Mendoza, Argentina

The typical study abroad experience, based on the stories I've heard, is a stay in some great European city, full of culture and life, during the week, and trips to the other famous cities on the weekends in sketchy planes for five euros. South America isn't as developed as Europe, so the transportation system isn't as convenient and the major cities aren't as close to one another. Also, it's highly unlikely that you'll have a friend everywhere you go.

Despite the differences between the European and South American experiences, I had a chance to mold the two this past weekend. Emily, Steven, and I shipped off from Santiago on Thursday night and headed east towards the cordillera for Mendoza, Argentina, a small city known for its wine country. There we met up with Sam, Hillary (two Tufts students who are studying in Buenos Aires), and Max, a friend they met on their program.

It was a short stay, but very much enjoyable nonetheless.

I left my house in Las Condes at 9pm on Thursday, hopped on the bottom level of a double-decker bus (the nice level for US $3.50 more) at 10:25pm, and was headed for the Andes. We were awoken by the lights on the bus around 2am to hop off the bus with our baggage and go through immigration and customs. It was about 25 degrees out there, and needless to say, it wasn't the nicest way to wake up.

At customs, a huge Argentine man came up to the three of us and asked us where are luggage was. We were unable to locate it in the huge pile of bags for a while, but once we did, we let him know where it was. Without checking it, without thinking twice, he just told the baggage handler to put it back on the bus. I guess the Argentine government isn't that worried about Americans and what they're bringing in. You think things would have been the same had they known Emily was from Southern California? (Just kidding, Emily.)

Anyway, we rolled into the bus station in Mendoza around 6:30am on Friday. It was early, we hadn't slept to well, and we were tired. We were told the hostel was really close by, so we decided to walk. About 40 minutes later, we actually arrived. Yeah, we got a little turned around, but the actual walk from the bus station was about 30 minutes, especially when you are carrying luggage.

The hostel was nice. We arrived early, couldn't check in, but they offered us a great Argentine breakfast anyway. All of the hostel breakfasts in the past have been typical, flavorless bread, butter and jam served with coffee or tea. This hostel had variety. Medialunas, Argentine style, other pastries, toasted bread, biscuits, and real coffee and tea to go with it. It was a nice welcome.

That morning we walked around the city, waiting for the Buenos Aires crew to arrive. Steven, Emily, and I headed to the main street, but found ourselves walking about 30 minutes in the wrong direction. We didn't really have any place we wanted to go, but later that afternoon, we realized everything we wanted to see was to the left and we wasted about an hour going to the right. It wasn't a huge deal. We saw a little more of Mendoza. We did happen to stumble across a huge chocolate store. That was a find. They even gave us free chocolate covered raisins when we walked in. How non-Chilean.