Wine, Art, McDonald's and a Big Green Ogre

Sunday evening I went with the family to una bodega, which is a vineyard and an art show for a friend of a friend of the family. I am starting to get the feeling that this family is extremely well connected in this area --apparently one of the uncles owns all of the North Face stores in Mendoza and then owns some other large chain retail store...so I get the family discount :-)  so we drive over to the bodega and just give a little nod to the security guard to open the gates for us and we are immediately greeted by all of the different family members and family friends. I honestly can't hardly remember anyone's names but I just smile and nod hello and attempt to stumble clumsily through all the greetings. The family gives us a little tour of the winery and it is HUGEEE and so gorgeous they did a lot of remodeling and turned it into a restaurant/winery/art gallery. Fanny gave me a little bit of the history of the place and as we walked into the bathrooms which Fanny told me that they used to be the huge storage tanks for aging the wine and that if you looked up you could see the stains on the ceiling and walls from the wine. This place was so incredibly cool. 

So we walk on into the art gallery and its pretty, apparently the artist is the sister of one of the cousin's girl friends and the cousin's family owns the bodega so she got the art space for her first show....talk about using those connections. There were a lot of people there so I pretended to fit in with my glass of wine walking around to the different galleries nodding and looking intently at different pieces, I didn't know if I was allowed to take pictures so I decided to stay on the safe side and keep my camera in my purse. I made small talk with some other family members asking about their favorite pieces and if they were going to buy any of them. 

Then I had a lovely chat with Enrique about my time at Strathmore, where my job was to do all the placement of the art and how it was interesting to see where they chose to place certain pieces. I felt good after the conversation because I felt I was getting better at this whole talking in spanish thing and at least he understood me for the most part, and we talked about why I chose Mendoza and about my music business. I was fully satisfied and then felt happy for the remainder of the evening. 

After about an hour there really wasn't much else to do so I sat with Marina and her boyfriend Pablo and they invited me to go "shopping" and maybe see a movie. It wasn't until we left and arrived at the mall that I realized "shopping" was what they called one of the only major malls in Mendoza. So we go to where the theater is located and it is packed, I have never seen this many people lined up to go to the movies in my life, especially not at 12 at night (which is apparently a typical time to go to the movies in Argentina). We decided on the 1:30 showing of Shrek which thank god was in English with Spanish subtitles and then all realized we were starving because a dinner of cheese and wine doesn't really satisfy a hungry belly.  

Marina asks me if I like McDonald's, at first I didn't know if I had heard her right and then after she tried describing it to me I finally got, it nodding like an idiot and she explained to me how McDonald's in Mendoza is kind of a big deal and is a lot nicer than those in the U.S. where as I explained to her Mickey D's is more the fine dining of the homeless and the poor college kids....she thought it was funny. I got my usual chicken nuggets and a coke hoping it would be enough caffeine to keep me up through the movie. It took 20 minutes to get the food, so I guess it is not considered fast food here, and we found a spot next to the play place and enjoyed our lovely meal. She was right by the by the food is way better than american MD's it just tastes fresher I suppose.

We sat and talked about almost every subject under the sun for the next hour or so, everything from my favorite movies and music to the new laws being passed about gay marriage in Argentina. It was another truly fulfilling discussion, I think I am starting to get the hang of it which is such a great feeling especially only after two days. OH and side note the McDonald's in Argentina serve wine and beer as part of the meal options, making it just that much more classy.

Heading to the movies we start to get scared looking at the insane lines rapping around the movie theater three or four times; good thing Pablo knows the manager  of the movie theater so we got to cut all of it without a fuss. We sit down and the place is packed already which is strange since the movie has been out for forever, but we find the perfect spot smack in the middle. It was so funny during the movie to see what the spanish translation was for some of the jokes; there were times where Donkey would say the funnies thing and I'd bust out laughing and the rest of the theater was silent because it just didn't translate at all. Marina kicked me at one point because I was laughing so hard during one of those instances. I have to say though, it was really refreshing to hear some english after not hearing any for three days.

All in all it was a fantastic experience and when we walked outside it was snowing a little which made the day all the more magical. I must say I love the idea of snow in July it makes it seem just that much more special.

Well my fingers are sore and I realized now that I wrote a lot, again so happy reading to all and I will find a way to attach some pictures and find out my mailing address sometime soon.


Peace Out