Mendoza

Mendoza lies at that perfect longitude between mountains and wine.  I mean, check out these mountains!

And the wine, of course...

Marcos and Orlando picked me up at the bus station in Mendoza.  Immediately one can notice the difference between Mendoza and Buenos Aires.  If Buenos Aires is New York, Mendoza is like... eh... I don't know, but a place much smaller and quieter than New York.  San Rafael was definitely more 'tranquilo', but Mendoza was not far behind, considering the side of the city.

It is also much cleaner than Buenos Aires.  And all the streets are lined with 'acequias' which are basically channels for water to irrigate the many trees in the city.  The trees give the city a very natural feel.

We toured the Family Zuccardi winery.  It was pretty slick.  The tour ends with a tasting of 3 of their wines: rose, red and sweet white.  Then we did this awesome wine tasting meal consisting of 8 courses.  I'll see if i can remember them.  The pictures are in the gallery.

1.  Polenta crisps with pizza flavor.  The wine here was a campagne.
2.  Some sort of cocktail with lemon.
3.  'Passion for Olives' - basically an olive cake topped with olive ice cream and an olive cracker.
4.  Mimosa!  Its half orange juice and half champagne.  But this one came in an orange!
5.  Sweetbreads with a sweet pepper sauce.  The wine here was a nice rose.
6.  Pork, potatoes, bacon, and wine-marinated pears.  This came with a Malbec-like wine that was unusually crisp for a red.
7.  Malbec ice cream with cake.  This was accompanied by a very light, sweet dessert wine.
8.  Lemon sorbet with chocolate and sprinkles of something like that popping candy.  There was another sweet dessert wine here called Malamado.  Yea, fun name!
9.  A 'sponge' soaked in orange juice and topped with a twisted ribbon of chocolate.  Quite nice.
10.  Expresso, of course.

Ok, so thats 10, but maybe some of the drinks courses didn't actually count as courses.

After the courses, we stopped to preach to some English speakers working in the winery.  One was from the States and the other was from Australia.  Nice guys.

The Puga family was so hospitable to us.  They constantly had us over for lunch and dinner.  And they took us out to eat too.  Thanks, guys!

One of the foods we had at their house was like a combination between pizza and a sandwich.  Picture these layers starting from the bottom:  toasted bread, beef, cheese, mayo, ham, AND THEN A PIZZA ON TOP.  I am not making this up.

We went bowling at one of those places where the pins are set up by an actual person.  Awesome!  Check out his feet:

On Sunday Marcos took me on a few of his Spanish studies.  I got to read some scriptures!  Woot!

The bus ride home was, bar none, the best bus ride I have ever had.  It was a first class seat on the top of a double-decker bus.  The big leather seat completely flattens to a bed, complete with a pillow, blanket and curtain.  First they give you candy and soda.  Then appetizers, then dinner with your choice of wine.  It was the first time I've had steak on a bus.  Then champagne.  All of this was during the playing of 2 movies.  Then bed time until arriving at Buenos Aires in the morning.