whew!!

Oh man, it´s the first week of classes and now I realize that I´m in college again and this hasn´t been some bizarre, prolonged vacation. This is our ´´shopping time´´ which means we go to a bunch of classes and then pick 3 or 4 to take in addition to our mandatory spanish class. So far I´ve gone to 2 history classes and 2 theatre classes. The history classes are very tranquilo and pretty similar to our classes here; a room with 30-50 people and a professor lecturing. Insterestingly, so far all of my professors have been women. Cool, eh? The theatre class I just got out of was quite interesting. It had a focus of voice techniques and basically we spent the class doing various stretches and breathing and vocal chord exercises on the floor. All the students were, well, you know, theatre people just like in the US. All of them full of goofy, exuberant, awkward energy. It was pretty fun, seeing as how I was the only norteamericano present.
But enough of school, let´s talk about this last weekend. Wow. What a pair of days, especially saturday. So first we went on the group-sponsored winery tour. We went to a huge winery that had a great view over the dormant grape wines to the snow-capped Andes. Then we took a tour through the huge complex that went way down into the basement with the stacks of barrels and bottles of 80 year old wines. We drank samples all along the way that were really heady. Wow. The one strait out of the barrel was the best. Really thick and intesely woody. Kind of a bouquet of old newspaper or something. But good. Go figure. Then we took tango lessons from the most stereotypically italian guy you can imagine. Greasy hair, mole, profuse chest hair, etc. It was a good time.
Then there´s Saturday night. A group of us went to see Godwana, a reggae band from Chile. The concert was at the biggest boliche (nightclub) in South America, and it wasn´t hard to believe that claim. It was like an indoor stadium with bars and balconies and ridiculous lights. Anyway, the band was fantastic! Especially the singer. They all radiated such good energy and driving rhythm and not one person in the stadium wasn´t dancing. You all should check them out on the web. I{m sure they have a myspace or something. After the show, we stayed and danced to goofy techno and regueton hits in the most packed dance floor I can imagine until something like 5 am. And getting back to downtown Mendoza was quite the fiasco, but we got home somehow.It was absurd. Needless to say, I didn´t do much on Sunday. I did go see a local choir that sang some really bizarre, interesting pieces by local composers.
Well, there´s much more to tell, but I want to go home! I´m starving. Hope this finds everyone well. The next post, I promise pictures. Really.