Argentine Adventure Day 7: Yahoo President Obama!!

So Argentina is a strange place. The hot weather makes the Argentine time clock all screwy. People usually get up between 8 and 9am, and then around 1pm everything closes down for siesta. In school we were always taught that siestas were like short little breaks, well that's not totally true. Siesta usually last from anywhere between 12pm and 7 or 8 or 9pm. Restaurants don't open for dinner until 8 or 9pm and it's not considered strange at all to go out to eat dinner around 11ish. Yeah it's kind of weird, right now it's Cali time 10:15pm which means Argentina time 3:15am. I've been a little sleep deprived lately, but I'm starting to get the hang of the siesta.

So last night we discovered a little of the Mendoza night life. Our Irish friend, Neal, Jim, and I met up with Robin (another Irish tourist, who is a friend of Neal's). We met in this park and there was an acrobat show going on so that was pretty cool, even though none us speak good enough Spanish to know what the performers were saying. We found a microbrewery (which I didn't even think about when I thought about Argentina). It was really fun, the bartender spoke some English so we actually got to interact with the locals a bit. So after a few pintas at the brewery we headed off to see what else Mendoza night life had to offer. We can a cross a resto-bar called Moon, which had white sofas in their outdoor seating area so we figured we had to have a drink there. We sat down and what luck we had another server who spoke a little English. While we were seating there a man walked over with wooden board holding 4 slices of American style pizza. He informed us his name was Dario and he was the Pizza Chef for the resto-bar and he was bringing a complimentary sample for us. The pizza was amazing. Def in the top food of Mendoza category. Oh and I forgot to mention that Dario was born in Argentina but is really a Southern Cali kid, he lived in Laguna Beach for a lot of years, and he spoke perfect English.

As for today we got up somewhat early and headed for a wine tasting room called Vines of Mendoza, accept when we got there we learned that they didn't open until 3pm (it was only like 10:45am). So we walked back to a little cafe that was at the end of the block. We ordered three coffees (Neal was nice enough to join us) and four different types of Empanadas, and they were amazing! They were so good that after sharing the first four we ordered another seven and ate them all. After our delicious meal we stroked through town and eventually ended up at the bus station, so that Jim and I could buy our bus tickets for Buenos Aires, thank goodness we had Neal (for an Irish guy, he speaks damn good Spanish, and way better than mine). After the bus station we all headed back to the Hostel for siesta. When we awoke from siesta, it was time for Neal to go (he left for Buenos Aires today). I have to admit I was sad to see him go, he a great travelin' buddy (but we might meet up in Buenos Aires). After we said our good byes to Neal, me and Jim took off to go to Vine of Mendoza and taste some wine. We got there and it was wonderful. we shared a flight of five Malbecs and they were lovely wines. we had a lovely young woman named "Paula" (ironic I know). She was very knowledgeable and made the experience absolutely wonderful. We then went in search for dinner, but it was way too soon via Argentina standards so we went back to the hostel for a bit and then headed back into town once again. We ended up back at Moon Resto-Bar for some more delicious pizza.

Well that about catches you all up to our adventures so far. Stay turned kids I'll be writing again soon. I miss you all and I hope this finds you all well.

Xo