Birthday fiestas!

    This past week three people in our program had birthdays, so our weekend was full of birthday festivities. Doug had his 21st birthday September 1st, so we went out to dinner at a nice steak restaurant that he'd wanted to try. We all sat outside on the patio, and celebrated with wine, champagne and great food. My steak was smothered in mushrooms and served very pink and juicy. It made me laugh that my 'roasted potatoes' were more like tater tots because they were breaded. A lot of food here is breaded, like milanesa, and quite often chicken and other meats. The potatoes were still good though. There are so many restaurants I want to try in Mendoza, but it's hard for me to justify going out much to eat when I can eat with my host family. So hopefully by the time I leave I will have tried more restaurants. Any place with good wine makes Doug happy, and our food was delicious, followed by dancing in the boliches, so I hope he had a great 21st.

  

bife de chorizo con champiñónes

  

    Amanda's birthday was the 5th, and Skylar's the next day, so we celebrated by hiking friday, and they had a joint celebration dinner Friday night at Taco Azteca, because everyone has been craving Mexican food. My quesadilla was a little disappointing, but had great guac, and everyone else was really impressed with their fajitas. Skylar had a celebration tea party at her house Saturday, with homemade treats by her mom. This was right after our cooking class, so when I arrived to Skylar's house and saw a table full of cookies, brownies, cake, croissants, and cupcakes, I had no idea how I'd be able to eat any of it. But I have no self control when it comes to food, and had to try everything. And her host mom is a really good cook and kept offering us more and more. This picture of our tea party doesn't even include the cake on the next table that we ate after all the snacks.

    Saturday night we fiesta-ed for their birthdays at Amanda's house because her host sister had a costume party for us and all her friends. Her sister and friends had a bunch of old costumes that we rummaged through to find something, so I wore a flamenco dress that I found. Amanda's house is amazing, because it has a great front patio and an upper level deck where they have asados. Her house is beautiful and her sister's friends were really fun to hang out with.