I am warning you now- this is a long one! This past week has been one of the best weeks of my life, mostly thanks to my amazing weekend in Mendoza. However, I did many other things this week. Last Wednesday night I went to a Tango show and dinner. The commute was a long one but it was so awesome to see. We went to a nice restaurant and were served dinner and got to watch a tango show. It was amazing to finally see the dance of the country. Tango is very important in the culture of Argentina. It was amazing to see and I loved watching- now I want to learn... but it doesn't look that easy.. haha It was a fun night and I will definitely remember it for forever. Now it's Thursday- I had a tour of La Plaza de Mayo- a very historical and important area of Buenos Aires. They say that all the power is around the plaza because there are many important buildings in that area, for example La Casa Rosada (their version of the white house.) We had a tour and we got to watch the march of the mothers. Every single Thursday around 3:30pm mothers march for about 15 minutes for their missing children. There are many theories of where their children might have disappeared (the disappearances happened many years ago) It is a peaceful march and it was very eye opening and interesting to see. After watching the march and looking at what the plaza had to offer we went to a cafe called Cafe Tortoni. It is one of the oldest cafes in Buenos Aires and many famous authors went there to write. It is very European and that is where I found my churros and chocolate... yum! After the tour my friends and I had to go straight to the bus station to catch our bus to Mendoza (the city I am in love with and didn't want to leave) So yes, here comes Mendoza, my favorite part of the week. We get on our bus and it is scheduled to take 15 hours (ouch... yes a long time haha) but ended up being 17 hours (yup... ouch even more haha) So after our 17 hour bus ride to Mendoza we finally arrived! We decided to try and walk to our hostel since it was only supposed to be a 25 minute walk... well we got lost and ended up having to pay for a taxi (we went the completely wrong direction, oops!) After arriving at our hostel- my first hostel experience of my life. It was pretty good, was definitely pretty noisy but I got to meet some more people from around the world. Two of our first roommates were from South Korea and then the next night we had a girl from Australia- it was great! When we got to the hostel on Friday night all we wanted to do was sleep but we knew we only had a limited amount of time in Mendoza. We didn't do much on Friday night, we only went to a nice Italian restaurant. I had a shrimp pasta dish, so delicious! That is all we did on Friday because we knew we had a busy day the next day! Saturday comes along and we get up and get ready for our fun and busy day. We had breakfast, which was traditional, and always delicious, pastries and they also made us crapes for free! Yumm We got picked up at 9:00 to go white water rafting in the Andes Mountains. It was about an hour drive and the drive was absolutely breathtaking. We drove through the Andes and pictures do not come close to how amazing it actually was- I enjoyed the hour drive (didn't think I would after spending 17 hours in a bus haha) We finally reach the destination of white water rafting and that had the best view of them all. The water was clear blue (as you can see in the pictures) We then separated into two groups- English speaking and Spanish speaking (we did the English speaking because we thought it was probably a good idea to really understand what our guide was saying... haha) We then were told to get our wet-suit, shoes, helmet, and jacket to get all bundled up. It was 80 degrees but the water was ice cold! We finally got dressed and hoped on the bus to take it about 20 minutes up the road to get in the water. Our group in the raft was me, two of my friends, and then two guys from Switzerland! We get in the water and we are off. I have to say I absolutely loved white water rafting- I want to do it again but I want it to be harder! It was an absolute blast, I was a little nervous at first but it didn't take long for that to go away! We were in the water for about an hour. We had an amazing guide who messed around with us and made sure we had a ton of fun- he even tried to get some of us to fall in the water on purpose. It was a ton of fun and I want to do it again. After our white water rafting was over we had about two hours to sit around until the bus took us back. We got to sit out in the sun and relax- yes of course I got sunburned, this past Chicago winter made my skin forget what sun was.. haha We sat back and enjoyed the breathtaking view. Once our bus was ready we went back to our hostel and then had to quick get ready to go on our sunset horseback riding tour through the Andes. So with about 30 minutes in between we got picked up at our hostel to be taken to the farm. Our group included my two friends and a guy from Ireland! We rode the horses for about two hours in the Andes and it was beautiful. We had an amazing guide and I had the most well behaved horse :P haha I got lucky. After having to trot for about 30 minutes at the end because it was getting dark and we needed to make it back to the farm... lets just say my butt is still sore! Once we got back to the farm they were preparing an asado (a cookout/BBQ) they had lots of meat and potatoes and of course.. wine. After we finished dinner we got to sit around the campfire, mountains in the background and the sky full of stars all while listening to our guide play his guitar and sing for us. It was incredible. They then transported us back to our hostel and we were finally in bed around midnight. It was an absolutely amazing day and I wish I could do everything again. Now comes Sunday, another full day. We woke up and ate breakfast then we got picked up at 11:00 for our wine tour. We got to see two wineries and had two wine tastings- I have to say I am a white wine girl haha. We got to go into the wineries and see how the wine is made. We also got to eat the grapes from the vineyard... I could have just eaten a pound of them- they were sooooooo good! We got served lunch at the second winery- lets just say I felt like a rich person haha. We were served a five course meal and had a mountainous view. It was delicious and fantastic. I didn't want to leave. When the tour ended our guide, extremely nice once again- I think I can assume that pretty much everyone in Argentina is extremely friendly. Our guide drove us around Mendoza for a little tour. She then dropped us of at our hostel. We then had a little free time but then had to catch our bus back to Buenos Aires. My trip to Mendoza was one of the best weekends of my life. I did not want to leave. If I could, I would go back to Mendoza in a heartbeat. It took about 15 hours in the bus to get back- this bus ride was a lot better (two hours shorter and they stopped at a restaurant for us to get breakfast and it was all included- more delicious pastries) We finally returned to Buenos Aires yesterday around noon and classes started back up today. I wish I could explain my weekend better to you or that you all could experience the things I did. I have noticed that living in Argentina is just making my wanderlust worse... I just want to keep traveling and seeing the world. That is all I have for now and I actually don't have a busy week ahead of me. I will post on here soon. Thanks for reading! :)
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