Well here is a summary of my time in Mendoza. I enjoyed my time in Mendoza and met some lovely people. Each day in the week I had a grammar lesson and a conversation lesson. Most days I would go out for lunch with friends. I have cut out what I had for dinner etc, going on facebook, doing travel research and going to laundrette etc as I really don't think people need to know when I did that.

19th March 2012 Mendoza, Argentina

Well it turned out to be rather a rush to the Spanish school. My alarm was supposed to go off at 6:30am but instead it went off at 7:30. I had to be at the school for 8 so it was a bit of a rush around the house before setting off on a fast walk. I arrived at the school for about 8:10. My 1st lesson was grammar and I had my first male teacher for Spanish. My name became Susy. In my second lesson conversation I was also called Susy and we had to ask each other questions to get to know each other. I then had welcome lunch which was empanadas. Mum and I went to the restaurant at Christa and Krista recommended and they also came a bit later. They were sitting outside but I didn't fancy eating outside and it was my last night with my mum so I wanted to spend it together. Matt (my classmate and my team-mate from today) from the Spanish school was there so had a chat with him when he passed our table. It was strange as it wasn't even near the Spanish school and there were so many other restaurants he could have been at. The meal was lovely and I had a lovely steak. We walked back to the hotel, I collected my stuff from the room and then mum had to put me in a taxi. Mum was in tears again saying goodbye to me and I knew I wasn't going to see her for 9 weeks. I soon began practicing my Spanish with the taxi driver though so that was good. I came back late and went through the gate like Marcelo had shown me. It does seem a little weird going through a garage to get to my room. I love having Avana the dog there but as she is so like Laser it sometimes makes me emotional at night.

20th March 2012 Mendoza, Argentina

Well I woke up before my alarm went off after the experience of yesterday.

In conversation we had a new teacher covering for our teacher from yesterday so we had to introduce ourselves again. We then looked at magazine articles in Spanish and we had to summarise them-the article I summarised was about Adele. I then went out for lunch with some of the others for a sandwich-there generally was Nancy and Paul, Toby, Roman and other people for each lunch when we went out. I then had dinner, met most of the rest of my homestay family and Gabby (from Quebec who was also stopping with the family).

21st March 2012 Mendoza, Argentina

In our grammar lesson we talked through the correct grammar for how to say when an activity is interrupted for example I was watching the television when the phone rang. We then had a look at words for the family in Spanish using the Simpson family. The teacher thought I wasn't joining in much but I had no idea how the Simpsons were related to each other other than Maggie, Lisa, Bart, Homer and Marge. We were about to go through the reading homework we had done and when the teacher said turn to page … I realised I hadn't done the right reading piece for homework. The teacher was very nice about it when I said I had done the wrong homework. He said you do the piece tonight that you were supposed to do last night and the others were set what I had done. We would then go through both reading homeworks tomorrow.

In conversation we talked about driving and learning to drive in different countries as our teacher had just past her driving test. We then played a game like taboo where we had to describe what word we had not using the other words listed on the card. It was a challenging game especially as one of my words was creepy crawlies-bicho. I then went out for food with Paul, Nancy, Ronan, Toby and some other people. We then booked a trip to a ranch for Saturday. I had a little bit of trouble finding my way back to the house and ended up going completely in wrong direction so it took a long time to get back. I walked a lot further than I needed to. However, it wasn't helped by two people stopping me asking where I was from and giving me a business card. One of then caught up with me again and asked do I want to go for food with him. I was a bit wary after that he might follow me so I was also checking behind me and going the wrong way. I was recording in my journal about when Laser was put to sleep and feeling a little upset about it. Just at that moment Avana (family labrador) walked outside my room so I went and had a stroke of her.

I talked to Gabby mainly in Spanish at the dinner table and discovered that Avana also dreams like Laser.

22nd March 2012 Mendoza, Argentina

My grammar lesson was hard today as we were looking at verbs with prepositions and we also went through the homework reading. Our teacher was a little late so we started going through the reading homework before he arrived. We also did an exercise about what people were doing when an earthquake struck. In our conversation lesson we talked about smacking children and what we thought. For lunch we went to the vegetarian restaurant which was cheap. We chose what we wanted and they put the food on the weighing scales to work out the price charged.

23rd March 2012 Mendoza, Argentina

In grammar we went through homework and for homework we had to make sentences using prepositions. I didn't realise we were going to have to read them out loud. I was accused of not having much imagination as all mine were nearly about studying geography so it got quite boring after a while. We then had a limited time to collect objects made out of the materials shown on the pictures in our book from around the school. I don't think the other staff were very amused about us collecting things and told us the kitchen was out of bounds. I didn't really get it to begin with and we only had a very limited time to collect the objects. I was looking for the objects rather than the materials and I thought I don't want to carry a dustbin up the stairs with me. Luckily my team partner was good at it and got it straight away so he saved us from embarrassment.

In our conversation lesson we talked about traditional dancing in our countries. At first I couldn't think of any that a lot of people to do in England. Then I remembered with some hinting from other people that we do have traditional english dancing- morris dancing and maypole dancing. I was thinking that people do so many different styles of dancing in England. One person put on a video of Austin Powers for English dancing- god help us if the English dance like that down the street. We watched German dancing and American dancing-the old clog dance. We then learned an Argentinian dance- my partner and I were struggling a little. I was half pleased to be learning a dance but then at the same time I felt we really should be learning Spanish in a Spanish lesson. After the lesson at lunch we showed it to the other pupils and teachers in the School. I thought I wasn't going to end up doing it as my partner was a little hesitant and we were the last ones to join the line. We then went to the vegetarian restaurant again.

24th March 2012 Mendoza and La Alejandra Estancia, Argentina

I had just sat down on the toilet when Avana (Labrador) pokes her head under the cowboy bar doors (entrance to the bathroom). It gave me a slight shock but was lovely to see her. She then comes over to me for me to stroke her. She places each of her front paws on my legs (like Laser used to do) and balances there. So there I am sitting on the toilet with this dog sitting there looking at me. She then rolls onto her back for me to tickle her tummy. After getting ready I went to wait outside the house at the entrance to the houses as I was expecting a minibus to pick me up between 8:30am and 9:00am. I sat and read my book while waiting for it. I think an elderly lady wondered what I was doing sitting outside the houses reading a book. I then went out onto the street and someone in another minibus shouted something at me in Spanish. The mini-bus picked me up around 9:10 and then we drove around Mendoza picking people up. We think they struggled a little to find where they were picking Toby up and poor Paul, Nancy and Ronan had been the first ones on and we went past their apartment again later.

We first dropped someone off to go on a walking tour before going along a quiet road where we stopped to looked at the viewpoint. We arrived at the estancia where the gauchos were setting up for a rodeo tomorrow. What did give me a bit of a shock was what music the gauchos were listening to. It was something like Michael Jackson- not exactly gaucho music. We were given the horse riding instructions in Spanish which wasn't ideal when you are not sure exactly how to ride a horse. I did manage to get some instruction later on in English though.

I said I was a beginner horse rider which I am beginning to realise might not be the best thing to say. It results in getting a slow and hungry horse. At least it means though that the horse isn't suddenly going to get out of control cantering with me trying to slow it down. It just means you have to keep pulling its head up as it likes eating grass all the time. As soon as I got on the hungry horse he was on the wander and bending his neck down for food. We rode the horses down to the main estancia from the stables. At the estancia we picked up the protection helmets and used the toilets. The toilets were a little bit of a problem at first as they had forgotten to turn the water on. We then went on our ride through beautiful scenery and it was lovely being high up on a horse. As I got the lazy beginner horse it preferred walking to trotting unless it was due to my riding which is possible. After some instruction I got him to trot but after a while he went back to only walking again. When the other horses galloped mine went to trotting again.

We then came back and had a glass of wine outside the Estancia. It was mentioned that I wouldn't be able to eat as much as Toby. That was about right but I still ate more than people expected me too. The asado was lovely- I wasn't too keen on the salad as there was a weird dressing on it but we kept being offered more and more lovely tasting steak. We also then got dessert. We then had time to relax in the sun outside, watch horses and talk. We then rode horses back to the stable- mine actually trotted so I had to held on to my sun cap! We then got the minibus back through some bumpy roads so I think I may have been falling asleep again. In Mendoza there was another demonstration going on in the main plaza so the others couldn't be dropped off outside their main door.

25th March 2012 Mendoza, Argentina

In the afternoon I walked down the road to the park. At first I had a little bit of trouble finding the centre of the park. There were people on skates and people enjoying the park. I began walking around the lake and then crossed over to an island in the middle where I spent sometime just reading my book. I then carried on my circuit around the lake and while going around it on the other side of the park from the house I started to explore that area. I did see 6 policeman at once which made me think you wouldn't see that on a normal day in a park in England. I was going to go over to the stadium but I realised the park was getting quite quiet in that area so I returned back to the lake. It was quite pretty on the other side of the lake and I watched 2 dogs playing and one of the dogs. The dog kept chasing the golden Labrador around carrying his stick. The Labrador kept going off swimming and the other dog couldn't follow. For dinner all we had was cake so that was a little weird.

26th March 2012 Mendoza, Argentina

I got up and had breakfast of cake. I walked to the school and got there for 9:15am. I was pretty sure that I wasn't having lessons till 11am but I wanted to check. This time my first class was conversation at 11am. It was a new teacher both to me and the school even though he had observed the conversation class on Friday. I got to talk quite a few times but the teacher would interrupt me before I had finished.

It was quite a difficult class as he spoke fast. There wasn't enough time for me to go to lunch with the others so I went for a sandwich. I tried to ask how long it would take to serve food in Spanish. I felt like giving up on everything there as people were staring at me like I had sprouted a head when I couldn't say things quite right in Spanish. I ended up getting a sandwich as I wasn't sure there was time for pizza.

In the grammar lesson there was only two of us- me and Chris (who is Australian but is living in Argentina as his wife is Argentinian). It amused me when the teacher asked Chris what job he would have if he lived in Argentina. He does his job from Australia online and has lived in Argentina for 6 months.

27th March 2012 Mendoza, Argentina

In conversation class we talked about adverts, newspapers, news etc in our countries in our Spanish. We showed example of adverts in our different countries. The Swiss advert was a tourism one with lots of insects which I didn't like. Argentinian one was a long one advertising beer before the world cup. American one was a Budweiser advert which was quite a good advert. British was a compilation of adverts from January. I really didn't like the Andrex one with computerised graphics of Labrador. I was expecting puppy Labrador and instead got an ugly graphic. The teacher is hard to understand as he speaks so fast and he doesn't always allow you to finish what you were talking about. For lunch we went to the vegetarian restaurant again. After lunch I had conversation class.

After lessons and going back to house I then went to plaza Independencia and did my homework reading exercise. The only thing was I had to keep changing places as the sun was beginning to go down. I did try sitting on the bank of grass but I felt like I was getting bitten by insects. I sat on two different benches and it was nice sitting in front of the fountains.

28th March 2012 Mendoza, Argentina

In the conversation class we talked about films, music and some other topics. For lunch we went to the vegetarian restaurant. After lunch I had my first lesson on my own-grammar. I really enjoyed being in a class on my own despite having to do a lot of reading out loud. It was really good for my pronunciation and we went through my reading homework. We also looked at how to describe where places are e.g. behind, on, between, around etc as well to ask for permission to do something.

In the afternoon I walked to Cerro de la Gloria. At first the road was nice lined with trees but then it began to get more traffic and felt less like being in a park. It was a lot longer than I expected the walk to be but I finally reached the pedestrian route for Cerro de la Gloria from the zoo. I just managed to arrive before the bus that drives from town arrived at the summit. I saw sight of it as I was climbing up and thought oh no its going to be up at the same time as me. I managed to get photographs of it before it got busy so that was nice. An old lady asked would I take a photo of her with her camera so then I asked for the same favour so I got a photo in front of the statue too. If she had tried to run away with my camera I would have caught her. I then began the walk down and I thought there would be another pedestrian access on other side. This was a mistake and I ended up walking down a very bendy road. It wasn't even tarmaced. Once you are half way down it you just want to keep walking down it and get off it as soon as possible. It was quite dangerous but luckily nothing happened. I sat on the wall when the bus went by. I then got lost as there were so many roads everywhere some which probably weren't on my map and I followed someone who I thought may be going back through park. He was going the opposite way to the way I should have been going. I realised why I had so much trouble with my map- it showed roads not footpaths across the whole park and Cerro de la Gloria was just on the edge of the map so I had walked off my map. My Spanish came in useful that I had learnt this afternoon when I tried to politely ask a lady the way . I was told I was going the wrong way and she couldn't believe how far I had come. I walked past the stadium. I wasn't sure whether I should cut down a road or not but I thought it looked a bit quiet and I wasn't sure whether it might be part of the zoo. I then met the lady I had asked near the park again and I presume she had took the road I had been wondering about. I went and got a bottle of water and owner was telling me make sure I was out of park before dark. There was a bit of a conversation barrier as he was asking when I wanted to reach home and I was trying to think what as soon as possible would be. I walked back across the park and there were many people in this part of the park so I felt fine. I saw my first rat or mouse in Mendoza today but it was down in the gutter.

29th March 2012 Mendoza, Argentina

Avana was laying across the front door it was almost that she was telling me something not to go out. When I arrived at the school I was told I was going to go in a different conversation class today as one of the teachers was missing today so more advanced students came into my conversation class. This meant that I was with Toby and some other students. We played games and Toby had chocolates to eat in class. We played a game of Pictionary of clothes and Toby kindly gave me his notes so I could play pictionary as it was a while since I studied the words for clothes. He warned me that I may find some German translations in his notes. If so I would have really struggled as never learnt German. His notes were very good though. We then played 20 careers and I had a lot of trouble trying to find out that I was a model. We all went to Anna's bistro for lunch- it was a lovely restaurant but I didn't enjoy it much as wanted to get back in time for my grammar lesson. All I had was 2 empanadas and then raced back to get back in time for my grammar lesson. In my grammar lesson we looked at my homework, practiced a listening exercise, a reading exercise and speaking for exam tomorrow. Again I quite enjoyed being on my own for it. I then walked around all the plazas stopping to answer a survey in Plaza Chile then revised in each plaza San Martin, Plaza Espana and Plaza Italia. In plaza Italia I ended up getting in the way of a football match as I didn't realise I was walking through their goals.

30th March 2012 Mendoza, Argentina

In conversation lesson there was just Nancy and I and we spoke about who had influenced us in our life. We then looked at people famous in Argentina before saying who was important in our countries and had made a great influence.

It shows my brain wasn't quite working right ahead of the exam as when chatting in the school before the exam I said when I was a boy in Spanish. The director of Mendoza said while I was in my lesson she would try and sort out a tour for me to do for tomorrow. I then took my test- the reading was fine no problems, the listening was a little difficult, the grammar was fine and for the speaking I had to talk about the differences in culture for people in England and people in Argentina. The writing was hard and in both the writing and the speaking I missed out prepositions. For the writing I had trouble what to put in for content. I had two choices of questions to answer in Spanish: Do I agree that aliens are on other planets and what is the evidence for or against it or do I agree that beauty contests don't help the image of women. Anyway I passed my test. The school had rung up tour agencies while I was in my lesson but had no success.

So I then began walking around the tour agencies in Mendoza. I went into loads of tour agencies, got to know a lot of them and all of them were very helpful but didn't have what I wanted. In the end I had to make a compromise but it was tonnes cheaper than what I would have been paying if I had got on the walking tour. It was with the youth hostel and it was mostly in a bus all day. However, it did go into Aconcagua National Park and did do a walk to a picnic sight. So it wasn't quite what I wanted a trekking tour in Aconcagua but it filled tomorrow up. I had been given instructions how to do it alone but I wasn't happy to do that. I could have maybe got the trekking tour I wanted but it was that an astronomical price. For dinner I had like a pitta bread with cheese then grapes. The grapes were massive compared to English grapes.

31st March 2012 High Andes Tour from Mendoza, Argentina

For 7:30 am I walked to the hostel down the road. The mini-bus came pretty much on time and our first stop was Potrerillos which was by a lake and quite beautiful. While at the stop a lorry went by with all these brand new yellow tractors on the back. Where it was going I don't know-maybe Chile as we were on the road to Chile. I managed to get to see where all the rafting places were. I had been offered that as an option for today but it is one thing I don't fancy doing alone. One problem was I was struggling to keep my eyes open on the journey there. Our next stop was Valley of Upsallata- I had hot chocolate, 2 chocolate tastes and an Argentinian cake. On the way to the next stop the guide explained why the trains no longer run between Chile and Argentina (weather and avalanches) but there are plans for them eventually to start again. I saw the effect of glacier erosion between stops- there was a 100m wall in places! We then stopped for beautiful views over mountains.

We then went to the Puente del Inca- I loved it, it was beautiful with all the different colours but weird with the ruined hotel below. The colours are natural in the rocks. The hotel there was ruined by avalanche years ago but the springs only closed to the public in 2005. We then went on to Aconcagua National park. It was a beautiful park and somewhere I would like to spend some more time in if I get the chance to go back. We walked up to viewpoint which had views across to Mt Aconcagua. We then went on a short circuit walk and stopped to have lunch by beautiful lake. We relaxed, ate, chatted in the sun and watched some little birds there before walking back to the mini-bus.