a new friend we met from Australia.
   The bus ride home Monday morning lasted much longer than on the way there; we made at least 10 stops along the way, watched 3 movies on the bus, and slept for the rest of it, arriving back home just in time to go to bed (after doing my homework for the weekend). 
   

Temblor

My host mom told me that there was a small tremor this morning. I know that there is a lot of seismic activity in Mendoza because we are right on a fault line, but was yet to feel any movement. I didn't even know that the tremor happened, as I was still asleep and didn't feel anything. My host sister said she felt it, but nobody else in the house did. I looked it up, and I guess is was a 3.6 magnitude tremor around 9:14 this morning.

Hamster Cage Classroom

 This is my classroom building where I have my class de Espanol. It looks like we are in a hamster cage because it's shaped like a tube. We left class the other day because it smelled like gasoline. When we got to another class room, it smelled even worse. But then we realized it was just the cleaning product they were using.

Sunday lunch

    Sundays are big family days in Mendoza. It involves big family reunions, a lot of food, and a full day of Spanish practice for me. Today 18 people came over for lunch. I woke up this morning to Carlina preparing for the big meal, and together we tried to fit a second table into the dining room through a doorway that was probably four inches too narrow to fit the table. We had to give up after taking it all apart and realizing that the frame of the table still wouldn't fit. Instead we fit 18 people around their dining room table and one other small plastic table from outside. Family members kept showing up, and I met so many new faces. Since it is customary to greet people with a kiss on the cheek, this is how I would meet the family, but introductions were often lost during the greetings as people go around the room and kiss every single person in the room upon arrival. So I only learned a couple names of the family members. There were cousins and aunts and uncles and sisters and brothers, but surprisingly, only one kid, Mia, who lives with my host mom's daughter and another student from my program, Jessie.
    I think it would have been very interesting living with a host family who has young kids. I worked with kids all summer at a preschool, but I've never lived with one since I'm the youngest in my family, and when Mia is over at our house, its very different than working with kids. I don't know my boundaries for how much I can tell Mia what and what not to do. There is less privacy, because she wants to look at my stuff all the time, use my bathroom, and eat my gum, but she also is helpful to learn Spanish because she corrects me a lot more than my family does.
    With everybody talking at once during lunch and multiple conversations going, I miss a lot of what is going on, but get the general idea of the conversations. If these events happen every Sunday, I hope within the next couple months I'll be able to contribute more to the discussions than what I did today. Today mostly involved me stuffing my face with food rather than speaking in broken Spanish. One of the cousins is a chef, and she brought over sandwhiches made of some type of beef or lamb, different salsas, and oregano bread. That was our main dish after having eaten four empenadas. Carlina made flan for dessert, which we put dulce de leche on, and was so delicious. I'm developing an addiction to dulce de lecho. It's good on fruit, bread, desserts. Today I put it in hot milk. You can't find peanut butter here, so it is kind of a replacement for peanut butter. My program here doesn't include dinner on Sunday nights, and now I know that it's because we normally eat so much for Sunday lunch that dinner is unnecessary.
    The family kept going in and out of the house today because it was election day in all of Argentina, and everybody over the age of 18 is required to vote. Everyone has to go to a school or designated voting place to fill out their ballet. You can't vote by mail like you can in the U.S. The lunch lasted until around 7, when everyone goes to church, or passes out from all the food.

Biking and Wining!

    Before deciding to study abroad in Mendoza, I researched a little about the area and what to do here. One of the first activities I found was the bike and wine tours that you can take in the vineyards of Mendoza. I'd been wanting to do this since we arrived here! It was a very easy process to make this happen. Yesterday a group of us took a micro for 40 minutes to a region of the Mendoza province called Maipú, where there are a lot of vineyards. All the plants are dead right now since it is winter, but there was still an absolutely gorgeous view of the snow topped mountains behind all the vineyards. The street where we got off the bus has probably 5 or 6 different companies that all rent bikes for the day. We found the cheapest one and rented old beaten up bikes for 4 dollars for the entire day from a place called Mr. Hugo. We were promised assistance if our bikes break down half way through our trip; this must be common... Helmets and bike locks weren't an option either.  Phoebe and I decided to rent a tandem. It was so old, stiff and heavy with two of us on there that it was actually a really good work out through the day, and we were only biking on flat ground. I'm also pretty sure Phoebe didn't do much pedeling in the back ;-)

 












  
There is a 10 kilometer stretch of vineyards, homes, and other food and drink shops that is bikable in Maipú. We started out by biking almost the entire stretch to one of the last vineyards that is supposed to be one of the best. This vineyard was called Familia di Tomaso. The actual place where the wine was made from this vineyard was located another 10 kilometers down the road, but now the location where we went is a museum of very old and obsolete winery machines. For only 3 dollars we received a tour and very lengthy explanation of all of the processes in the winery and different types of wine. This was all in Spanish, and I followed most of it, but our tour guide lost me at points until I heard the word degustación and knew we were ready for the actual wine tasting.
    I don't have much experience or knowledge about wine, but our tour guide was a perfect wine snob, and taught us how to analyze the different wines by color, smell, and taste. We sampled a cabernet, malbec, a white wine, and port dessert wine. All delicious. We were supposed to be able to smell certain ingredients in the wine, such as olives in the cabernet, and cherries in the malbec. All I smelled was wine. My nose isn't that sophisticated. We were very spoiled, though, during the tasting because we were practically poured full glasses of wine to taste. I'm always surprised when people pour out their wine if they don't like it, rather than drink it.
    After this vineyard and lunch, we only had time for one more place, and decided to go to Entre Olivos, where they make olive oil, chocolate, and various liqueurs. We sampled olive spreads, jams, and other spreads, chocolate, and two liqueurs. I tried dulce de leche liqueur and another fruity one.
    When we returned our bikes, the shop owner gave us three free bottles of wine. I have no idea why, but it's pretty common that our group of Americans has been getting a lot of free alcohol. 

   

Punctuality and Productive Laziness

    One of these exists here, and the other doesn't.
    I experienced a thing called Guatemala time when I traveled to Guatemala last December. The family I stayed with would tell me that we'll leave at 6 am the next day, but in the morning, the family would wake up at 6:30, and casually get ready until we left probably around 7. It's part of the Latin American culture that time and punctuality does not matter as much in their daily lives. Mendoza is the same way, which means it is acceptable to be 10 to 20 minutes late to meetings and dates and classes and events. Seven o'clock really means 7- ish. This goes for both parties of an event too. I can be late to class because my teacher is late to class.
    I am normally a very punctual person and get annoyed when people are late, so I'm having to adjust to this new type of lifestyle. There are benefits to it, such as that I don't have to worry so much about being on time. But when friends are late, I need to remember to bring something to do while waiting, especially since I don't have my phone for internet and can't just sit on Facebook til my friends arrive. The other day I went to an orientation at the Universidad de Congresso. I arrived twenty minutes early, and it started 40 minutes late, and went about an hour over the time I thought it would end. By the time it was finished, I was only thinking about my lunch that was waiting for me at home that I was barely listening to the speech.
    I have decided that the main culprit of this lifestyle is the bus system. The micros are never on time, and you never know how long they are going to take, or if a tire is going to pop, so this makes people late all the time and everyone has accepted that.
    As for productive laziness, this might just be what the mendocinos are best at. We learned a new word in Spanish class, and its called "hacer fiaca." This basically means the equivalent of lounging around in bed, not sleeping, but not really doing anything either. It was necessary to learn because its a very common thing to do. My host family, along with many other families that my friends are staying with, like to hang out in bed for a majority of the day, especially the older generation that doesn't work. Part of the reason for this is that it is winter, and my family always says that they want to stay in bed because it is cold out. Netflix is very popular here. I'm experiencing this when I'm at home and not out with friends. I've had a lot of time to blog, catch up on the news, Skype with my family, and once real classes start... I'll have a lot of time to study.

Chacras: where the actual marathon exists

    I extended my record for how late I can stay up in Argentina. Friday night I got home at 6 am (Saturday morning), and then slept for three hours before waking up at 9 for my next adventure. I started the night by beer tasting with my friend Doug at a place with artisan beers. We sampled a few, and liked the barley wine the best. Afterwords, we went to a birthday party for my friend Amanda's host cousin, Juli. She and her friends rented out the upstairs level of a restaurant/bar for the party, and got pizza and drinks for everybody. This was a great opportunity for me to speak some Spanish with some locals, because I haven't met many locals yet. It's definitely hard to meet local friends, especially in a bar environment, because in general the men here are only interested in one thing. I recognized a pattern after being introduced to a lot of the men at the party. After asking my name and where I'm from, the next question is always, "Do you have a boyfriend?" Many have told me that it's normal here to have two boyfriends: one in the states and one in Mendoza. Despite this, I've still met some very nice people, and most of them are very interested in practicing their English or showing us foreigners around. A lot of my conversations last night would consist of me talking in Spanish and the other person responding in English. Its good practice for both of us.
    Around 2 am, Amanda and I left with her host sister, Marina, and her friend, Agustina, and they decided to take us to a boliche. I knew I was getting up early the next day, but went with it anyway. They ended up taking us to Chacras, a region of Mendoza where all the boliches are known to be way more locos than on Aristides, the normal spot for boliches in downtown Mendoza. This place was about half hour away, which meant I was stuck there until everyone else wanted to leave, or pay for a 100 peso cab ride by myself. Amanda's host sister told us that we would stay til 6, so I got my party face on and accepted the fact that I might not get to sleep that night. It cost 30 pesos to get into the boliche, which is different than downtown, where chicas are normally free, but the entrance fee included a drink. So basically they made it required to buy a drink.
    There was a huge line to get into the boliche. We waited outside for a while, and when we entered, I had to have ID, which is the first time needing it since the airport. There were probably 2000 people in this boliche. It was massive. I couldn't believe how many people were in there. There were different rooms separated by tent coverings, with outdoor patios in between. There was also a VIP section up the stairs on a balcony where you can see everything. It was very difficult to walk and hear in there, more so than in the other boliches I've been to. This one was much more intense and very intimidating. There is barely any room in there to dance, and trying to move around is impossible. I was holding to Amanda the whole night for fear of getting lost in there because it was so crowded.
    It was interesting to spend some more time with people my own age from Mendoza. I noticed that the most common outfit in the entire boliche was a black skirt, tights, tank top and red sweater. I probably saw 20 girls with this same outfit. Which made it difficult to follow Amanda's sister because this is what she was wearing. All the Argentinians love their fernet y coca in the clubs. I still can't stand it. It tastes like mouthwash.
    We stayed out til 6, and on the way home Amanda's sister, who was driving, got breathalyzed by a checkpoint for drunk drivers. Based on the intensity of traffic I've seen here and lack of cautious drivers, it made me feel a little better to know that the police here are making some preventative measures to eliminate drunk driving. It always surprises me when it's already 5 or 6 in the morning and the time just flew by. Just like Jose warned us when we got here, the nightlife is a marathon. We started with a sprint, and are working our way up. But the tiredness definitely caught up to me the next day, making it clear why siesta time exists in this country.

New friends: Amanda and Katerina on the left are from the IFSA program too.

One of the rooms in the boliche, taken from the balcony

   

Park Work Outs

    Today I went to one of the free aerobics classes in the park with some friends. It was like zumba but with an Argentinian flare. The instructor is up on a stage with speakers playing remixed pop songs (a lot in English), and taught us multiple different routines that we put all together in a dance and repeated a bunch of times. After the zumba, she led a dance kickboxing class, so I got some good punching practice in for if I ever get mugged in the park. It was a little silly, but was fun to work out in a different way and warm up since today was so cold! The park offers work out classes every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, so I want to try to go to another and see how it is. Afterwords we went to a little cafe in the park to get drinks. Instead of my normal submarino, I tried a licuado, which is a fruit smoothie made with milk. The drinks are so good here, but also so small I get so sad when they are gone so fast!

Sin Mapa!

    Today I walked all by myself from the center of town back to mi casa without having to use my map. I felt very proud of myself for this. It was probably about a 30 or 40 minute walk with quite a few turns.
    My walk home involves a lot of sprinting across streets and counting the blocks I've gone since there are no street signs. I've already mentioned how dangerous the traffic is here; I think I'm more worried about getting hit by a car than finding the correct way home. The other day I saw an old man crossing the street when no cars were nearby. One car came zooming around the corner and absolutely would not slow down for him. It honked for a full solid minute as it kept speeding towards the old man, eventually just going around him. It's dangerous because the cars come out of nowhere. Once in a while, one will stop to let a person cross, which makes it even worse because the other cars around that car wont stop and the pedestrian gets stuck halfway across the road.
    I'm starting to recognize familiar landmarks on my way home, so I know when to turn even if there isn't a street sign. Some of the major streets have pretty distinctive features, like a train track or canal, so I can look for these and know where I am. I hope pretty soon I'll just have the entire city and micro system memorized.

Surviving Zonda

    In my opinion, the hype about this Zonda wind was a little 'blown' out of proportion. I did hear a lot of wind all through the night, but it wasn't worse than any wind I'd ever heard in Colorado. My family said they couldn't sleep very well with all the wind. My orientation that was scheduled for 10 the next morning got canceled, along with my classes for the afternoon. With nothing to do all day, and a little cautious to leave the house, I made good use of my netflix account in the morning. But I could only do this for so long and decided to brave the winds to meet some friends for cafe in the city. It was a little chilly out, cloudy, and no sun, but nowhere near dangerous or stormy. It wasn't even windy. It was a little dry, but not much more than normal. Mendoza is naturally a very dry place. I didn't feel any of the personality changes that Zonda apparently causes, and didn't have any cardio problems. I'm very surprised that it was such a big deal to the family and the program here.Two days after the Zonda hype, it actually rained here, which is confusing because I've been told it barely ever rains here, and I thought the Zonda was supposed to be a dry and hot wind, not rainy and cold. This has been a very strange weather phenomenon, mostly because of the anticipation.

I'm starting to get nervous

    I've been pretty calm through my whole experience abroad so far. But that's because I've really only been with friends from the program, eating helado and drinking cafecitos and cerveza, exploring the city and the parks. The last two weeks have been a vacation, but now school is about to start, and I'm starting to wish I'd practiced a little more Spanish this summer. I'm definitely behind a lot of the other students. I can have decent conversations with my family and program directors because they talk very slowly for me, but when other locals talk to me, I can barely understand and they don't even think I speak Spanish. I'm nervous for when I'll actually need to talk to other locals in my classes.
    The processes for school are different here, and it's not that they are bad, it's just that I need to make some adjustments to get out of my comfort zone. I went to two orientations today for my university, to introduce us to two of the different facultades (career paths) offered at the school. I learned how to check out books from the library; there are index cards with the information for each book available in a filing system, and you have to write down the information of the book you want and take it to a library assistant, who will give you the book for 7 days if it isn't rented out already. I also learned more about the photocopy system that the university uses. It seemed confusing to me in Spanish, but I have a feeling its easier than I'm making it seem to be. It's honestly a great idea to just use photocopies of the chapters needed from textbooks; it is cheaper and more efficient because rarely do classes use the entire textbook.
    The classes at Cuyo will be anywhere from 30 students to a couple hundred students. I got to see some classrooms, and they look nice, very similar to classrooms at home with simply chairs and desks. There isn't a lot of technology in the buildings. The professors mainly lecture or use white boards, but there are older computers available in the library. The classes generally only have one partial exam (midterm) and one final exam that is written and oral. It is very common here to study in groups, so hopefully this will be a good way to meet some local students. People don't bring computers to class here, so I will need to get good at taking notes by hand.
    I have a week of intense Spanish this week, then classes start Monday! I'm not ready for that, summer wasn't long enough!
    One last thought- it's ironic that I posted this after having learned about the Zonda wind that causes people to become stressed. I think my nerves have more to do with the fact that classes are starting than the wind, though.

Beware of Zonda wind

    I got an alert email from my program today warning me of dangerous weather in Mendoza in the upcoming days. The culprit of the dangerous weather is the Zonda wind. This is a type of dry wind that forms on the east side of the Andes. It is caused by polar air and it gets warmed as it descends the slope (Thank you Wikipedia). Apparently Zonda wind can cause personality changes. The email says that this is from the positive ionization of the air, and can make people angry or tired, more stressed, and increases people's sensitivity to cardio problems, allergies and sweating. There are supposedly more car accidents on days of Zonda wind. People here get very nervous and stay in doors to avoid accidents.  My host mom told me that there is a similar wind in Germany that causes these symptoms as well.
    I thought this was a bit of a joke when I read the email. I'm used to weather alerts when 4 feet of snow is expected, so obviously I think I can handle a bit of wind. But the mendocinos take this a lot more seriously than I was expecting. My host mom warned me about not going running or doing any tough physical exercise today. She said I should allow an extra ten minutes to walk to school because I will get tired because it's hotter out, and I should drink a lot more water. My friend here said today that her allergies were actually acting up. School can even be canceled because of it.
    I haven't felt any symptoms yet, but I need to be careful around here! 

    Update! The elementary schools in Mendoza actually canceled school tomorrow because of the approaching wind! I'm starting to think the wind is more dangerous than I thought. My host sister gave me a flashlight for tonight because the lights might go out when there is a lot of wind.
  

This is what I'm here for

  

Apart from wanting to learn Spanish, I chose Mendoza for my study abroad experience because it is next to the mountains. Mendoza is at the base of the Andes Mountains, and it only took about 20 minutes in a bus to get us to a trailhead. A group of us went to Cerro Arco, a 6,135 foot high mountain in the foothills of the Andes. The bus dropped us off in the middle of nowhere, and we had to walk on a dirt road for a while to get to the trail. The hike was only two kilometers, but took us up a steep trail that winded through the mountain to the top, where there are a bunch of telephone poles, but a great view of the city and some of the taller mountains in the Andes. We saw a bunch of other people hiking, running, biking, and 4-wheeling the trail. It was so beautiful being in the fresh air with no clouds in sight and we could see for miles. At the base there is a restaurant with 5 peso empenadas, so we celebrated our first mountain adventure with empenadas and cerveza. Our our way back we saw some people hang-gliding from the mountain. Maybe that will be our next adventure!

Bus Tour

  My program includes a few group excursions while I'm here, and we went on our first one today on an open air bus tour of San Martin Park. I live right next to this park, so I'd seen a little bit of it already when I run or on my way to class, but the park is very very big and this was a great way to see more of it and learn what is right in my backyard.

    There is so much more in the park than I would've known. I've looked at a map to see what there is in the park, but it was fun to see everything from the bus. The park actually starts to gain some altitude as we drove farther west into the park and up some rolling hills, which I hadn't expected. I thought the mountains were a little farther away. We drove up one hill where there is a wall with a condor imprinted in the bricks, and there were many condors flying overhead at the same time.
    We stopped at a monument to the Army of the Andes, too, which was at the top of a smaller mountain where we saw people mountain biking and many people running up the hill.

    There is also an outdoor ampitheater in the park where some events happen, probably when it is closer to summer time. I wish it was like Red Rocks where I could go run the steps, but I think it's closed off when not being used.
    From our bus we could see all of Mendoza hidden behind the mountains which was really neat. There aren't many tall buildings here because Mendoza actually experiences a lot of earthquakes and tremors, which I have yet to experience.

Champ Status

This is the second day in a row that I've gotten home from the bars at 5 am. It's only our second weekend here and it's definitely starting to feel normal to stay out this late. I'm barely even tired. In Denver, staying out til 5 is champ status, at least for me. Here, getting home at 5 means that you are the first to leave the bars, while everyone else is still there and raging on. I even felt a little guilty being the first to leave at 5. I guess it's just not normal to leave the club until the sun comes back out and all the restaurants open again for breakfast. Apparently we are supposed to go to Mr. Dog's when we are done with the boliches to get corn dogs for breakfast. I'll work my way up to that.

                                                                      Boliche pictures

Cell Phones in Argentina

    This is my new cell phone to use while here in Argentina! This is similar to the very first cell phone I ever had 9 years ago! It fits in my pocket, the battery lasts for probably 5 days, and it is much more durable than my smart phone. I've had to relearn how to text in T9, and my phone even has a game on it.
    It's really easy here to get cheap phones and pay as you go. I spent about $40 on this phone and the SIM card, and then I can pay for credit at little kiosks all around the city to prepay for minutes and messages.
    There are a few really popular service providers here. They are Claro, Movistar, and Personal. Our program bought all of our phones together to get a better price, so all of the students in my program have Personal too, and this makes it cheaper to talk to each other. I'm a little unclear about the whole system because its a lot of information to take in in Spanish, but as far as I understand, it's cheaper to text people on my same service, texts are cheaper than phone calls, and when I need to respond to a text, I should always create a new text instead of hit reply because it is cheaper this way. The credit that you put on your phone expires at the end of each month, too, so I need to guess how much I'll use.  I put 30 pesos of credit on my phone and have only needed to use it a few times so far, but hopefully this lasts me a while.
    I think it's cute that we all have matching phones in the program. I put the key chain on mine to differentiate it. I think technically I could access Facebook and other programs on this phone if I wanted to, but it would cost a ton and it's somewhat of a relief to not be using a phone all day. Since everyone in the program is with each other for a good part of the day anyway, there isn't really a need to be spending a bunch of time on our phones.