Hola queridos,
I write to you as I "watch" (not really, because I'm writing to you) the US Open in my living room with my host mom, dad, grandma, and brother on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. A 20 year old Argentine, el Potro, is playing and winning against a Spainard and they are all very excited. We just ate a delicious matambre con roquefort, a huge, very thin steak baked in milk with blue cheese melted on top. It was delicious! And the biggest steak I have ever seen. Before they cut it, it stretched across almost two baking sheets. Woof. Delicous. And now we are sitting here with the doors open to the terrace because it feels like spring has finally arrived! There has not been a cloud in the sky the last three days. They call Mendoza the city of sun and good wine. This weekend I experienced both!
My friend Liz (another student from UNC) visited for a long weekend from Montevideo, Uruguay (where she is studying). We ate some good meals and drank good wine every day she was here! We also took a beautiful bike tour of the vineyards just outside of the city. In our small motley crew of a tour group there were people from all over the world. I talked a lot with a man from Barcelona and was honored that he spoke to me as if I could understand everything he said. This has been happening to me a lot lately and I take it as a complement, and usually just pretend that I understand until I realize that someone asked me a question and have no clue what the context is in order to respond. Haha! Truthfully, I ALMOST understood everything the Spainard said, but his Spanish accent through me off. I'm partial to the Argentine accent, of course! I've fallen in love with how they speak here and am a fiend for new words, sayings, and lingo.
Liz and I also went to the Teatro de Independencia, Mendoza's landmark theater, and saw a modern dance show. It was great to have Liz here because it was like a vacation in my own city.
Besides exploring the city this weekend, I also went on a excursion with my study abroad program to the foothills of the Andes for a cooking class (which meant more delicious food and more wine!) and celebrated three birthdays (tres cumples as they say) and stayed out until 5am two days in a row. This is NOT my normal life, I promise. I'm feeling very Argentine! very nocturnal.
The last four days were wild and jam packed. Today after sleeping in, I'm feeling good and about to embark on three days of studying becuase I have my first two exams this week. One in the History of Political Ideas of America (the continent). The other is for my class in the medical school called The Doctor-Pacient relation. For this one we work in the hospital practicing how to interview patients and write their clinical history. The test is to film an interview. Hopefully the patient will only have symptoms that I understand in Spanish! (My other three classes are Spanish, Developement of Argentina, and Tango...I think I forgot to tell you that when the semester started).
Another thing I should have written about earlier is that I went skiing in Las Leñas two weeks ago! We took a night bus and I woke up with the Andes in front of me and a bus waiter offering me hot chocolate. The skiing was fun and the day warm enough to ski without a hat and gloves. The snow wasn't powder, but decent. Riding the lifts was probably my favorite, because the view was absolutely majestic! My other favorite part was eating hamburgers (which in this case meant literally a HAMburger, with ham on top of it...they love ham here, where is the turkey lunchmeat??) in the open air outside a restaurant on top of a run, where they bumped American jams like Afroman. Luckily Las Leñas was mostly full of Argentines so the families sitting next to us were oblivious to the bad language.
Well, I'm off to study! I'll go hard studying for three days and then my reward is Spring Break, which starts for me on Thursday. I'm going to Uruguay (and some other Argentine cities on the way) with my friend Caroline. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we travel! I can't wait to tell you about the next adventures.
Besos!
Jennie
