back in the saddle

I can´t believe two weeks have passed since my last post... I suppose that´s a good sign though, that my life has been busy and full and my brain and hands have been occupied. Hmm, where should I begin... I suppose with the little tale of When The Girls Came To Visit.

We had a great time. How could we not have? Three college roommates who hadn´t seen each other in almost a year, traipsing around Argentina. A definite formula for good times.

We acted silly, which was my favorite part. Just to have people to act silly with, and not think for a second that my silliness was out of line. We took photos leaning against monuments from far away, looking like giants; we took photos jumping high in the air from a brick wall, only blue sky behind us; we took photos doing dance moves in the air, next to palm trees, in front of the Andes. We ran through the dark streets of Buenos Aires in our pajamas at 1am hoping to reach the ice cream store before it closed. We bought five kinds of beer and ordered pizza into our hotel room and drank flights of Quilmes while watching bad American television. We told inside jokes and laughed about old memories and talked in funny voices.

We walked all over Buenos Aires, seeing the different neighborhoods, with me as the tour guide. And I discovered that me as a tour guide means the tour is mostly made up of restaurants. (Shocking.) Man, did we eat. Empanadas, calzones, pizza. Cookies, ice cream, dulce de leche, churros. Tea, coffee, milkshakes, wine. Steak, milanesa, fried potatoes. Soups, salads, sandwiches, tortes. Cakes and chips and vegetables and stews. It was fantastic.

We saw a tango show, splurging on the expensive one. The venue was amazing, a beautiful old theatre with heavy red velvet curtains framing the stage. We ate a three course meal and drank wine while over twenty dancers took turns moving across the stage... sultry, sexy, spinning, twirling, legs high in the air, eyes locked, high heels pivoting, hair slicked back, a live band playing notes that held the dancers up like puppets.

We took an overnight bus to and from Mendoza, a thirteen hour drive inland, towards the mountains. We spent three days there, soaking up warmth and sunshine and the quietness outside of BsAs. We explored the city´s park, sitting quietly by a pond, drinking milkshakes and feeling our skin warm and our ears stop buzzing. We spent a day at a spa, tucked into a valley in the mountains, the wind whipping over the rock-lined pools, rattling the windows as we ate a buffet lunch sitting in our plush, white robes. And we spent a day doing a bike-and-wine tour... seven hours on rickety bikes, sans helmets, on narrow roads with trucks whizzing past. Six wineries, an olive farm and a chocolate factory. Glasses of Malbec, tours of rooms filled with the scent of wine fermenting in oak barrels from France, grapevines and olive trees fading into views of the Andes.

We got too little sleep and drank too much wine, but we filled those nine days with good, good memories.


For photos of our time in BsAs, click here and here.

And for photos of our adventures in Mendoza, click here.