Agentina's likes and dislikes (second day in Argentina)

Argentina’s Likes and Dislikes
By Katie

When we first arrived in Argentina what I thought about Argentina was a bit different then what I think now. I thought our house was going to be bigger and better than any of the houses I’ve stayed in. I was wrong. Our house was the worst yet. Every thing was so dirty and most of the lights didn’t work. Argentineans wake up at 7:30 or 8:00 to go to work till 1:00. All the shops close at 1:00 and don’t open again till 5:00. During that time everyone is having a nap, a siesta. All the shops open at 5:00 but the restaurants don’t open till 9:00! When walking along the wide sidewalks you must be very careful not to fall in the trenches made for water flow. You also have to be careful while crossing the streets because the cars have the right away.

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There are some things that I like about Argentina. For instance, I like the one-way streets because you only have to look one way before crossing. I also like their Carmel dolce (a Creamy Carmel sauce). The dinners were inexpensive and the very comfortable summer temperature lasted all day long and into the night. It might take me a while to adapt to Argentinean life but I think I’ll get used to it over time.

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On our Second day in Argentina we went on a wine tour of two wineries and 1 olive oil plantation factory. At the fist winery we had a short English speaking tour of the winery and then there was wine tasting for the adults. Their biggest barrel held 44,000 litres of wine, while the other smaller barrels held 6,000 litres each. The medium barrels held 15,000 litres of wine each. At the second winery we had a longer Spanish/English tour on the winery. That Tour also showed how they bottle them. Then we went to the olive oil tour. Did you know that…
Olive trees can live 400 years,
The olives at this plantation are hand picked,
Each tree at this plantation is 100 years old,
Each tree produces 15 litres of olive oil,
Each olive is 35% pit, 50% water and 15% olive oil,
And the olive tree doesn’t produce olives for the first 7 years.
After the olive oil tour we went to a tasting room and store where we tried (well I didn’t) sun dried tomatoes on bread drenched in olive oil and olive oil on bread.

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That night we ate at Tristan’s Place. I had spaghetti with cream sauce. Then we walked down to the park to watch a festival. The festival was to determine who was the “queen” of Mendoza City. There is another festival Saturday march 7 to determine who is the queen of Mendoza the province. We have tickets to see the second one.I still miss you.

mezdoza wineries and adines mountians

29 Comparison Questions About The Trip So Far

1. What is the name of the country you visited most rcently and which country is closest to home (Canada)?

The country we visited most recently was Huatulco, Mexico and it is the country closest to home.

2. Which country gets the most rainfall per year, and which one has the longest rainy season?

Costa Rica gets the most rainfall. Costa Rica gets 350cm of rain per year. Costa Rica also has the longest rainy season from May to November (7 months)

3. Which country has the most Distinct seasons? What are the seasons?

Roatan, Honduras has the most seasons. Rotan’s seasons are hurricane season, dry season and wet season.

4. In what country was the average temperature hottest? What was the average temperature?

Mexico was the hottest usually reaching over 100°F.

5. Which community looked the most homogenous?

Costa Rica looked the most homogeneous.

6. What country had most people living in small and rural towns?

I think Roatan had the most people living in small towns because there were no big cities on the island.

7. What country had the highest average income?

Mexico has the highest average income at about $6143 U.S. per year.

8. Which country has the most interesting type of craft?

I think that Mexico has the most interesting type of craft. They make piñatas.

9. Which country has the best food?

I think Mexico has the best food. Well at least they have the most foods that I’ll eat.

10. What country has the most people living in it?

Mexico has the largest population by far. The population is 110,000,000 (that is 3 times more than Canada)

11. In what country would you want to live in one of the local person’s house?

I would not want to live in any of the local people’s houses. They are very poor and don’t have air conditioning. If I were to live in any of the places I would buy one of the nicer houses designed for tourists.

12. Which country has the most examples of rich people?

Mexico has the most examples. Down by the beach there are very nice houses that must cost a lot of money.

13. What countries do you like the music in the best?

I like the music in Roatan the best because there is English music instead of Spanish.

14. In what country did you see the kids playing the most?

Costa Rica and Mexico were about the same. There were kids playing basketball, soccer and playing down by the beach.

15. Which country had the most English channels on TV?

In Costa Rica almost every channel was in Spanish. In Mexico, we had no TV. Therefore Roatan had the most English channels.

16. Which country had the most food that we also have in Canada?

I think Mexico had the most food that we also have at home.

17. What country had the most selection of meat in the grocery store?

Mexico has the most selection of meat so far.

18. In what country did you try the most interesting and different food?

I think Costa Rica had the most interesting. I had a co-pos and there weren’t any co-pos in Roatan or in Mexico.

19. What place did dad like the wine selection the best?

Mexico and Costa Rica had about the same selection.

20. In what country did they use U.S. dollars the most?

In Roatan because we weren’t used to using different currencies.

21. In what place did the fish and chips cost the most?

In Mexico the fish and chips cost 2.50 more than in Roatan. In Mexico they cost $10.00 U.S.

22. What country was most like home?

The countries were all so different. None were like home!

23. Which country had the most wildlife?

Costa Rica had the most wildlife by far.

24. What country spoke the most English?

I think Roatan had the most people that spoke English.

25. What Spanish word that you learned was most useful?

I think the most useful word was hola, which means hello.

26. In what country did you do the most interesting activity?

The tour of Manual Antonio Park in Costa Rica was the most interesting activity. We learned a lot and saw things we hadn't seen before.

27. What country will you remember the most?

I think I will remember all the places because I had a great time at all of them.

28. What was the favourite activity you did and what country was it in?

In Mexico I rode dune buggies that was my favourite activity. I also enjoyed horseback riding in Costa Rica and visiting the monkeys in Roatan.

29. What country did you like the best?

I think I liked Costa Rica or Mexico the best because Costa Rica had alot of wild life and Mexico was relaxing.

water fall

yesterday my family, my aunt and i drove 2 hours up a dirt road. to get to A WATER FALL. when we got there we swam for 15 minutes. we watched people swing of the water fall on a rope wishing we were aloud to do the same. then i swan under the water fall and toch something i did not know was. it was brown thick and wasn't attached to the rock. it wasn't floating but wasn't sinking. i am terrifed of snakes and hate long car rides. the first thing that poped into my head went i toched that thing was snake so i screamed a swam out of the preety fast. then got back in our rental car and started on the two hour drive back to our vacation home. about five minutes in we stoped a viraity store to get a dri nk and some chips. the chips were hard but good and come with a little toy action figure in side (i though mine was a chip and almost bit the head off. then we drove all the way back home.

still miss u !

hey guys its pretty laid back here in mexico so i don't really have much to write about. i'm just going to name a few funny facts:

Did You Know, Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
Did You Know, The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
Did You Know, 40 percent of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.
Did You Know, TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
Did You Know, Butterflies taste with their feet.
Did You Know, Coca-Cola was originally green.
Did You know, If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
Did You Know, Every day more money is printed forMonopoly than the US Treasury.
Did You Know, It is impossible to lick your elbow.
Did You Know, Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

i miss u guys

snorkeling

Have you been snorkelling in Mexico? I have and it was a great experience. There where tons of fish. I went 3 times that day the first time I was with my dad. The second time was with 2 of my cousins we found pink goggles and a clip on earring on the bottom. Then I went out a 3rd time with my other cousin and her friend. I was really tired by the time I got back. It was Valentines Day and there were people on the beach setting up a game. You had 5 people to a team and you had to stand on each other’s shoulder to make your way up a greased pole to grab a prize (a big pole). My cousins who are in there 20s where going try but the time for registering was over before they could find a fifth person. No one could do it. I had a great time.

we arrived at Hautulco, Mexico at 4:00 on a Saturday after noon. we settled in at our new home, Hacendia Real. we went for dinner at 6:00 and went shopping for grocerys. the next 5 days we spent going to differnt beaches with my cousin (talyor), my aunt (margret) and my uncle (les). we used the boggie boards that we free to use and we snorkeled. we saw stingrays and other really neat fish. today we went shopping and bought some grocerys. me and my mom walked all the way down town in the heat so when we got home we went for a swim in our pool even thoughits cold. our internet connection is getting better. i miss you guys.

31 questions on Costa Rica

What follows is my social studies assignment for school.


1. What is the name of the country and where is it located?

Quepos (Kay-pos) is located on the pacific coast of Costa Rica. Costa Rica is between Nicaragua and Panama in Central America.

2. How much rainfall occurs annually, is there a rainy season?

In Costa Rica each year on average it rains 120-160 inches. There is in fact a rainy season from May to November.

3. Are there distinct seasons? During your stay what season was it?

There are 2 seasons. Dry season (December to April) and rainy season (May to November). We were here during the dry season.

4. What was the average temperature while you were there? What is it on an annual basis?

The temperature is about 83°-74° F all year around.

5. Ethnic Groups - does the community look homogenous or does it have lots of diversity?

Other than the tourist population, Costa Rica a very homogeneous society. Most people have black hair and a tanned skin.

6. Do most people live in small and rural towns or in big cities?

People live in all three. But most people live in small towns.
San Jose is the only large city.

7. What is the average income?

The average income per person is 5800 U.S. dollars each year

8. Is the country known for a specific type of art or craft?

They are known for making jewellery, paintings, and pottery. We see a lots of theses things lined up along the beach at little stores

9. What kind of food are they known for?

They eat a lot of different food. They eat food like meat, beans, plantations, rice, and corn tortias.

10. What are the primary industries?

The 3 primary industries are tourism, manufacturing microprocessors and agriculture

11. How many people live in the region and country?

4,195,914 people live in Costa Rica.

12. What does a typical house of a local person look like?

The houses usually are small, have no glass windows and have metal roofs. They are also usually pastel colors (blue, pink, green, and orange).

13. Wealth Distribution - Do you see examples of very rich and very poor people, or does it look like most people have the same standard of living?

Poor people and rich people. Hotels and villas looked rich and others look poor.

14. What kind of music do you hear playing

We did not hear very much music, but what we did hear was either Spanish folk music or music that we would hear at home. It was almost the same as in Honduras.

15. What kind of sports do the kids play?

The kids play soccer, basketball, they box and there are a lot of kids playing at the beach.

16. Television - did they have satellite with lots of choice or not?

They had 60 channels almost all of them in Spanish except for a few English ones with Spanish subtitles

17. How does the food compare to Canada?

At the grocery store it was really hard to find milk. But the grocery stores where better stocked than in Honduras. In the restaurants the food was verily similar to Canada.

18. What kind of Meat do you see in the grocery stores?

Chicken, beef and fish were the main things that we saw.

19. What new food did you try that you never had before?

Co pos (a slushy type thing that had condensed milk shaved ice and flavouring) I also had coconut and macadamia nut breading on chicken fingers.

20. Does Dad like the wine in the country or does he drink something else?

The wine was okay, not as much selection in Canada but more than in Roatan.

21. What is the currency name? Do they also use $U.S.?

The money name is colon, they sometimes use $ U.S.

22. What is the conversion to $U.S.

540 colon = 1 U.S. dollar

23. How much does it cost to buy fish and chips?

Unknown. We didn't find a restaurant that served fish and chips.

24. Americanization - do you see examples of things from home?

Examples of Americanization were television, vehicles, cosmetics (American brands), Kraft dinner, English speaking (some people), American $ also.

25. Are there any unique animals, birds and or marine life that you saw?

We saw sloths (2 and 3 toed), a silky anteater, squirrel monkeys, a baby chunk headed snake, howler monkeys, white-faced monkeys, crocodile, Jesus Christ lizards (that run on water), red winged grasshopper, and bats.

26. What is the main language spoken?

The main language spoken was Spanish but some English was spoken.

27. List a few key phrases and their meaning of words that you learned.

Lo seinto- I’m sorry
Disculpe- Excuse me

28. Describe the most interesting thing you saw or did.

The incredibly large grass hopper, the monkeys the snakes (the wildlife) and the cows walking through the restaurant.

29. What is the thing you will remember most about this part of the trip?

I liked the body surfing but I loved the horse back riding. My horses name was really Little Bird but I named it Breeze (he liked that name better)

30. What was the favourite activity you did on this part of the trip?

Going to the beach, horseback riding through the rain forest or the mangrove tours (both night tour and day tour).

31. Would you want to come back here again?

That would be a difficult decision considering all the bugs but I think I would come back again!