December 31, 2010

In the morning we went back to the garage to pick up the new tire. The guy smiled and told us he unfortunately had bad news. The tire could only be ordered 2 at a time, so we could buy 2 or nothing. In addition the price was hefty.

We called Alamo to ask if we could pay them after all. The guy told us he could buy the tire for us personally in Bariloche tomorrow for a small supplement. We could then pay him a total sum which was less than half the price of two tires. No-brainer. We got our metal-thing-people-more-interested-in-cars-then-me-would-know-the-name-of back and returned:

For some reason I have never really been interested in cars or understood some people´s fascination with them. A car is a convenient machine that should bring me from A to B with the least possible hassle. It should be maintenance-free and use as little gasoline as possible. Maybe this is all a counter-reaction to growing up with a father who liked cars very much?

I remember a story my friend Jørn Harald told me from when he was in the army. He did his service after university and was put in a barrack together with 18-year olds from the countryside. They bored him with lots of talk about cars. At one point he was fed up and said something like: “Listen, your simple combustion engine cars are completely boring. I am interested in things like the space shuttle. It is the most complex machine built by man in terms of number of parts, just after the most complicated petroleum drilling platforms.” I couldn´t have said it better myself. They didn´t bother him with cars after that.

Jorge and Carmen were having a New Year´s party at their place. Yesterday we thought they wanted to join us for an excursion up to the skiing slopes which are very close. However  it soon became obvious that there were so many things to prepare for the party they needed to spend the day on organizing everything.  They probably meant for us to do the excursion on our own in the first place. You can come a long way with a rudimentary vocabulary and lots of gestures, but sometimes the language barrier can be really frustrating.

We suggested to help them, but there were too many cooks and difficult to guess what needed to be done. In the end we decided that it was probably best to get out of the way and let the family prepare. At least we managed to help by buying some bread for them in town.

We drove up to the skiing slopes to have a look. On the way we got some great views:

Close to the top we stopped, walked for 2 minutes, and admired a waterfall

The slopes here are not many, but looked cool. Adrian said he wanted to come back in winter to ski.

We drove back to town to have lunch at Quesoteca, the fast food place with the great wifi connection. The weather was fantastic and we finally got to take some decent pictures of downtown Villa La Angostura.

Everything is made from wood in the same style, right down to the phone booths:

When we got back we relaized Adrian´s glasses were missing. He uses either glasses or contact lenses and hadn´t used his glasses for 3 days. He was sure he had put them somewhere in the sleeping room. We went through the room several times and, with the help of our hosts, the entire house. They were nowhere to be found. Ouch! Adrian and I started searching through all our photos of the last days to find out when he had been wearing them. It was clear that he had misplaced them somewhere between the dinner Carmen and Juan Carlos hosted and the next morning.

Carmen tried to call Carmen, but she was not home. She would be at the party, so we could ask then.

The guests started arriving at 9:30 pm. Carmen and Juan Carlos had not found any glasses, but they would look closer when they got back home.

The last guests arrived closer to 11 pm when we started our New Year´s dinner. Here´s the adult table:

Iseline found a friend and took her under her wings for the evening:

Closer to midnight the radio was turned on loud and everyone got up.

As the radio guy started counting down the seconds we all joined him in a loud countdown.

Happy New Year! Everyone toasted with everyone and gave everyone at least a hug:

There was chocolate! Villa La Angostura is known for its many high quality chocolate makers. I had made sure we took responsibility and stocked up a kilo of hand-made chocolate for the party.

Quality assurance:

iPod-time:

It was a great relaxed party. Some people listened to their own music, and after a while some fell asleep

Jorge was listening to contemporary popular music from the poor, as he put it. He shared an earbud and we listened together. The music was cool. A sort of beefed up reggae. Some of it reminded me of music by Manu Chao. I wish I could understand the lyrics better as there was much energy and frustration in the voices.

More and more people fell asleep, then woke up again and took part in the party.

Helene, Viktor and Iseline went to bed around 1:30. I wanted to stay up just a bit longer. When I started telling Adrian we needed to go to bed around 2:00, he begged me for just a few more minutes. He had found some friends and they were now preparing an expedition into the dark night with flashlights, They had a really good time and he doesn´t have many occasions to have fun with other kids during the voyage. I didn´t have the heart to force him to bed.

We both stayed up until the bitter end, around 3:15. I put Adrian to bed first and then started cleaning up together with Carmen and Jorge. For once my weak Spanish was an advantage. Whenever one of them tried to stop me from helping, telling me to go to bed, I just stared at them and said “no entiendo” before I continued.

I finally collapsed sometime between 4:00 and 4:30.

Eirik

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P.S. This is blog post number 100!