Sarah and Ben Master Do Mendoza...

This past weekend I flew to mendoza to meet my wonderful friend ben master.
Mendoza is a city on the west side of argentina, very close to chile. its much smaller than buenos aires, more mellow, all the streets are lined with trees which is very nice. We were taken care of by a wonderful familes whose daughter is actually living with my parents in san francisco. pretty lucky connection.
One night they made us a gigantic grilled dinner and ben got to taste argentine meat. We sat in the park and drank mate, we went on a bike/wine tasting tour, and we went to the biggest party of the year: Fiesta Grossa which literally translates to Awesome Party.
It was pretty awesome cause there were about 5000 people there and the music was all old cumbia and salsa and ben and i were probably the only gringos in the entire place. But the party took place outside on a rugby field and it turned out to be a freezing night with a significant amount of rain. and of course we stayed until about 5am cause thats how they party down here, even in freezing rain.
Overall it was a wonderful weekend, so nice to see ben and hard to say goodbye
here are some photos









ps. happy kol nidre everyone and have a good yom kippur, I will be fasting all the way down here in argentina

Jujuy!

This week i went to the province called jujuy. its in the north of argentina near bolivia and chile.
Here is a list of my favorite aspects of the trip, not in any specific order:

1. We saw the most beautiful lightning storm I have ever seen. Because we were in a tiny town there was no light pollution so we could see the lightning bolts so clearly. There was lightening for about an hour before it started raining and we just sat outside watching the lightening. I have never seen anything like that in my life.

2. I ate llama, it was delicious... (this one is just cute)



3. The colors in the mountains.






all of the mountains looked like this with tons of colors, driving through this province was beautiful.
4. the salt flats, although there were sort of brown because its a very windy time of year, they were still very impressive




5. I went to the highest altitude I have ever been at: 4170 meters (which is 13,681.102), it was super cold up there and we had to chew a lot of coca leaf to not get a headache but it was beautiful.





6. We saw some archeological sites which old graves and nice cacti







7. We saw lots of live music, danced a lot. There was this one instrument that was insane, it made a very low droning noise



8. We went on this beautiful hike, some of the mountains literally looked like they were from mars or something.





Those were just some highlights of a wonderful wonderful trip. I am leaving again this thursday to go to a city called mendoza where I am meeting my friend ben master. it will definitely be another beautiful adventure...

What I'm Listening To...

I've compiled a list of songs that I have been listening to while I walk around the city. Music has always triggered very specific memories for me of certain eras of my life. As I spend a lot of my time exploring the city or taking the bus back and forth to class, I spend a lot of time listening to music. So with the technological help of my lovely friend elana I have uploaded a list of my current favorite songs that you can download. This way you can feel like YOU are walking the streets of buenos aires as well.

Here it is: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XRE8NRCY

ENJOY!

my favorite snack...

dulce de leche on an apple
yummmm.....

six weeks and a birthday

thursday marked six weeks here and daniel's 21st birthday!

on thursday we ate a lost of meat to celebrate his birthday and we went to a milonga (a tango bar) and watched a live tango band and people tango-ing away.

last night we celebrated for real. first we went to a concert of daniel's homestay's girlfriend who is in a 17 person klezmer band. it was absolutely incredible. then we went back to daniel's house and had a dance party in his kitchen.

other than that....my life is pretty much the same old same, taking classes, walking around the city, eating lots of meat, and going out to bars...pretty decent life id say