Family Time

    Yesterday my host family invited me to go to Potririllos with them for the day. I've got 6 days left in their house, and we've never really had a family outing together, so I decided to go with them.
    My family has a habit of never really telling me their plans; I'm never informed when people are coming over until it's lunch time and guests are over and I'm awkwardly greeting everyone in my sweat pants with no bra on because I didn't know to expect to see people. Sometimes it's a pain when they don't tell me they are going somewhere and just disappear and I don't know whether to expect meals or not, or if anybody is even home if their doors are closed. But I've gotten better at trying to ask their plans so I know what to expect. So yesterday I asked my host mom what they were going to do in Potririllos, and she told me they were going to eat lunch by the lake. What we really did was drive around the neighboring mountain towns to look at houses for sale because their brother who lives in Qatar is thinking of buying a cabin in this area.
    We left the house and stopped at a gas station to fix their car because it was overheating earlier. Then we went back to the house because my host mom forgot her phone. Then we went to the other sister's house to switch cars because they didn't think theirs was fixed. Finally on our way, we drove past the lake and into the same canyon I went the other day to hike Morro Negro. It's nice being able to go places in a car. It takes about half the time as it does in a bus. We started driving slowly past random houses, then we stopped at one and my family got out. Even while we were out together they didn't tell me their plans or why we stopped at this house. I had to ask about 3 times to get a straight answer of why we were stopped. I'm like a three year old asking why at the end of every sentence. The house was very small, a bit old and broken, but in a very pretty scenery. My family didn't really care for it too much. That was the only house we actually toured, but they snapped some photos of other houses for sale.
    We also stopped to see an old chapel in the neighborhood, buy empanadas and finally get to the picnic. But at that point there wasn't a very scenic place to eat except along the road, so we stopped in the middle of the road and had a picnic by the car. My host mom had us keep driving until we found shade; she must have forgotten that we were in Mendoza where there are no trees. When I've gone places by bus on the weekends, I've always seen people having family picnics in really weird spots, like on the side of the road. For example, I always found it funny when people are eating on the side of the road by their car instead of by a beautiful river 50 feet away.  So today I got to participate in that tradition. The empanadas were delicious, as always, and we had a rice, tuna, hard boiled egg, and peas combination for lunch too. I'm used to these types of odd mixtures, and actually really like them. I'm going to try to add eggs to more dishes at home.
    After the picnic I took a siesta in the car as the family took more pictures of houses for sale on the way back to the city. Then we picked up some pastries and had a delightful merienda upon returning back to the house.