Thursday started with great intentions of doing some city exploring and going to see some of the tourist attractions in the city. We wanted to go and visit the snake house but for some reason it never quite happened and before you knew it it was siesta and we'd lounged around all day. We decided to make up for our morning laziness by going out in the evening and, after teaching Julio a few card drinking games, we headed out. We keep being drawn towards the same pool bar when we go out (mostly because Ben seems to have developed an infatuation for one of the waitresses there, apparently it's a 6 month long game plan he's working on) however, we still can't get the timing right on when things get really busy so by the time we were set to come home, admittedly feeling fairly 'borracho' it still hadn't really kicked off. Thus, about half an hour after getting home at about 2.30 we decided to go back out, which turned out to be a brilliant decision. The clubs and bars were now full and we had a great time experiencing true Mendoza night culture.

The next day was mostly spent recovering and then in the evening was more training. We got invited to a party after training but since we only had kit with us we unfortunately had to decline. We left with instructions to be at the ground for 3 o'clock the next day for our first match. This never happened despite our best attempts because Saturday was the day of the Vendimia. This is a tradition in Mendoza and is a massive deal. The basic concept is that they pick an attractive woman from each area of Mendoza to represent that area. Then they take part in a series of competitions and the winner becomes the queen of Mendoza for the year (it's basically a beauty pageant on a massive scale). The main event is at the greek ampitheatre in the park in the evening but during the day there's a carnival with floats going through the centre of town. For us, this meant no buses. We realised this after having waited at the bus stop for about 45 minutes and moved onto plan B which was to get a taxi. However, despite his regular assurances to the contrary the taxi driver had no idea where the club was and after giving up and instructing him to take us home he attempted to charge us for all the time he'd been pointlessly driving around. We had an argument about it (no mean feat in Spanish) and managed to get away with paying less than he wanted but more than we should have. We're now dreading running into that taxi driver again.

Sunday was the follow up to the Vendimia which meant another large scale party in the amphitheatre we qued and bought tickets and arrived at about 10pm. It was incredible. I can't really describe it very aptly but practically the entire town must have been there. Probably about 5000 people all singing and dancing and jumping around, it was magnificent to watch and make sure you check out the pictures and the video of it. There was a massive central stage and although we weren't sure what the main even was going to be we were excited. However, then it started to rain. a lot. This country doesn't really function in the rain so to the boos and (offensive) chants by the crowd they called it off. It was a massive shame but i'm still so glad we went just to see the initial scene of everyone of every age just having a massive party and an excellent time. It's honestly something you would never see in England. I really hope we get the chance to go to a similar event that doesn't get rained on because it was shaping up to be epic. Getting home was a cold and wet experience and i don't think we'll do too much today until training where we have to explain why we failed to show on Saturday!

Sam