I'm in Chile!: Argentina!

Hello! I've spent all afternoon putting up pictures and responding to emails and such, so here's my blog finally! (although, its only 2:30 there, so not so much "finally"- its 4:30 here!) Argentina was nice. I got there around 6pm on Thursday, and walked around with Maria and her Chilean family for awhile. On Friday Maria and I met up in the morning and spent the day wandering around- checking out different parks and plazas, stopping at a chocolate factory, browsing the millions of artisans tents, etc. We went to a nice restaurant for lunch and sat outside and ate (it was warm there! Probably highs around 90 degrees!). I got a steak with mushroom sauce with a side of rice, and counting the water (~$2) and the tip, I paid less than $10!!! Later we met Maria's family in the evening and went out for pizza with an Argentinian family they know. The pizza was amazingly delicious, and the family was a couple with a 2-year old daughter who was absolutely adorable! Saturday morning we went on a cabalgata (horse-back riding) which was awesome... We were in the pre-cordillera (cordillera=mountain range, here it always refers to the Andes), which is older than the Andes and about a third of the height. It was just the two of us and our guide, climbing rocks, winding up and down and around curves on narrow paths over large drops... in other words, it was a very good thing the horses know the area and know what they're doing, because a wrong step could have been pretty bad at times! The rest of Saturday we didn't do too much, just relaxed, and I went to Mass at a very nice church just a few blocks from my hostel in the evening. Speaking of my hostel, that was not a good experience. Loud, people coming in and out talking loudly alllll night long, not very clean bathroom, and the company I made my reservations through online messed up so I was not in an all-female dorm (and I also lost the 5 dollar deposit I paid through them grr.) But I guess you can't expect too much more for $8/night, and at least I had Maria's family's hotel room to go to!

A couple notable things about Argentina- First, the prices! Everything is really cheap! On Saturday evening I bought 2 sandwiches and a small cup of ice cream for what would be a little more than 2 US dollars!
Another thing that was really striking was the diversity... still not as much as the US, but much more than Chile! I did not feel weird, because plenty of Argentinos were naturally blonde and red-haired also! What a new feeling! lol

Mendoza had a lot of trees! It reminded me sometimes of a bigger version of Ann Arbor.