Our stay at Mendoza

Here´s a view of the place Adam and I have been calling home the last week. We head to Cordoba tomorrow and we´re sorry to say goodbye to Hostel Lao, with it´s wonderful staff, cozy rooms and homey atmosphere.

Last night Adam and I went to Plaza Independencia where there is an artisan craft fair each weekend. Among all of the cool pottery, tapestries and jewelry were a ton of leather goods, which Argentina has an abundance of since there is so much cattle here. Anyway, they had these really great belts that Adam bought a couple of (his old one was in shameful condition as he had had it since 8th grade). Above you can see the guy that makes them cutting the belt to the right length for Adam´s skinny hips. They were decorated with really beautiful patterns that you can see if you look closely.

Above is a picture of a usually crowded street during the Argentina World Cup game on Saturday. The streets and buses were empty and all was quiet while Argentina got their asses kicked by Germany. The handled it pretty well, we only saw a couple of people crying. It was actually really depressing, people walked dejectedly home from watching the game in their striped blue and white shirts, trailing their celebratory flags behind them. Maybe next World Cup....
The other night a dog followed us home. We picked him up outside of a McDonalds he was lounging beside, I guess he liked the look of us because he jumped up and walked about a mile beside us, crossing at stoplights with us, all the way to Hostel Lao where Adam and I said an emotional goodbye to him, who we had fondly called ´´Amigo´´.
Lo and behold Amigo found us again tonight when we were walking home from dinner with our British friend Ben, and he again followed us loyally all the way back to our hostel. Another emotional farewell. I gave him my leftover burrito. We were thinking about the reaction of US customs if we tried to bring a stray dog back from South America. We wish...

Next time we post it will be from Cordoba!

I leave you this time with a quote from ourselves...

(Walking back late one night and passing a bar) (all in Spanish)
Waitress: "Would you like to come in and have a drink?"
Adam: "I don´t know...Chelsea?"
Me: "Hm...it is cold"
Adam: "Perhaps we came back later"
Me: "Good Afternoon"