Music and Mountains

Music seems to be a vital part of life for any Mendocino – there is ALWAYS some kind of concert or festival playing music in one of the many plazas throughout the city. I fall asleep to different music being played the nearest plaza every night. As I mentioned earlier, there is a very strong Italian influence here and because of this Mendocinos just recently celebrated their Italian heritage with a 3 day Fiesta de Italia. Basically, this consisted of three days of listening to Italian music, dancing Argentine and Italian dances, drinking wine and eating pizza. Needless to say, it was quite fun, and the music was absolutely phenomenal. 

Speaking of music, my host mom Graciela took me to an opera concert the other night which was FANTASTIC. I think even those of you who do not particularly like opera would've enjoyed and appreciated this concert. Granted I didn’t understand all of the lyrics because they were mostly in Italian and German, but one of the beauties of opera is that the lyrics are almost unnecessary. A talented opera singer can convey emotion and plot simply through their tone and facial features. 

Many people have inquired about the strong European influences I keep mentioning. One person (who will not be named) accused Argentina of not having their own culture and simply borrowing bits and pieces from various European countries. This is obviously false.  Yes, Argentina is heavily influenced by the Italians and the Spanish, but they still retain a very strong culture of their own. In Argentina’s past, after the initial vehemence and resentment of colonialism wore off, European customs, food, and music were desired because (from what I understand) they were seen as customs of the elite, rich class. Now, these customs are so much a part of Argentinian life that they aren't seen as European anymore, and instead have integrated with the local customs.  However, to this day the artistic communities seem to highly appreciate and prefer film, music, and art from Europe. When I made this observation to Graciela (who is very involved in the artistic community here), she verified it and said that the artistic community here absolutely loves to work with European material.

Enough about music, let’s talk about the Andes!! They are GORGEOUS and incredibly majestic; I can’t even begin to describe how happy it makes me to see a skyline of mountains instead of skyscrapers. Although most of the mountain range only has snow during the winter, there are a few peaks further south with snow that can barely be seen from Mendoza.  I can’t wait until April or May to see how beautiful they are going to be covered in snow.

We have quite a few adventurous students on this trip, so we got a group together to hike Cerro Arco, a mountain peak very close to Mendoza that has a hiking trail to the top. The path itself wasn’t too strenuous, but the heat made the hike pretty difficult. Of course we had to pick one of the hottest days that we’ve experience in Mendoza so far and the dry, arid climate only made it worse. We frequently had to take breaks in the shade and ran out of water much quicker than anticipated. However, the trials and struggles were worth it because the view at the top was phenomenal!