afrodisiacos.

it's back, it's back! what you've all been waiting for - 


pick up lines of the day: (and considering it's 9 am... i done good this morning (; )


1. el agua de la lluvia te hace bien 
literal translation: water from the rain does you good.
real translation: like a flower blooms in the rain, so do you when it rains
*and considering it's monsoon season.. hehe (:


2. verte a vos es como ver la vida. por eso, voy a tener vida eterna.
translation: seeing you is like seeing life. because of this, i'm going to be immortal


3. phewwww. hace mucho calor, no? te afectará muchoo. sabes por que? porque los bonbons se derreten en el sol.
translation: it's really hot, isn't it? it's going to affect you a lot. know why? because chocolates melt in the sun.
heheh. this one was pretty smooth. because at 7:30 am, it was 27C (81F). so i actually thought he was talking about the weather. nopeee haha. and it's kind of cute and a lot less degrading for them to call you a sweet than any of the other things they come up with.


4. que estudias? oh, estudios internacionales? no no, solo que pensé que sos una maestra de jardineria porque todas las otras flores tienen que aprender de vos.
translation: what are you studying? oh, international studies? no no, i just thought that you were a gardening teacher because all the other flowers must learn from you.


hahahaa. i came home from mendoza [wine country!] this morning and the taxi driver through the chocolate one at me as we were pulling away from the terminal. when i told him i'd already heard that one, he took it as a challenge and started throwing me more piropos [flirtatious comments] to see if any would surprise me. these were the cutest (:


mendoza was absolutely, positively GORGEOUS. well, let's be real. every place i've visited in this country has been beautiful. the streets were all lined with trees, giving you much needed shade from the sweltering heat. it was clean like no other city i've seen in argentina. the plaza in the center had a gorgeous fountain and plenty of shade. when i got there on friday, i had quite a few hours to kill before my friends arrived. so i sat in the plaza with my gender and human rights course reading and people watched. what a wonderful way to spend the afternoon.

on saturday, i went on a wine tour with my friend, carly. our guide was the owner of the hostel we were staying at - a flemish-speaking belgian who also speaks german, english and spanish. (and his wife speaks spanish, french, flemish, english and portuguese. and their 4-year-old daughter speaks flemish, spanish and english. jeez, i just wanted to be that family. this is why europeans are infinitely more awesome than us. their language skills are incredible!) 

we rented bikes from Mr. Hugo (literally, calls himself Mr. Hugo hahah) and biked through vineyards after vineyardss. we started at a wine museum where they employ four different kinds of wine making - the oldest version with old tools (wood and such) to the next two phases of concrete to the latest version of steel. then we went to a chocolate&licor factory where we had DELICIOUS olive-based pastes (there was one that was mustard and green olives. sounds disgusting but was probably the best spread i've ever tasted in my life. we still don't know why we didn't buy it...), homemade jams and chocolates. mmm. from there, we went to an outdoor garden to eat homemade pizzas and empanadas. yumm. (can you tell that i love food? hehe (: ) 

and thennn to another artisanal winery where they make a selected number of wines a year and in limited quantities but of excellent quality. there was supposed to be one more stop afterwards but the view was just way too gorgeous to leave the bodega. we must've stayed there for 2.5 hours. if you were there, you wouldn't have left either. 

can you blame us?

and finally, we spent sunday en las termas (thermal water park) and got good tan time in.

suchh a beautiful way to spend the weekend and to top it off, i saw the sun rise over the mountains surrounding córdoba this morning as we were pulling in to the city. seemed like the perfect ending, indeed.

can i just stay here in this beauty forever?

que sé yo.

digamos. sabes? viste? o sea. mira vos! ojo! no cierto. 


last month, a mexican confused me for another mexican (something that happens often at home because of my skin color but certainly is not a common occurrence here) because of my accent and my vocabulary. last week, a brazilian confused me for an argentine. because of my vocabulary and the way i speak. and then again last night, by an argentine himself!


mira vos! (look at you!)


i kind of know for a fact that if the conversation had continued, they would have figured out pretty much immediately that i was very much a gringa foreigner. but in those  precious minutes, i kind of felt like i was on top of the world (:


in the past few weeks, though i haven't been blogging, i've been doing a lot of writing. a whole heck of a lot of writing. and i realized that in coming here, i was running away from a lot of things back home but i was also running towards a time that i could use just for me, doing things just for me, things that make me happy without worrying [well, trying not to worry at least] about how this time will play into my future. at the top of that list was to learn a language that i'm absolutely in love with.


and after nearly four months here, to hear that i "manejo la lengua muy bien" [use the language well] makes my heart soar hehe. 


of course, there are still a ton of things i need to learn. at the top of the list is vocabulary. i'm currently reading harry potter and the philospher's stone in spanish and even with a book i practically know by heart, i have to keep my handy dictionary by my side. even though it's slow reading, and at times incredibly frustrating, i keep trying to remind myself that it will all be worth it when one day, far far in the future, i can say i'm fluent in spanish. one day... 


as the day for me to come home comes closer and closer [only 50 days left!] though, i'm starting to wonder if i'll have opportunities [and even more, if i'll take advantage of them] to use the language there. language is a fickle thing, indeed. and if you don't use it, you lose it. after all the work i've put in, i most certainly don't want to lose it. and i've also come to see that 6 months simply isn't enough to truly become fluent in a language. so this project i've embarked on - one of the few i'm doing purely for my own pleasure - will be a work-in-progress for the foreseeable future. 


help me get there? (: