Mendoza!

So this seems like it's mostly just a blog about weekend trips...my weeks (Monday-Thursday) are mostly uneventful, involving class, homework (I actually do have stuff to do) and relaxing. This morning I had a 40 minute spanish presentation in my religion class, which was pretty scary. I've never talked for that long infront of a group of spanish speakers, but I survived and it went okay. Next up an final paper of 25 (single spaced) pages. The newest development, that it was single spaced paper, was a bit of a bummer. When I finish, not only will it be the longest spanish paper I have ever written, but the longest paper I have written. ever. So we'll see how this goes...It's weird that I have less than one month left of classes. By Nov 25, I will be done with everything and on vacation! I cannot believe that it is already almost November...time is flying, and it's absolutely insane...I don't like it very much.

So this weekend was Mendoza...There's a group of students at Universidad Católica who plan trips for exchange students, so we decided to go with them instead. I had a good time, but I learned that I would much rather plan trips on my own. We got to the bus around 9:30 am on Friday. While Mendoza is really close to Santiago, because we have to cross over the Andes, it takes more time. The bus is probably about 7 hours. Everyone told me the trip over is beautiful. While it was pretty, I have seen a lot of other prettier things since I've been here.

                                                            view from the bus

We arrived around 5:30 and went to the apartment we would be staying at for the next two nights. The place was alright, and if the beds were taken out of the living room, the paint changed, the windows changed (they were like prison windows), and the kitchen changed, I could maybe think about staying for longer than 2 nights...
We went for a walk to the big park, and spent less than 5 minutes there before deciding it was time to eat (here I go with the food again). We found this really good parrilla restaurant, with really good argentinean meat and got meat, salad, wine and dessert for 32 pesos ( a little over 8 dollars!) We decided to go out dancing later, and it was actually a lot of fun. We only stayed out until 3 which meant that people had just started dancing, but it was still a good time.

5 hours later we were up and on a bus for a day of tours- city tour, chocolate factory tour, vinyard tours, you name it. We saw all different parts of the city, got to eat free chocolate and try lots of different wines. I would call the afternoon a success.
That night we decided to go out with the group, which was decidedly not a success. They took us to a club and we got there around 11:30, about 3 hours two early. There was no one there, so after about two hours of sitting, we decided to leave. Across from our apartment building we found an open icrecream store. It was my first time I had ever seen icecream stores open after 2am. We sat outside and ate our icecream, which was delicious. Best part of the night.

Sunday was more relaxed. We walked around, ate, and went to the plazas which had a lot of artesania. At 10:30 pm we boarded a bus back to Santiago. 10 hours later, we made it home. I drifted in and out of sleep for most of the ride, but one time when I woke up, there were a lot of police on the bus and they were checking bags. Apparently we pulled over to the side of the road and stayed there for over an hour and a half, but  I was unaware of this at the time. Around 4am we all had to get off the bus to go through customs, which consisted of waiting in one line to "leave" argentina, and then wait in another line to "enter" Chile.  It was really cold out. In line, I learned that we were stopped for a long time because two girls tried to smuggle drugs across the border. Each had 1 kilo of cocaine, to be exact. I guess the dogs found it, and they got off the bus. I would not want to be in their shoes.  Around 8 we made it back to Santiago, just in time to hit the morning metro rush.

No upcoming weekend trips as of now, but possibly the beach soon? It's finally getting warm out here!