aquí vamos: San Francisco Adventure

Well there we have it. I went to San Francisco with Denise to visit her family. This week is considered student's week and most have the week off. Most of the students traveled home for the week, so it's pretty quiet in town.

The pictures above: The outside patio at Denise's parents house. Denise (in the pink) and Jessica (in the black) drinking mate!
We left Sunday morning for the bus terminal, and 3 hours later we arrived in San Francisco. Our micro was the 1st class option (all for 43 pesos), and we got some pretty tasty food along the trip. The funny part, is our bus actually broke down within 30min of leaving the terminal and we were stuck next to a Coca Cola factory for an hour or so. I couldn't stop laughing.. it was hysterical. Right before the bus broke down, Denise explained that we purchased 1st class tickets and that's why we got a meal. I looked around and most of the people were throwing their arms in the air, spitting curse words in Spanish and made it perfectly clear that they were unhappy with the situation. All along, I'm laughing so hard I have tears forming, and falling down my face. Ahhh life.. that's the beauty of it. Sometimes, your bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere and all you have to look at is the dang Coca Cola factory ;)

Her step dad picked us up, and we went straight to her house about 10 min away. There's a large population in San Fransisco with Italian decent, so I saw blue eyes everywhere. It was pretty strange... and I'm not even from Argentina. I guess I haven't seen so many blue eyes in one place since the U.S. Anyway, the trip was very relaxing and calm. Most of the residents rode bicycles, including people in their 60's and 70's. Everyone uses bikes, since the town is fairly small. Plus, it's quite expensive to own a car here.

Her mom and step dad worked during the day at the store on the corner, and her grandma lives at the house with them. We spent time walking around, going to church, and practicing driving skills in her 1975 Fiat. She had to practice for her drive test which was on Tues, and she passed with flying colors. I loved riding in that little thing. It had three gears and a cassette player. We had only one cassette full of Spanish songs, and we played it loud enough to scare stray dogs. :)
I met a lot of good people, and ate a lot of good food. Her mom made a vanilla cake with layers of cream and pineapple, and another woman made one of vanilla cake, strawberry and meringue. I drank mate with friends and I kept getting asked how to pronounce my name. Her grandma speaks Spanish in codes, and it's quite hilarious. It's a version of Spanish where you add a 'p' after every syllable and repeat the vowel. It's called 'Jerigonza'. Here's an example:

Hopolapa, ¿copomopo epestapas? (Hola, ¿cómo estás?)
Yopo epestópoy bipiepen, ¿ypi tupu? (Yo estoy bien, ¿y tú?)
Tapambiepen, grapacipiapas. (También, gracias.)

Yesteday (Tues) was the first day of Spring here in Argentina, and we had severe thunder and lightening storms. It's the same here in Cordoba, it's raining like crazy and the air is very humid. When I was on the bus ride back to Cordoba this morning, we drove through intense hail... it was so loud and all of the passengers were taking videos with their cells phones. Even though it's wet and cold outside, I'm glad to be back!