Mendoza

We went to Mendoza, Argentina's wine country, a few weeks ago.  It was definitely our most gluttonous weekend.  Of course we wanted to do a tour of the wineries, but instead of the traditional way, we decided to go on bikes. We rented bikes in the morning from a company called Bikes & Wine and we were on way. We biked about 34 km total and went to 7 wineries, an olive vineyard and a chocolate factory. It was incredible and soooo yummy! It was also very very hard on our bums - hurt pretty bad the next day.  The most interesting place we ate at was 1884, Argentina's most famous chef, Frances Mallman's, restaurant. The steaks there were at least 3 feet long, at least. Ridiculous. Really really ridiculous. 

Argentina is know for their Malbec - a red grape from Bordeaux, France. It is used as a blending grape in France but in Argentina it stands on its own and produces an amazing wine with great flavor. Right now, it is the most widely planted grape in the country. Yum...

Uruguay

So we've gotten a little lazy with the blogging...oops. Trying to catch up now.

We went to Uruguay a few weeks ago where we covered 3 cities in 3 days (its a pretty small country).  We took a 1 hour boat ride from Buenos to Colonia, a small historical city in Uruguay. It was a beautiful little place - cobblestone streets, a harbor, cute restaurants - all that adorable stuff you find in old cities. We spent the night there and then left the next day for Punta del Este, which is considered the Miami of that part of South America. I don't know about that comparison but it is definitely a really nice beach resort town - gorgeous beaches, designer stores and fancy restaurants. We were there during off-season so it was quieter than usual. And we saw 3 sea lions up close! They're way bigger than I thought and they make some wacky grunting noises. 

The next day, on our way out of Punta del Este we went to my favorite place in Uruguay - Casa Pueblo. Its a huge estate designed by Uruguayan artist, Carlos Paez Vilaro who wanted to create a sculpture to live in. It is so incredible! Seriously, a work of art. The outside looks like a Dr. Suess palace and the inside is a cave-like maze of tunnels lined with paintings by Vilaro. Now, it is used as a hotel. Check out the pics!

We spent our last night in the capital city, Montevideo. Probably the least exciting of the 3 cities but we still had fun. We found a bar with really great live music and a group of amazing salsa dancers.  

Futbol

Buenos Aires has a ton of professional soccer teams.  The most famous two teams are Boca Juniors and River Plate, and when they play each other -- the "Superclasico" -- as they did this past Sunday, the whole city shuts down.  The most recent iteration of the game took place at Boca's stadium, La Bombonera.  While the available tickets for this game were a bit outside our price range, we did find a fun bar to watch Boca win 1-0.  However, we did catch a game at La Bombonera a few weeks back, and here's an idea of what it was like:

The game we went to was against Newell's Old Boys, whose name goes back to the early 1900's when a group of students named their group after their British teacher.  We went with a group of friends and by the time we all got there, the box office only had tickets for the "popular" section - basically where all the crazies are.  The band (which means dudes with drums) were blocking the center so we were forced to go a little to the side - this turned out to be a good thing since the center of the popular section is almost too ridiculous. And, Kat was definitely one of the only girls in the area. We pretty much parked ourselves and tried not to look too foreign as we'd heard some stories of what to expect in those sections.  The game was amazing - the singing and the drums didn't stop once during the 2 hours (incredible...seriously).  The fans also really like to climb on the fence around the field and wave their hands in a way that I can't really describe (see video).  The above video is the best we could do while trying not to broadcast the fact that we had a digital camera, but youtube has some others that might give you an idea of what a boca game is like.   Luckily, Boca beat Newell's 2-1 with great goals from Rodrigo Palacios and Martin Palermo, and the mood on the way out was festive.  We'll try to catch some more games in the next month.