MENDOZZAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

Well it's a week later. have i done exciting things? to put it simply, yes.

last wednesday was my friend Jordan's birthday. we decided to go out for some drinks and then to a discoteca in Parque Bustamante called "Club Miel" ("Miel" means "Honey"). i met two of Jordan's friends. one of which was his girlfriend. they were extremely friendly and funny and just generally cool people. this was the type of crew i wanted for a late night. it was great.

now, so far i have gone to three discotecas while here. let's review the stats quickly, shall we?

1. Jammin' - this is a reggaeton discoteca that has all the qualities it should. tons of sweaty, smelly gross people dancing to music that shares those same qualities. it was a fun experience but i dunno if i'd want to go back there unless i have a bigger group.

2. Amnesia - this discoteca was 2 floors and was basically a bar with dancing space. if i jumped, i could probably touch the ceiling. as for the music, it was reggaeton for the first half hour i was there, then switched to jock jams type techno for about a half hour, then chilean pop punk (which they loved) for another half hour, and right before i left the last two songs i heard were "sweet chile o' mine" and "man i feel like a woman". it gets some serious points from me for the diversity of the music there. kind of cramped though.

and now #3... Club Miel.

This is the discoteca experience i've been wanting since i left the united states. this place was HUGE. it was kind of like a giant dance hall. it had projectors and tons of lights and it even had dancers at one point. everyone was really spread out. at that discoteca, i heard a wide range of stuff from techno to reggaeton to pop music. not so much rock but everything had a beat so it was all good. one of my favorite moments of the night was freaking out like a madman to "One More Time" by Daft Punk. we ended up staying there until the place closed at 4am. it was so cold outside that you could see the steam rising from people's bodies. it was understandable for me since i ended up dancing for about 3 hours straight, which is a huge deal for me. i usually don't like going to clubs or dancing a lot or anything. but there's something about the selection of music in Chile both in discotecas and on the radio. it's like they have no concept of recent music and they just shuffle between random songs from the 90s and today. example: on the radio you will hear things like "love fool" by the cardigans and in discotecas you will hear things like Jock Jams. it's like the 90s never died here. i love it. and Club Miel can definitely attest to that. the next day i told my room mate ari that i went out to that discoteca and he was just like "oh yeah. that's a really gay area", which i thought was funny. but who the fuck cares? so far Miel is the best discoteca i've been to here and i'm definitely making my way back there.

this past weekend i went to Mendoza, Argentina. but before i get into that, lemmie talk a little about the bus ride. the first half of this ride consists of a quite curvy and equally beautiful venture through the Andes mountains. this journey is not for the easily motion sick. we took a double decker bus on the way there and sat on the top (natch). the mountains were absolutely gorgeous. i ended up taking about 70 pictures of them total (because i'm a maniac with my camera when i go to another country). also, for part of the ride we were entertained by a pretty mediocre movie if i do say so myself (Marley & Me). halfway through our trip, we stopped at this little station in the mountains to go through Argentina customs. it took about an hour to get two stamps on my passport (one saying i'm leaving Chile and one saying i'm entering Argentina) and have everyone's bags searched. then we were on our way to the second half of the bus ride. we saw a little bit more of the mountains and some giant lakes/rivers making our way to the super flat terrain on our last 2 hour leg of the journey. totally awesome bus ride. 6 hours seems so much shorter when the area is beautiful.

once we arrived in mendoza, we checked into our hostel. Chimbas Hostel is really nice. our private room was basically a hotel room. the common areas like the kitchen and such were also excellent and homely. loved it there. staying there again if i go back to Mendoza. at any rate, after much discussion, alice and i decided to leave a deposit to go paragliding the next morning. it was pretty late but we were hungry so we hit the main strip of Mendoza to get some food. after some searching, we ended up at a pizza place and got a pizza with spinach, pesto and eggs on it. man was it good. unfortunately, the restaurant did not accept debit/credit cards and because we left a deposit for the paragliding, we didn't have any cash on us to pay for the meal. alice ended up staying at the restaurant while i went to a nearby ATM to withdraw enough cash to pay for the meal.

it turns out that only a few places in Mendoza take credit/debit cards. so to all travelers out there heading this way, make sure you have CASH. we did not know this. most of my cash was gone and Alice only had her credit card because her debit card is M.I.A.. so i ended up having to withdraw money all weekend to cover our expenses and she paid me back in the end. so yeah, BRING CASH or else you will be screwed in Mendoza.

that aside, we ended up getting up early on Saturday to go paragliding. a jeep picked us up from our hostel and drove us out of Mendoza and up one of the super rocky roaded mountains there. the drive was on a dirt road. at one point, we saw four dogs in the field and one had (legit) a leg in its mouth. probably from a dead deer or something. it was one of the more graphic things i'd seen in my life. part of me was also like "that is so metal". but anyways, back to paragliding (what this paragraph is REALLY about). once we got to the top of the mountain, we suited up and prepared for takeoff. we were extremely nervous and excited and ready.... annnnnnd then we waited. and waited. and waited and waited and waited. seriously. we waited forever before taking off. it turns out that while paragliding, it doesn't matter what the wind is like. but for takeoff, you have to wait for a specific kind of wind. we ended up parawaiting for about an hour. at one point, Alice was getting ready to takeoff so i decided to try filming it. she took off and i pressed record. suddenly my guide was like "ok let's go now!" and i was like "what??!?" frantically putting away my camera so i could focus on properly taking off and not dying and then suddenly i was jerked into the air by the wind.

paragliding is one of the coolest experiences i've ever had. i mean, how could it not be, really? you're as high up as one of the mountains just floating in the quiet breeze overlooking a beautiful area (that's me to the left there in that photo). at one point, my guide said "mind if we do some tricks?" and i was like "go for it!" he tilted the thing sideways back and forth. it was awesome. i thought we were going to be upside down at one point. we were pretty damn close. there was some motion sickness throughout so if you're prone to that, then watch out. also, alice can attest to this, but the landing was one of the most hilarious parts of this whole experience. you see, i was supposed to just keep walking and ended up sort of flailing my arms like a muppet when i walked on the ground. the video alice has of it is very funny. maybe it'll end up on facebook or youtube or something. but yeah. if you end up in Mendoza, i highly (get it?) recommend paragliding. not only is it awesome, it's cheap if you have U.S. currency.

in fact, most of the stuff in Argentina is cheap if you have U.S. currency. that night, Alice and I went out to eat some steak which we heard was really delicious in Argentina. oh my god. seriously. you guys don't understand. you really don't understand. this was...


THE. BEST. STEAK. I'VE. EVER. HAD. IN. MY. LIFE.

perfect seasoning and melt-in-your-mouth-god-like consistency. also, not only did we get the two best steaks ever, we got fries to split between us and 2 sodas. guess how much this meal cost? 20 dollars. the steaks were 6 dollars a piece. and this was a kind of nice place! we sat down and were waited on, we ate outside, the napkins were fancy cloth... 20 dollars. also, our pizza the night before with 2 sodas? 10 dollars. also a fancy restaurant. i'm telling you, if you want to feel like a king, come to Mendoza with U.S. dollars. you won't be sorry. we took advantage of this by shopping a little. i bought some sunglasses and Alice got a shawl. both necessities for us.

the next day we got up early and had our 3rd night in a row with 6 hours of sleep. we were exhausted but desperately wanted to walk around the town more. Mendoza is pretty small. you could probably walk around the entire periphery in about 3 or 4 hours. lots of parks though. with awesome esculturas and fountains. we kept our sunday tradition and went to a Museo in Mendoza for free (score). it was full of crazy contemporary artwork. lots of abstract stuff. very cool.

then it was time for us to head back to Santiago. for the bus ride back, we took what we thought was a cheaper bus but was actually the same price and not as nice. i guess from now on i'm taking the double decker bus. the bus ride back was pretty much the same thing in reverse. the only difference was that the customs going from Argentina to Chile were a lot faster and more on top of their stuff. we were outta there in like a half hour. perfecto.

overall, i LOVED Mendoza and can't wait to go back there to get my gringo tourist visa restamped for another 3 months. although, in July/August i may have a problem because i heard the roads get very cold and they close the bus lines if it snows and gets icy on the mountains. but whatever. i guess i'll just have to fly to another country or maybe the same one (Buenos Aires?). we shall see.

in terms of money and the job sitch. i'm doing okay. not ideal but ok. right now i can afford to pay my rent each month but i can't afford food. if i pick up two more classes, i should be all set financially. i'm going to start feverishly pushing for this. there's a chance i may pick up a few more classes through polyglot but i won't know about it for another week or so... :\ i may have to pick up another job. we'll see how it goes.

on the upside, i received some winter clothes in the mail today from my folks. THANK GOD. nobody told me Santiago would get almost as cold as New England during the winter. also, for some reason nobody has central heat in their apartments in Chile so you just kind of have to use thousands of covers and dress in some serious layers. but now that i have my red coat, 5 hoodies and my fleece pants, i'm gonna be all set here forever. so SUCK IT, winter!

and that has been my week in a long-winded nutshell. life is good for now and i will touch base here once more next week maybe. until then, hasta muchachos.