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We traveled to my motherland for the very special occasion of my younger brother’s wedding. We lucked out in finding a good deal on LAN airlines, which took us all the way from Los Angeles to Mendoza, with a pit stop in Lima (Peru) and a plane change in Santiago of Chile.

On Thursday April 5th, at the humble Mendoza airport, my parents were waiting for us. We had a schedule to follow, so after many hugs and kisses, we were headed out to Hotel Uspallata, up in the Andes. This is where the wedding was taking place on Saturday, and where we would stay until Sunday.

It was wonderful to head up into the imposing Andes. I wanted to stop everywhere to take pictures, but I decided to instead relax and take in the view without a viewfinder in the way.

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Cerro De La Gloria, originally uploaded by . JoNiuX .

Yesterday, Kelly and I reserved our plane tickets to go to my hometown, Mendoza. We will be arriving on June 10^th, and we’ll stay in Argentina for a whole two weeks. I’m already way excited about it!
The plans include seeing the family, showing Kelly around the places where I grew up, and eating a lot of delicious food. Of course we’ll do a few touristy things, which most definitely will involve several wine-tastings in many of Mendoza’s awesome wineries. 

Our flight back will leave from Buenos Aires on June ^23rd. We are planning on heading over to the Paris of South America a few days early, and spend time walking around and checking things out.

I’ve started to teach Kelly some localized Spanish. She already refers to Argentines as boludos. I think it’s a step in the right direction.

I’ve always wanted to have a tattoo. And I think I’m getting closer and closer to actually getting one.

The biggest hurdle has been trying to figure out what to have permanently stamped on my body. And I think I’ve found it!

What the fuck, right? This owl, “Luca”, is the mascot of my high school in Mendoza, Argentina: The good old Colegio Universitario Central (aka CUC).
This high school had a huge impact on me, and not only on my education. It shaped the way I socialized, politicized and faced challenges.

Back then, a student would go to High School at the equivalent of 8th grade. You get out of “Primary” school after 7th grade, and move on to the big boy school, which went all the way to 12th grade. Things have changed now, but that’s irrelevant to my story.

What’s relevant is that CUC was (and probably still is) the very best public school in Mendoza. Thousands of students in the 7th grade applied for admission to it, and had to take a two-part test in the process: Half math, half social sciences/spanish.
I obviously passed the test, but not only did I do that, I also got the 12th best result, at something like 93% (I don’t remember exactly).

So what happens when you get into a school that only lets you in if you pass a test that is hard, and thousands of kids are taking? Well, you get in an elitist environment, or one of great camaraderie. Luckily for me, I found my way to the latter group, and my years in High School were excellent.

Blah blah blah, I went to a cool high school. Big deal.

Exactly. It was a big deal. And a huge factor in me having become the person that I am now. That’s why when I was surfing Facebook and joined a couple of different groups of alumni, it dawned on me: The owl would be awesome as my tattoo!

Now I just have to figure out how it’d look best in ink, on skin, and go for it. Yeah!