Old Mendoza City

Friday we went to the Museo del Área Fundacional. It is located in the old city center. In 1861 there was a huge earthquake in Mendoza and everything was destroyed. So they decided to build a new city that was well organized with lots of parks and trees not only for beauty but because there was open spaces to go if another earthquake occurred. The museum is also about the history and cultures that made Mendoza what it is today. 

This is the original city plaza (in its current form). It is simpler to most of the other plazas around the city. 

There was a stone tiled image of the plaza in the 1800’s (shown above)

The following six photos are of little art pieces that show hope people lived in times past. I thought that they were very well done and that the artist was very good at color and layout. I am sorry but I can’t provide information on what is in the pictures because the descriptions were all in Spanish and I am not that good yet.

 This is the bicentennial year for Argentina’s independence and to celebrate theses following three pictures are of places in Mendoza in 1910 and 2010. 

 More to come- Little Dancer

Side Note

I would like to take this opertunity to make two points.

ONE: I am aware that there are lots of spelling and typing errors in this blog. I apologise.

TWO: If anyone would like anything the be clarifed, have questions, or topic in which  you are intrested, ect. please let me know and I will try to include that in the next posts.

- Little Dancer

Week Two: the tango begins

This week was the start of my tango marathon. I had herd about a few different places to tango that people had told me about and I had found a place online that lists all the tango going on in Mendoza. I had to find a place(s) that I liked. I went to my first class on monday with a firend, I was to chicken to go alone my first time. I was supprised at how young the people were, in the US the classes are mostly adults but here they are more youn adults. The class was rather basic and there was not as much attention payed to the felling/leading and following of the move as the steps themselves. In general I liked it. On Tuesday I went to a different class with one of my spanish teachers. The people were not as young but the instructer was very nice. I did not liked how he taught. It was all complicated combinations that the people just went through the motions of, there was no tango feeling to it at all. The next day I went to an early class for youth. It was with the same teacher as the night before and we did the same kind of combinations but the people were much younger although there was three times as many girls than boys. The other classes I had been to were almost even. I do not know if it is socialy ok for a girl to do the men´s part here so that class was a little a hard because I want to be a guy but I don´t know if I should.
Wednesday night I took a break form tango to go to a meeting with the conversational partners, students at my university that are from Mendoza and are studying english. That is one of my favorite parts of the week. We went to Bonafide a café that is well known here.
I was getting a little sad because I was afraid that I would not find a class for tango that I liked. On Thursday I went to a class that I liked a lot. The instructors Ana and Luis were very good and they seamed to cared about the true essance of tango. I know I will be going back there a lot. I have not decided my search ends there or not.
Sorry about the lack of pictures.
More to come.
-Little Dancer

My First Family Event: Asado

On my second Sunday in Argentina I woke up late and then my mother told me we were going to the country. We drive about a half an hour south of Mendoza and got to a vinyard, Achaval Ferrer.

I was a nice day even if a little chilly and windy, it being very early spring here. We got there early and I had time to read some of my homework that I luckly had remembered to bring. I was not sure at the time but reason we were at the vinyard was because one of the managers of the vinyard was the boyfirend of my host sister and the asado was for all of his family. There were lots of them grandparents, parents and kids most of wich were around my age. They were very nice to me. Some of them knew a little english so they could help me understand more of what was being talked about. One of the men, the brother of my sister´s boyfiend I learned after, was going to California the next week and he was very nice. We all ate a big asado togeather. I sat at the kids table.

These are pictures of the grill at the asado. There is all kind of meat and everyone know all the different cuts of meat. There was beef, pork and sausage. On the right of the grill are the enpanadas worming up ( I spoke of them last post). There are little delicious pockets of ground pork and seasonings, there are also other types. We also had wine, oviously we were at a vinyard and a few different kinds of salads.

This is an image of the view from the house looking through the grape vines to the winery. The vinyard is well known for its Malbec like most vinyards around here, they make a Dulce Malbec, sweet wine made out of raisins, that I did not like that much. They also make olive oil, olive oil around here is very good.
After the meal we sat around and atempted to play darts, no one was good at it but everyone tryed. I sat next to the grandfather who was very nice. They were all very welcoming. I was nice to be around more people than my mother and two host siblings who are almost never around.
-Little Dancer

Our First Trip

The second half of the fist week we had classes, well just Wed and Thurs because we don´t have class on Firdays. I am in level two spanish. I took the micro, or the bus system, for the first time on Tursday and it was a lot easer than I thought it would be. Thursday we also went and get our phones and I had to find a place to change money because people here expect you to have exact change and the ATM only gives you 100 peso bills wich is aproxamitaly 25 dollars US but to them a lot of money. Friday I read in the Plaza España. There are lots of parks and in the center of the city there are five main ones, the biggest in the middle is Plaza Independencia and then around it there are four others 1/4 of the size only one block not the 4 that Independencia is, Plaza España, San Martin, Chile, and Italia. Plaza España has really nice tile work and cool light posts, I will try to post a picture of it for you later. In the evening I went to a small park where there was supposed to be people dancing tango but there was no one there, it is winer for them here even though it is not that cold.

Saturday we had to get up early and drive to the mauntains. It is a desert out there. On the way we stoped as a shrine to Gancho Gill a local folk hero. This picture is looking out into the next valley from the shrine.

Across from the shrine there was some horses wondering about.

 We also stoped at a big winery that I can´t remember the name of where there was a art museum and a church as well. I think that my host mother said (I can´t understand all her spanich) that that is where my host sister, that I have not met yet, is getting merried this November. Anyways were were very close to the mountains but there was so mcuh dust in the air becasue it was very windy that we could not see them. This is a picture from the museum looking at winery with the hidden mountains right behind it.

 We then travled on a dirt track through the desert to a ranch. When we got the this sign for the ranch we though we were there but we had an even narrower road than the last still to traverse.

 Once we got there we went on a trail ride. Then we had a big asado (BBQ) lunch. I sat across from this nice man who is the embassitor from England who is just moving to Buenos Aires but is studying spanish in the same program as us for a week. Then we got to go on another trail ride. Happy Happy Joy Joy. Afterwords we realxed and had tea.

These are the really nice hourses the we rode, they were all very good.

This is us on our trail ride. I know it looks really brown but it is still very early spring there.

This was my view from the back of my horse looking at the foothills of the Andys.

This was my very awasome horse. I don´t know its name but it was really good.

This is my dulce de leche cake and tea I had after my ride. It was yummy.

This was a very little puppy that was at the ranch.

And this is the little puppy, in a boot, on a boy. Cute!!

Orientation

The first two days were orientation. Our families took us to the National University of Cuyo where we are studing while in Mendoza. The directores talked to us in spanish wich really made it clear how little spanish we know.


This is a picture of the mauntains from my classroom window.


After being covered with information about how to do things in Mendoza both in english and spanish we got to go to a golf club and have an asado otherwise known as a BBQ in the U.S.A. There was so much yummy food enpanadas, vegetables, meat, wine and a champaine toast at the end. Chin Chin. The second day of orientation we went on a tour of the university and then to explore the city.

This is a picture of one of the poorer areas kind of like the projects.







This is a huge monument to San Martin who is a hero in the area. It is on top of a hill that people run up for exersise.

This is one side of the monument above that depicts the women giving up there jewls and valubles to fund the war that San Martin lead.





These are all 12 girls on my trip plus one girl that is not from my school.

The Trip

My trip to Mendoza went well. I got all my stuff nicely into my suitecases and they were only 40lbs or so each. I left for NYC a night early because I was getting a ride with my mother and her friend. I got to spent the day in NYC with my firend which was fun except for taking two suitecases and a back pack from 77th sreet to JFK on the subway.

I met the other people in my group of 14 students and we flew all night and landed in Santiago Chille in the morrning. Then we took a short flight over the Andes to Mendoza.

The Andes from my plane

This is the side of my house next to my door. A lot of houses in this area have similar designs ( the rock is coming out of the well making it 3D).

My host sister met me at the airport and I spoke to her in my broken spanish. I thought I would be living with her alone but her mother and brother live in the house too. My host mom cooked a huge meal and I ate way to much. 

To the left is a picture of the canal that is across the street from my house and the footbridge that I take to get to the bus stop. 


My room is very small but it is nice. I was happy to find that I have a closet that fits all my stuff perfectaly. My sister lent me an adaptor so that I can charge my ipod and computer ect. I spent most of the day reading, unpacking and resing up ffor orientation the next day.