Mendoza

So. I arrived in Mendoza on Saturday night and immediately the Powers That Be began to indicate that this town and I were not going to get along.

Firstly, I arrived on a Saturday night, which is an error because on Sundays NOTHING HAPPENS in Argentina, unless you have a big Latin American family with whom you can spend the whole day eating meat and drinking red wine in the park. Also, the door of my dorm was answered by an old man of Dutch/Swedish/Belgian origin in a t-shirt and y-fronts. Then the next morning everyone in my dorm left and I had no one to make friends with, which is a big problem because there are certain things I really don't feel comfortable doing on my own, and riding around on a bike after 4 glasses of good red wine is one of them. Incidently, this is the only reason to come to Mendoza.

I then find out that the good looking guy on reception only works on the weekend. I desperately try to make the most of this Sunday by visiting a crafts fair and buying a moonstone necklace: $15? I think: bargain. No, no, Emma needs to work on her numbers. $50. I hand the money over, too embarrassed to explain to the lady that this is outside of today's budget. I now have a beautiful moonstone necklace. I go to the cinema and watch a really good Argentinian film I vaguely understand (Las Viudas de los Jueves - get it and watch it with subtitles and explain to me what's going on) and I think things are getting better. Then I got lost on the bus on the way home, but the bus driver looked after me. Nice bus driver. Then on the Monday I think, let's go on an adventure and I get on a bus that takes me into the middle of nowhere and back. Not that exciting.

At this point I think 'I should never have travelled alone, nothing is fun, I want to go home, boo hoo, everything is terrible, I might as well just book a flight now, this whole trip was a mistake'. Drama, drama, overexaggeration, melodramatics, etc.

The final straw, however, came when on the Tuesday morning, I missed another adventure bus, but luckily I had drunk a glass of red wine on the Monday night and then done some aggressive friend making - the kind you do in Fresher's Week - with two German girls, Kathrin and Elisabeth. When they came down for breakfast on Tuesday and heard my story entitled 'Emma does another stupid thing: volume III', they took pity on me and told me to try and get on their overpriced wine tour. So I did. And things began getting better, hoorah!

Off we all went in our minibus. First we went to a medium sized bodega, or winerie for all those who are not au fait with the Spanish language like I clearly am, and we learnt all about legs and colour and oak and strawberries and fermentation and destalking and late harvests and hail and French barrels, then we had lunch and we had MEAT from an asado, or barbeque (see above reference to those who are not Spanolingual, like me) with more red wine. Then we went to a boutique bodega, and learnt more about vines and grapes and, interestingly, olives, and the family history of the bodega - very interesting. Then the big bodega where they had two lines of wine: the expensive Zuccardi range, and the cheaper, Santa Julia range, which is nice to start with but doesn't last very long, is stored in cheaper barrels, is quick and easy to make and is comparatively inexpensive. Incidently, it is named after the owner's daughter, Julia, whose saintliness the guide questioned before listing all the less admirable qualities of the wine. Either he has been spurned by her, or he just doesn't like her very much.

Next on the tour was liquor and chocolate bodega where I got to try absinthe, real hallucinagenic, illegal-in-Europe absinthe. It is horrible. So Kathrin and I bought a bottle to drink back at the hostel. With this party planned, I then had to change my bus ticket to Cordoba and shuffle my hostels around, but it was all fine. Then we had a very nice night drinking absinthe which, disappointingly, had little to no effect. We were also joined by some very dull Germans who we tried to make more interesting, but it didn't work. Apparently you can't have more than 2 fun Germans in a room at one time or the world will IMPLODE.

I have over-itinerised my stay in Cordoba to avoid another town of SOLITUDE and BOREDOM so hopefully there will be lots of adventures to be had.

Photos above include absinthe, artistic photo of bottles and me with Kathrin and Elisabeth. Well done modern, hi-tech hostel computer.