bus adventure

Dan: The nice people at the front desk of the hotel have given me some ideas of places to leave my resumes (known as Curiculum Vitaes, or C.V.s here). One of them gave me the name of someone at the National University of Cuyo, from whom I could some advice. So today walked around the corner and got on the first bus that came, and it magically brought me to the University. I eventually found the professor and had a short chat. She gave me some more ideas of language institutes to talk to and basic advice on what to expect.

I was hoping to find a kind of University barrio, like the one in San Jose, Costa Rica, where I might be able to find a used book shop and cheap eats. But this particular institute of higher learning seems to be on a large piece of land, away from the city; kind of and island. But feeling good about our short meeting, I found a bus stop, picked one of two buses that happened to be there (both of which I thought said were going downtown), and went on my magical bus journey to Godoy Cruz. It seemed the bus was going the wrong way. I tried to follow its course on my tourist map, and felt a slight bump as we left the map altogether. Into the unknown. As one by one the college kids got off the bus to go home for lunch and siesta, I never gave up hope that soon this bus would turn around and bring me back to familiar territory. Until I was the only passenger and driver said “end of the line.” He kindly told me where to await the bus that would bring me back from the neighboring city of Godoy Cruz to the Centro. I got off and waited for the next bus. So after a total of maybe an hour and fifteen minutes on buses, I finally got to somewhere I felt I could walk from. Sadly, I don’t think I learned any lesson about which bus to take. Next time I think I’ll ask around at the bus stop and be more choosy about which one to take. Although I pretty much drained all the credit on my bus card from all the different fares, I still got quite a tour for about $0.70.

Food: Here in Mendoza, they sell more pasta than over in Chile. The most popular seem to be tallarines (spaghetti), fettuccini, ravioli(cheese, meat, spinach) and ñoqui (gnocchi). We can thank major Italian immigration a hundred years ago for diversifying the mostly meat menu. Accompanying sauces are fairly predictable; bolognesa, tomato, cream. For awhile we were going out to eat 2 times a day, and believe it or not, it was getting a little old. I miss our wok! I miss our fridge full of condiments! Don’t take your condiments for granted, Dear Reader. They are the spice of lunch. Now that we have a little kitchen, we are able to do more of our own cooking.