ohh mendoza.

This past weekend I took a little trip to Mendoza, Argentina, which is on the west side of the country. Without a doubt, I am going to categorize this weekend as perfect. On Friday, after classes let out four other girls and I headed over to the bus station and prepared for a magical weekend.



(From left to right: Anna-from Iowa, Me, Lena-from Washington, Jackie-from Southern Cal, and Evita-from Italy)

The bus ride is about 5 hours of driving, but because of customs it can take 6-8, depending on traffic. On Friday, our bus left at 2, and I think we got into Mendoza at 10ish (but keep in mind that there is a zone change in time). We met up with some other friends at a hostel, then proceeded to go to the coolest bar/club ever because we didn't get home until 7:30 in the morning. Right on time to eat our free breakfast at the hostel. After napping for a few hours, we took charge of the day by renting bikes and going on a wine tour. Our first stop was at this little chocolate/olive oil store that had crazy good food for free. I tried Absynth. It was absolutely the worst drink I have ever had, and all things considered I would probably try it again. Then the actually wine drinking began. We biked 6km down the road to my first vineyard. After a short explanation of the different wines, we got to drinking...



...and indulged in a DANK afternoon lunch...





the wine-tasting crew:



By the time we were finished with all of our drinks, we weren't in any shape to be biking around town so the owner of the bike-renting place (he was SUPER cute, the business is run out of his house :) and his wife/daughter/cat/dog are all hanging out. It was wonderful) picked us up, and we proceeded to drink more wine at their house with the other tourists who had gone biking that day. We were exhausted by Saturday night, so after dinner we headed back to the hostel to get some sleep <3 because on Sunday, we woke up and went white water rafting.

Obviously, Mendoza gets five days of rain on average per year, and we happened to choose to go rafting on the one day it snows. I couldn't feel my fingers, or my toes, and yet I will forever be a raft lover.











We were supposed to go zip-lining, but because of the snow, we couldn't:( That's okay though because after heading back into town, we went to this great outdoor market with cool, local vendors who rep-ed us for rafting in the snow. We ended our trip with a cute family meal...