Parque General San Martin

    Parque General San Martin is the biggest park in Mendoza, but has a lot of random qualities. The park is 50 feet from my house, and I walk through it every day to get to class, but there are some weird features to the park that I've noticed. I take the route to class that isn't very populated because it's faster, but I've seen a lot of odd things on my walks (this is where the flasher incident took place). However, this must be noted: my host mom is the most paranoid person I've ever met, and she's warned me about a lot of things in the park, such as that if I was wearing headphones in the park, two rollerbladers will come up from behind me, put their arms around my shoulders as if we are friends, and casually demand my iPod, in a way that nobody else will notice. So even though the park is probably more harmless than she makes it sound, my host mom has put some crazy stories into my head, and I have to remember to take them a little less seriously. But here are my thoughts on the park:
     First, random cars often park on the side of the street in the most secluded parts of the park, and one person is just chilling in the car while I walk past. I don't know what they are waiting for. Sometimes the people are outside of the random parked car, wandering in the trees nearby. I don't know what they are looking for. Sometimes I think they are young couples meeting up in the park to "hang out," or it's just somebody on the phone. Either way I get more cautious because walking past these cars often involves more piropos or engine revving.
    The other day I was walking to class with Briana and one of those random tree wanderers kind of cut in front of us in the road, and somewhat moved towards us, and I'm pretty sure he was eying Briana's purse. But when he saw we noticed this, he backed away and gave a weird greeting and he wandered back into the trees.
     I've come to the conclusion that people here just like to hang out in their cars. I even see some people parked along the lago in the park, drinking mate in their cars. I guess this confused me because why would you want to sit in your car and drink mate when you could sit outside in the beautiful scenery of the park and drink your mate. 
     Second, a lot of student drivers practice in the park, and I'm so used to crazy Argentine drivers zooming past me, that when the student driver slowly pulls up behind me, I get all freaked out until I realize that it's just a student driver.
    When I went to the soccer game in the park a couple weeks ago, my host mom warned me all about the muchachos in the park, even though I felt safe. Last week there was another game in the other stadium closer to my house, and there were all sorts of precautions set up; fences, police, police on horses. One kind man told us to walk around the area to avoid any trouble. We saw a huge truck full of fans with probably 20 guys hanging on the outside of the truck cheering. I was shocked my host mom forgot to warn me about this game!
    Sometimes in the park I see really odd construction going on, like a team of people in full body suits spraying the tops of the trees with some kind of liquid hose, or a man examining the leaves of a tree very in depth-ly, or another man digging up dirt and putting it into small containers that look like milk jugs. They did construction on the lake, and on the entrance gates into the park for months, and now that those are both finished they look really nice. There was a fashion show being set up in the park a few weeks ago which blocked off the entrance into the park. The entrance to the park has been pretty much closed the whole time I've been here for some sort of construction. I've also heard marching bands practice in the park. I've never seen them, but I can hear them quite often.
     There are often races going on in the park too; I saw a marathon going on a couple weeks ago, and of course the aerobics classes. The park is super crowded during these events, and especially on Sundays. But then during siesta, there is nobody in the park.
    I have to write a paper for my final in one class picking a place to represent Argentina.  Despite the couple weird encounters I've had in the park, I picked San Martin Park as my symbol of Argentina, because I think it represents four key points about Argentina. First, it represents family, because this is where people go on Sundays and after siestas to share mate and have asados and picnics. It shows what families do to connect, and when is the most important time to spend together (for example, not during siesta). Second, it represents the youth or Argentina, because this is where teens go to party on weekends, drink mate, and "hang out" with their significant others. I see lots of teenagers selling artisan products in the park. Third, the park represents the outdoor activities that you can do in Argentina and the focus that Mendoza has on health because the park is full of gyms, soccer stadiums, and work out stations (this is contradicted by the unhealthy eating habits of Argentinians- salt, mayonnaise, Tang). Lastly, the lake in the park represents the procrastinative (and maybe a bit lazy) nature of the Argentinians' work ethic because it wasn't maintained for 20 years, and immediately after the massive cleaning project, there is already a bunch of trash floating in the lake.
     The first night I arrived in Mendoza, my family brought out a map and showed me how to walk to school through the park. I hadn't even seen anything yet in the daylight. I had no clue about anything that was going on at that point, so overwhelmed with emotions, but their warnings about the park made it seem pretty terrifying to live next to it the first few nights. Now I could pretty much walk through the park with my eyes closed I've walked there so many times.