Some Recent Photos

Drawing. It's great fun.

FALL!!!!!!!!!!!! Mendoza likes to think they have the prettiest leaves. They are beautiful, but Maine still gets that award in my book.

I have quite a few photos of doors and other architectural elements. I like the arched shape of this one, the way it is framed, and the pretty little window.

This one is my favorite.

Then there are a bunch of plants/flowers. They grow in front of peoples houses and along the road. Whenever I am walking and have my camera, I can't help but to stop and take photos.

I'm in the process of pressing some of these right now. Pressing flowers is something I've done a lot of during the last few months. I have quite a collection between the pages of my journal.

 So far, my favorite street. I stumbled across it while biking awhile ago. It's narrow and diagonal and the trees meet so perfectly above it, creating a little tunnel of leaves and sunlight.

Here are some pictures taken in the park: 

It's a peacock topiary.

There was another rowing event.

Rollerblading is a hugely popular here.

This is in the plaza (which is different from the park. I continually call the plaza "the park," it can get confusing). Remember the red fountain that was supposed to look like wine? This is what it should look like.

And my new (used!) dress. I tried my best to research the company, but found nothing.
Oh well, all that matters is that I love it.

Bolivian Market

There are a huge number of Bolivian immigrants in Argentina. Yesterday my host mom, Mia, and I drove about 20 minutes away to a feria in a primarily Bolivian community. A feria is an outdoor market. It seemed to stretch on forever. You could buy anything. This included a haircut. I was most excited that there were used clothes. Good Will is right up there peanut butter on my list of things I miss. Basically, this community receives huge donations of clothes both from US organizations and Argentine organizations. They then sell the clothes to make money. It was SO great.

Thrifting doesn't exist here. In general, people are slightly skirmish about wearing old clothes. I could not be more opposite. When my host mom was telling her cousins about all the stuff we found, she mentioned that she wouldn't have discovered most of her finds had she not seen me digging through the piles. Prior to this observation, she had just been glancing at the stuff on top. My favorite find was a floral dress. I'm on the fence about if it is vintage or not. It's tag appears vintage, however it was made by an Argentine company (so I'm not sure about the history). Casting further doubt, some of the stitching appears to be very new. I'll do some research about it.

I did not take any photos, because it would have felt wrong. This was so far from a tourist attraction. Pulling out a camera would have removed me from the situation.

Weekend Adventures

Saturday, Carrie, Lindsey and I decided to take the train to the end of the line. It was about a half an hour ride. We were supposed to find a giant park with an artificial lake. That didn't pan out. We did, however, find a lovely little plaza.

Train! It's a relatively new addition to Mendoza. The tracks were there and the city decided to turn them into commuter transportation. The trains themselves used to serve the city of San Francisco, CA. Mendoza bought and repainted them.  

The park we ended up relaxing in.

Picnicking. 

So much ice-cream. So good.

 Views from the train:

An old train car turned into a stop.

Turbine blades. It's so cool to see how big they actually are.

 Sunday, my host mom and I went hiking.

Mendoza in the distance.

We watched people paragliding for awhile. It look peaceful. 

One of the best parts of the hike, however, does not have a picture. It was the conversation. We talked about culture, language, and politics in both the US and Argentina.

Also, on the drive to the hike this song came on the radio.  I love it.

A Lovely Afternoon...

...at the park, in the museum, and at the theater. After class, I took the bus to the center of the city and walked around by myself for a bit. I got some gelato and made my way towards the main plaza. I meandered through the artisans and then decided to go to the measure of modern art located in the center of the plaza. After looking at the exhibits in the (extremely tiny) museum, I headed up the street to the peatonal, where I wandered through shops and stopped to peak inside the church. It was then time to meet some friends to go to dinner. After which, we had tickets for a show. 

That was a bit of a mess. First, the restaurant we picked has many locations around the city. In fact, there are two of them on the same road. This wouldn't be that bad except that they also have similar street numbers. "Logical" is not a word I would use to describe very many things, or anything, about Mendoza. On this street, the numbers go down to zero and then start climbing again. Therefore, the two restaurants were both in the 800s, but 16 blocks apart. Add in the fact that they are both across from the same gas station and the result is a confused group of people. In the end, we all made it. It was later than we wanted, but the restaurant didn't open until then anyway, because 8:00 is early for dinner. 

We ended up enjoying our meal and making it to the show on time. Dirty Dancing: The Musical. We had fun. I wouldn't give the show great reviews, but we all left happy. It was more of a dance review to the sound track to the movie than a musical. So, if you had seen the movie it was wonderfully enjoyable. If you haven't, you were a bit lost. I realize that I am probably the only person who hasn't seen it. It's one of the many movies that I should really get around to watching. The really cool part was listening to the mix of English and Spanish. Some songs were all Spanish, some all English, and some were a mix. 

As always, photos: 

 

From the plaza:

I love that the iron work looks like grape vines.

The fountains dyed red to look like wine might be a little over the top, however.

 At the show:

Tea!

I love tea. There's this great place a block from my house that serves pots of loose leaf tea. And has WiFi. The menu has an absurd number of options. My goal is to try all of the black teas. I started at the top of the list. It was called Black Toffee and I loved it. 

It comes in these pots with crocheted covers. Plus you get directions on how long to steep it for. Black tea- two minutes. Green tea- one minute. It's relaxing way to spend an afternoon. 

Guest Post

Hello Family and Friends of Cassidy!

This is Lindsey, "guest-posting" for Cassidy, because I had something to share but do not have a blog of my own.

I'd like to give you a view of what Argentina's postal system is like. Based off of my experience, here are the steps you need to know in order to pick up a package from the Correo Argentino.

1. Receive a slip at your house telling you there is a package waiting for you at the post office.

2. Do a happy dance because you have a package!

3. Go to the post office during normal business hours: 9 am - 1 pm and 5 pm - 8 pm.

4. Go to a window, give them your slip, receive a replacement slip to take to the International window. Because you chose to come post-siesta (national nap time), and the international window is only open in the morning, come back another day when you don't have class.

5. Arrive at 10:45 in the morning with your slip for the international window. The nice man will then point out that you need your passport, as it "clearly" states in the fine print on the back of the slip.

6. Go home and get passport.

7. Come back to international window, proudly with passport and slip in hand.

8. Take a slip to another window where you pay 11 pesos (no one knows why) and receive a ticket.

9. Take ticket back to first window, where papers are stamped and signed.

10. Receive a slip and a sit outside the Customs Office waiting to be called.

11. Get called into Customs Office. Give them your passport and they'll give you an exacto-knife to cut open your package in front of them.

12. Because said package is from a little sister of a friend, open all the pink gift wrap to reveal to the customs officer that you are not, in fact, smuggling drugs or apple products.

13. Explain to customs officer that the package is from a 12 year old girl, therefore explaining the odd assortment of small plastic toys and pink sharpies.

14. Have the customs officer estimate the cost of the items in order to know how much to charge you in taxes.

15. Talk her down from 20 dollars to 16 dollars so that she'll charge you 40 pesos instead of 50.

16. Pay your fine and awkwardly box up pink packing peanuts, pink tissue paper, pink bubble wrap, and assortment of gifts.

17. Go home and do a happy dance because you have your package!

Despite the craziness, I have my package and it's an awesome package. Just one more day to chalk up to Argentina being Argentina.

The spoils from my package. My favorite is the two rolls of patterned duct tape. Can't wait to cover everything I own in fun duct tape.

Art

On Saturday, Lindsey's host mom took the two of us and Carrie to an art event about a half an hour outside of town. Fall is here and we could feel it in the crisp air. A whole bunch of local artists gathered to display their works outside. I really wanted to title this post "Art in the Park," but it really wasn't a park. It was a private venue that the owner liked to use for events like this. It was a ton of fun.

The general layout of things.

Cute bridges.

A Family Tree, with old photos.

Wine is art.

They're from Maryland. Crabs are their thing.

It's a giant creature coming out of water. It's cool because it's made out of recycled bottles.

He was working on this.

Later it looked like this.

The giant flowers are made out of old wine barrels.

Apples!

There were jewelry artisans, too. I just liked this display.

Vino

In Mendoza, I have seen free wine more often than free water. Wine is everywhere. This week there is an event where we could get a bottle of wine for 25pesos (that's 5 US dollars) at a variety restaurants in one area of the city. Cat's birthday was an excuse to go to a tasting.

We did a blind tasting.

And then found out what we tried. There were only two barrels of the second bottle.