Girls' Weekend

Less than 36 hours after we arrived home from South America, I hopped in the car and headed down to Fredericksburg to meet up with my mom and sister for our first-ever Girls' Weekend. We had so much fun shopping, eating, visiting wineries, catching up, and laughing. I'm so thankful to have such wonderful women in my life!

Fiesta Winery

Lunch at Vaudeville's underground bistro

Samples at Quintessential Chocolates

Four Point Cellars

Pontotoc Winery

Dinner at Rathskeller

It was way too hot to hike, but we enjoyed the drive out to Enchanted Rock.

Celebrating National Ice Cream Day at Clear River

More Fun in Santiago

We went back over to the Parque Metropolitano today because we wanted to see the Japanese Garden and the Mapulemu Garden of native plants. The first turned out to be closed for renovations, but we got a nice hike out of it. And when we had seen the second, we popped over to the Gabriela Mistral playground, which we loved so much yesterday. It was even more fun today because we had it almost entirely to ourselves. On our way back to the apartment, we walked by the impressive U.S. Embassy to get an idea of possible future work environs. We were amazed at how large it was and at all the security. Once we were back at the apartment, we watched England pull out a miraculous World Cup victory over Columbia. And this evening, we caught an Uber over to Barrio Italia, which has some fun and interesting shops and restaurants. We wandered through several of the shops, bought some painted chocolates at a little chocolate kiosk, had a wonderful dinner at Bar Italia, and grabbed some ice cream at Nahia before heading back to our apartment. It was a lovely day!

Jardín Mapulemu

Gabriela Mistral Playground

U.S. Embassy

Barrio Italia

Another Fun Week in Mendoza

I can't believe it's been a week since my last post! As usual, there has been plenty going on, but the days have been getting away from me to record all of it. I started my proofreading course, which has been interesting and informative and a little humbling. Weston and Max have been engrossed in their books. Ruth has been writing a story of her own. Clay has been very busy drawing, playing, and practicing his Spanish. And Jeff moved up to the next level of Spanish classes.

We've also gotten together with friends a few times, visited a chocolate factory, eaten some fabulous and cheap food, taken a couple of lovely hikes, played at parks, and watched a couple of World Cup games. It's been a wonderful week!

La Cabaña Chocolate Factory 

Good eats and drinks--at home and out

Date night at Don Aldo

Cutie Clay
(At his favorite playground, playing the "drums" at the house,
at the chocolate factory,  and doing pull-ups at the park)

A walk in the park

Out and about in Mendoza
(Weston with a huge calzone, a beautiful abandoned building,
Clay at the art store, the amphitheater at one of the plazas,
swing picnic table, walking by one of the acequias that makes
Mendoza so lush, a church, one of many sidewalk cafes)

Cerro de la Gloria hike

World Cup Watching

Various combinations of us have gone out at different times this week.

Wine, Olive Oil, and Chocolate Tour

Jeff's school provides all kinds of opportunities for the students to get to know the city and continue practicing their Spanish even outside of class time. And many of these activities are open not only to students but also their families and friends. Today's activity was a tour that visited two wineries (out of some 1200 in the area), an olive oil factory, and a tiny chocolate shop, which was right up our alley, so we signed up right away. Wine is Argentina's second-largest industry (after petroleum) and olive oil is the third, so the tour was a great way to become more familiar with the heart and soul of Argentina, particularly the area around Mendoza, and it was also a delight for our taste buds.

The first winery was a pretty large one called Baudron. In the tasting room, they served us one white wine (a Chardonnay) and one red (a Malbec, for which Mendoza is most well-known). Jeff and I are never much for white wines, but the Malbec was truly wonderful--the best we've tried since we've been here...And we've tried a few!

Baudron Winery

My favorite room on the tour!

For reference as to how big each of those barrels is

The two wines we got to taste.
That Malbec is amazing!

From there we headed over to Pasrai, an olive oil and raisin factory. The name is a blending of the Spanish word for raisin and the English word for raisin because raisins were their first product and first export. They have since added the olive oil component to the business, which is the only part we visited today. We got to see the olives being processed, and then we got to try some of their lotions and sample many of their oils, everything from straight up extra virgin olive oil to many different flavors like lemon, garlic, rosemary, oregano, basil and aji. Our favorite was the aji oil, which is made with a red pepper for a little spice (or a lot of spice if you're Argentinian). We were also able to try some of their raisins, both golden and regular. We thought everything was wonderful!

Pasrai

A batch of olives ready to be processed

The making of olive oil

So many wonderful goodies!

I loved the beautiful murals that lined the entrance.

Then we visited another, smaller winery, Cavas de Don Arturo, that only produces red wine, which is not sold in stores but is only available to purchase on site. We tasted three of their wines, but we did not particularly enjoy any of them, though we did enjoy the experience.

The tasting room at Cavas de Don Arturo

My favorite feature of this winery

The final stop on our tour was a tiny artisanal shop, which could barely hold our entire tour group. It was like someone's grandma had just set up shop selling all her goodies out of a spare room in her house. You had to be going there to get there, so I imagine someone in the tour company knew the owner and made this arrangement. The owner, who claims to use old family recipes for most of her items, was very enthusiastic and charming and had many products for us to sample, including some savory things like balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and spreads, as well as some sweets, which was definitely the focus of the shop. The most unique for me was the spaghetti squash jam. There were all kinds of jams and chocolates and a whole selection of liqueurs. Everything was delicious, and it was such a fun experience!

Sweet treats and liqueurs

Jams, jellies and sweet spreads

Liqueur samples

Final samples at A la Antigua

Cusco and Machu Picchu

Not all travel is easy or goes according to plan. We left Iquitos early on Monday morning. We flew to Lima and were to connect to Cusco, where we were to be met by a driver and driven to a town a couple of hours away to catch a train to Aguas Calientes, where we would stay for the night. But when we got to Lima, we found we had randomly been bumped from our flight, which meant we wouldn't be able to make our other connections during the day. Jeff worked with the airline, trying to figure out our options, while I ran upstairs to the train ticket office to try to reschedule our train trip.

Eventually, we made it as far as Cusco, where by happy accident we had an apartment waiting for us, since we had booked it for the wrong night. We were worn out from a day of travel and stresses but walked over to one of the main plazas to buy our tickets for Machu Picchu, only to find that ticket office closed. Inquiries at a travel agency revealed there was another ticket office not far away that was likely still open. So, Jeff ran over there while the rest of us hung out in the plaza. Finally, with tickets in hand, Jeff returned, and we all breathed a sigh of relief as our last kink of the day worked out. Then we popped into a chocolate shop for some samples before eating dinner next door at Chicha. It was a nice restaurant with delicious food, and we got to try some popular local fare, including alpaca and guinea pig.

The streets of Cusco reminded us of Europe

A building in the plaza flying the Cusco flag

Double "Giddy-up Horsey"

The Choco Museo

Cuy (guinea pig) and blue corn crepes

Alpaca carpaccio

Alpaca curry

This morning, we caught a very early train at a station outside of Cusco and had a lovely ride up to Aguas Calientes, where we caught a bus that took us up to Machu Picchu. It was so surreal to be in a place that I have typically thought of only as a National Geographic photo. It was amazing and worth all the trouble, and we had a wonderful day making happy memories!

Train ride to Aguas Calientes
(Top left--There was no power in the train station when we arrived,
but there were several propane heaters set up throughout the station.)

Killing the Bucket List!

Machu Picchu

Winter Breakfast 2017

Winter Breakfast has become one of the most talked about and anticipated events in our household. We haven't yet gotten it to work out on the morning of the Winter Solstice, but we get as close as we can. Only the snowman pancakes and the white hot chocolate have been present at all our Winter Breakfast celebrations. The rest of the items change, depending on my creativity, motivation, and available time. This year the menu included snowman pancakes, white hot chocolate in snowman mugs, snowman bagels, hard boiled egg snowmen, grape penguins, and polar bear yogurt. As always, we had a blast!

Plate of Peguins

Egg Snowmen

Snowman pancakes

Snowman bagels

Polar bear yogurt

White hot chocolate

Winter Breakfast is our favorite!

We gave the kids some little surprises, and when Ruth saw these two items,
she declared it to be, "The best day of her life!"