The Firmins take on Mendoza

I had two days in Mendoza between Blake's trip and my parent's, so I packed up, took advantage of my host family's pool that had been recently filled, and said a bittersweet goodbye to my host mom while handing over my keys and heading to the airport to pick up my parents. I found a city bus to the airport that was easy enough to find, but took me almost an hour and through some poorer parts of northern Mendoza. My parents had been traveling for 30 hours, a little extra than expected because of delays, and were almost in disbelief that we were reuniting after 5 months apart. They did a great job getting around the Buenos Aires airports without any Spanish, but now that I'm guiding them through Mendoza, I keep forgetting they don't speak Spanish and get frustrated when I forget to help translate. I guess that means that Spanish is feeling more natural for me. I forget to differentiate. My parents are both trying to incorporate their high school French and German language skills to get by, and it actually is pretty relevant to help figure out what some things mean. My mom is really good at inferring things; she reads some signs and food labels without my help and I'm impressed she can figure them out. Although I've spent the last 4 months getting pretty sufficiently pissed off when people always speak to me in English and don't let me speak Spanish, it's easier just to let people speak English to my parents than try to translate every single thing. More people speak decent English in Mendoza than I thought.
My tour guiding in Mendoza with Blake gave me some good practice to show my parents around, this time without errors. I'm pretty much taking them to the same places I took blake, except for the restaurants.
Their first night, I took my parents to a parilla for some typical Argentinian asado. We shared goat (chivito), steak with mushrooms, and sausages, and I showed them how much of a "wine expert" I am now by picking a Malbec they both really enjoyed (my method involved picking the second to cheapest wine bottle of any brand I've heard of -because a lot of the time at parties us IFSA kids just drink boxed wine). The first night was a success, and I let them catch up on sleep before the first activity on the schedule the next day-the hot springs. My parents were champs dealing with the public transportation; our bus on the way to the hot springs had a high pitch alarm going off constantly for the first ten minutes until the driver poured a giant jug of water down into the engine. But they really enjoyed the scenery and we people watched all day. Argentinians are generally really skinny, but for some reason I've seen some really ginormous people at the hot springs, and a lot of them are wearing really revealing swim suits.
   My parents got to try their first Argentinian empanada. When Blake was here, he probably ate about 50 ham and cheese empanadas, but my parents were a little more varied and tried the vegetables ones. And they've been impressed with all the food so far. I'm taking them to all the best places I've been.
    I took them the Cerro Arco, which kicked their butts from the steepness, and ended our time in Mendoza with biking and wine-ing. My parents accepted the challenge of riding a tandem bike, even though my mom wasn't that thrilled. We went to a few wineries I'd already been too, but also to a new one that makes all sweet wines and champagnes, which were all great. My parents were impressed with everything they learned in the wine tours, and everytime I go to one, the tour guide will always comment on how young I am, assuming I don't drink wine much or know much about it.
    It was so nice to show my parents around Mendoza after they've been hearing about it for four months. My dad said it was a much bigger city than he originally imagined, and my mom has really enjoyed the pedestrian streets with outdoor patios and artisanal markets. I even kept my parents out at the bars till 3 am, just so they could experience the Mendocino night life before leaving.
My last night in Mendoza I spent enjoying a glass of wine with my parents.  This was the perfect way to say goodbye to the place that's been my home since July.