Ok this blog has been a long time coming and it may not follow quite so chronologically as the previous ones so bare with me! The last thing I wrote on the blog was about us finding out about a Spanish course at the University so I'll start with that. Ultimately I have decided that although the course would be useful I'd rather invest my funds in seeing more of the country so I'm going to study at home whilst Ben takes the course. However, through him meeting new people we have both found another possible social circle so positive news there!

Since the last blog Easter has been and gone and while this is celebrated in England, due to the Catholic nature of this country it's slightly more of a big deal here. They have a bank holiday Thursday and Friday (which frankly they seem to do every other week so that's no surprise) and the majority of people go to Church on the Sunday. On the Thursday before Easter weekend we were invited to go to a popular camping area in the mountains with some friends from rugby. We trekked up there in cars with raw meat and beer (like real men) made a bbq and got kind of drunk. It was all very enjoyable. Talking about Rugby we've had 2 games since the last blog and though I have enjoyed them both I'm really starting to miss playing fly-half. Full back is fun but with the frequent lack of organisation or structure in Argentinean rugby it can be hard to get involved as you spend the whole time just running in and out of the line as the ball gets turned over. Regardless we won both games so excellent news for the team.

By sheer coincidence both Ben's and my parents have visited us within the space of two weeks. Not only was it great to see them but it also saved us from our cooking for a while (I was seriously starting to loathe the taste of pasta). While Ben's parents were here we all had at meal at home, which Anna cooked, and that gave them a chance to meet Anna and talk (in depth) to Christian (who we live with) and who has views on pretty much any topic you care to mention. Also during Ben's parents stay I learnt a great deal more about the wine that they make here and I'm afraid I may have to stop buying based purely on percentage and price. The day after they left my parents arrived and I had an incredibly good (and exhausting) time finding out more about Mendoza in 3 days than I had achieved in the 2 previous months. I have some more amazing scenery photos which I shall update to the blog at a later date so look out for those. We also went round a church and a museum and took an open top bus ride as well as 3 more great meals the first of which stands out for the group consumption of fernet in copious amounts.

Other than that life is continuing much as it has been doing. We're still really enjoying working at Conin and I'll take my camera soon and do some classic 'volunteer surrounded by smiling children' gap year photos. I think our influence is starting to rub off on the kids as well, one of them now says the word 'tickle' instead of the Spanish equivalent and since I called one of them mental she walks around saying it a lot. I'm not sure she knows what it means but it's good to see we're having an impact!

Next month is a really big one for us, we're going on a 20km mountain bike trail tomorrow (be jealous Jack and Sam). Then, we've booked a trip to Chile on the bus for a week and we're spending a couple of nights at the beach there followed by a few days in Santiago. There's also a trip to Cordoba in the pipeline (which is the neighbouring province) and Ben is getting all giddy about snowboarding even though that's still a couple of months away.

I'm almost certain I've missed a load of stuff out here and I'm going to try not to leave it so long next time!

Sam