Mendoza II

Bueno, toy borracho pero queria escribir algo porque no he dicho nada por mucho tiempo. I would like to say first that the space bar is pretty much broken so my words may not have spaces. Alright, so i met some people at my hostel on saturday and they have all been studying abroad here sincejanuary and they knewsome people in Mendoza. So they invited me along to go out. We went into the middle of nowwhere where i guessthe best clubs in mendozza are. It is out a long single lane road and I thought thetaxi driver wasjust fucking with us. We end up on a club strip withthousands of argentineans waiting to get into various clubs. So we joined the hordes, literally a massive swarm of people pushing and shoving to jockey for position. My friendfrom Michigan tells me that we should speak English loudlyso we´ll get in. This boggled my mind, they let foreingers in over locals? So we spoke English and sure enough we got plucked up out of the crowd and let into the club. This club was absurdly large there was over a thousand people dancing and drinking with lazer lights, strobe lights, disco lights, black lights, marble lights... it was unbelievable, and then I went into the next room where it was the exact same scene. There were three different rooms exactly likethis with crazy drunken Argentineans dancing to techno. In Argentina you dance quite differently as well,in America we´ve got theclassic bump and grind, foot tap combo that works nicelybut in Argentina they do more group dancing. That is youstand ina circle and dance with your friends. It´smore social and laid back in myopinion. Afterwards when we left, at around 6 a.m. which is a pretty usual time i guess, we caught a taxi back for 5 people that took about 40 minutes and it cost about 12 dollars total. Split it up, that´s less than 3 dollars a person. The exchange rate really is quite good although when you arehere youget caught upinthe peso. That is you see high prices and immediately think, oh that´s too much, but then you convert it and realize howaffordable it is. For example, myfriend Keith who Imet in thehostal down here decided to buy some wine andit was 4.50 pesos, ahh i guess we canafford that we thought, THAT¨S $1.50. that´s pennies in the states. Today I bought two pancho´s (hot dogs with onions, tomatoes, french fries, ketchup) and it cost $1.33. I bought a Polar Fleece today because I was cold and it was 20 pesos or about $6.75 for a fleece. That´s is unbeatable. Getting around is cheap too, to taket the subte it costs .90 pesos or $.30, compare that to the London Underground that costs 5 pounds or $10 dollars, that´s 40x more exensive. It´s so easy to eat tons of steak and winewhen you are downhere but I have to keep reminding myself, wait, that´snot that healthy. So rightnow Mendoza is cold, hencemy polar fleece purchase, likecold. But I can see that is would bean amazing place in thesummer to come for 4 or 5 nights. It´s nice small city with a relaxed feel located onthe brink of theandes and the edge of many vinyards or bodegas. What else, I don´t want to ramble as that would lower my prestige as a blogger. So I finally went out a purchased a state of the art yellow plush towel. I will no longer dread the post shower dry off. But it cost me $14 pesos, that´s way too much fora towel, but wait that´s $4.70 so I guess it´s ok. So tomorrow I am off to explore the wineries of Mendoza with my newly acquired friends from Michigan, Finland, Australia, England and Wales and we intend to take new heights to drinking and biking. Hopefullythey don´t have BUI´s inArgentina. All in all I´m quite tired, it´s almost 4 am and I have to wakeup at 8 am to go biking and wine tasting, life is stressful. Glad to hear everything went well with the STP, and triatholon. Later.