The Brel Chronicles

No, that wasn´t just to get your attention.

We are spending the next month in wine country - Bariloche, the Maipo Valley and Mendoza.  So as you can imagine, we don´t want our love affair with Argentinian wines to end.

We know we can´t just ship wine to Canada, because our wonderful country and it´s wonderful liquor control laws won´t allow it. The question is…if we ship it, what´s the worse that can happen? How much duty-taxes-penalties might we have to pay? There will be  3-4 weeks between the time we would ship it and the time we return to Canada.

One case of Malbec to the first reader to solve our dilemma…and our life-long gratitude…or gratitude for at least as long as the wine lasts. 

Thanks!

While it may seem like our trip is all fun and games (and it is, mostly), Mel has been taking private Spanish lessons (3 hours/day) for the past few weeks. Well beyond telling time and counting, she can now form entire sentences – in the present AND past tense! And her vocabulary, while still pretty basic, has moved well beyond fruits and basic introductions. Her teacher Celeste (are all Spanish teachers hot? Rosa?) has also worked hard to teach her Argentinian slang – much to the dismay of Papi. Muy copado! In the spirit of doing my homework while blogging, here’s a summary of my weekend in Spanish - sorry to all Spanish speakers, my keyboard is turned to English.  English translation to follow.

En español…

Despues de mi clase de español, mi novio y yo cenamos en Club Eros. Fuimos a la terminal de omnibus, pero el collectivo se canceló por el humo. El dia siguiente, yo caminé por Palermo y mi novio trabajó en casa. Esa noche, nosotros fuimos otra vez a la terminal. Doce horas mas tarde, llegamos a Cordoba. Brendan olvidó su carnet de conducir. Yo estuvé enojada. Nosotros dormimos en Villa Benitz - muy linda!  Caminamos por el Camino de los Artensanos. Comimos una tabla de quesos y fiambres y una botella de vino Malbec. Despues, fuimos a Juku y bebimos la cerveza casera y comimos una fondue. El domingo, fuimos a hacer parapente. El mirador es muy bonito. Caminamos por La Cumbre y yo practiqué español con los dueños de la Casa de Chocolates. Yo compré los chocolates. Requisimo! El lunes, alquilamos un taxi, pero las estancias estuvieron cerradas. Nosotros volvimos a Buenos Aires en collectivo. 

In English…

After my Spanish class, my boyfriend and I had dinner at Club Eros. We went to the bus station but our bus was cancelled because of the smoke from the burning fields. The next day, I went shopping while Brendan worked. Friday night, we once again went to the bus station. Twelve hours later, we arrived in Cordoba. Brendan forgot his driver’s license in Buenos Aires, so our road trip became a bus/taxi/walking trip. I was not pleased with him. We stayed at Villa Benitz – very beautiful! We walked along Caminos del Artisanos. . We had a cheese and meat platter and a bottle of wine at Zagreo – delicious! Later, we went to a micro-brewery and drank beer and ate fondue. On Sunday, we went paragliding. The scenery was beautiful. We walked around La Cumbre and I practiced Spanish with the people at the Chocolate House. I also bought some chocolates. Delicious! On Monday, we rented a taxi but the estancias were closed. We returned to Buenos Aires by bus.

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