Sunday, March 2, 2008

GEODES for collectors and JEWELRY






Geodes for the definition and information click here.

Wow, am I ever lucky sometimes! During our last visit to Mendoza we were invited to come back to go to a quarry to look for GEODES!!!

Rosanna who rented us our apartment found out that I made jewelry and because of that she introduced us to her friends who own land in San Rafael and Patagonia where they have quarry's with TONS and TONS of GEODES!! They bring the geodes here to Mendoza where they have a house and they organize them for export. Marta and Roberto picked us up the other day and showed us piles and piles of geodes at their partners home. My daughter Randi just loves to collect rocks, Randall used to polish rock as you know, and I love to make jewelry so, we were all kind of curious as to what we would see.

Hopefully tomorrow we will be heading to San Rafael for 2 days with Marta and Roberto to check out the quarry and countryside of San Rafael. If you would like to see Marta and Roberto's stuff click here.

Randall and I hope to slice up a few geodes that I picked out for pendants on necklaces. Idea's are brewing!! Hopefully Uncle Frank will let us use his saw and polishing equipment??

Saturday, March 1, 2008

ASADO and a WARM welcome back!!


Our friends in MendozaAlmost done!
Roberto who man's the ASADO also serves everyone

We LOVE Mendoza. And I'll tell you why. It's the people you meet that make ALL the difference in how you view a culture.

Rosanna who rented us our apartment last time and again this time in Mendoza has introduced us to many new friends. That is the best part of the whole deal!! They all welcome us and go out of their way. Rosanna remembered from our last visit that Randall was turning 47 February 28th. So some friends from our last visit along with Rosanna invited us to have ASADO with them on his birthday. Asado is what we would call a barbecue. What a blast!! To be able to experience another culture is doing things the way they do it!!! To me that is the ultimate experience as a visitor.

Here is how the evening panned out. They were to come get us around 9pm - 9:30. I messaged Rosanna at 10pm we are "listo", ready??? Minutes later she came and we went to the top of an apartment building to a pool area with a kitchen, outdoor grill and tables. The Andes mountains in the back drop, 11 people, our 7 bottles of different Malbec wine and we were making a toast to Randall. The food was just put on the grill which cooks it long and slow. We talked in "Spanglish" for hours trying to better understand each other literally and culturally about our politics, their politics, homeschooling, and how hard life can be for them at times. Around midnight or so, they served one sausage or piece of beef at a time as it was ready right off the grill. Tomatoes and salad were the side dish. We cut, ate one bite, and put the fork down. Talked a lot. Sipped some wine. Talked. Ate one more bite, then put the fork down. Talked. Sipped. Talked. Eating to SOCIALIZE, not eating to get DONE. I admit, it took a REAL conscious effort on our part to be like them. But, it was so wonderful to experience. You know the saying, "when in Rome do as the Romans do". And we did. Home at around 1:30am and the kids just did school later the next day!