March 1, 2007
I went to Paul’s house in the afternoon with Anna. We had some mate and chilled for a while. Then we walked to COPA because Anna had her academic interview and Paul and I wanted to use the internet. We chilled there and then walked back home (which is about 40 minutes for me). That night we met up at Paul’s again before going out. Anna didn’t want to go out because she didn’t want to walk from her house to Paul’s alone. Mateo, Paul and I went and got here and then chilled in a plaza near her house for a little while. We went to Aristides Villanueva, which is the street with all the bars (its actually my street with a different name and 2.5 blocks from my house). We went to the one bar that has pool tables and played a round. Mateo and I were a team and Anna and Paul were the other team. I sunk 2 balls on my first attempt. Then I sunk some more and Mateo got two in. I won us the game by calling and sinking the 8 ball in a corner pocket. We made friends with a group of Mendocinas (girls from Mendoza) because we were looking for information on boliches and stuff. I got home late and went to bed.
March 2, 2007
I, luckily, did not have classes, so I got to sleep a little later than the rest of my friends. I woke up with a slight cold, but went to the tourism office to try to get a copy of the culture guide, but they didn’t have any. Then I had more of the amazing grape juice that they sell at a cart on the street here. Its white grape juice and super fresh and only costs a peso ($.30USD). I walked through Plaza España where there was a feria (market). Next, I went to the grocery store and then returned home. I ate lunch and napped during the afternoon. Anna came over at 6 because we were going to go shopping. We went to UCong to check schedules for classes that are going to start on Monday and then walked around a little bit. Paul met us at Plaza Independencia and we went out to dinner. Mateo came and we went to the Vía Blanca, a parade. The Annual Festival of the Vendimia (wine harvest) is going on right now. All of the 17 or so departments (towns) in the Mendoza province have beauty queens running to be queen of the vendimia. Friday night’s parade was a display of the queens, each on her own float, throwing fruit, water, wine, raisins and other stuff at the crowd. Mateo and I watched the parade from a street lamp, while Anna and Paul stayed on the ground. We had a decent view. It was interesting, but a lot of the same thing: another float with another girl, throwing something at us. We couldn’t actually get anything because we were on the streetlight, but Anna and Paul ate grapes and grabbed a bag of raisins that we shared (raisins are bad here; they have seeds). We went back to my house because I live three blocks from the parade route. We played cards for a while and then went to a party 11 blocks away. There were a lot of people from COPA there, which was nice because I hadn’t seen them in a while. They went out to dance (and some went to another party) and I went home because I was tired and didn’t want to go out any more.
March 3, 2007
I woke up pretty early and went to the Carrusel, the morning version of Friday night’s parade. This time the route was reversed and there was music and dancers. The girls continued throwing things, including apples, pears, raisins, cookies, nuts, grapes (a lot of grapes went flying through the air), and melons…yes, honeydew melons came soaring through the air thanks to the girls from Lavalle. I was behind a barricade, but the nieces of the woman next to me were in front. These girls had the most ridiculous amount of fruit. They had every kind of everything, except wine because they’re too young. They just kept coming back with more stuff to put in their aunt’s bag. There was one float that passed with an asado (bbq) going. They were cooking up the meat and distributing it to the crowd….mostly to the police and EMTs. The people around me shared some grapes (we weren’t in an area where stuff was being thrown because we were on a corner, but everyone in front of the barricade brought us stuff). It was fun, but really sunny and I was very tired from not getting too much sleep the night before.
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