Río Cuarto, Córdoba

Setting out from Mendoza, I got on a bus and took a long ride that would take me to Río Cuarto, in the province of Córdoba. Córdoba is known for their delicious alfajores, their rich farmland, the huge university town that is the city of Córdoba, and the strange cordobés accent (they put their em-PHAS-is on the wrong syll-A-ble). I'll be going to the city of Córdoba for their apparently-legendary Oktoberfest celebrations a few months down the road, but for now I stopped at Río Cuarto, where two Fulbright friends are teaching English.

I got in close to midnight to find Linds, K-Gore, and their friend Fran about to sit down to an amazing Italian dinner: salad with fresh pepper and pear slices, Risotto with chicken and grated cheese, and of course red wine. We ate together and Fran, a microbiology professor and a former scholarship recipient in the US, became the 100th person on this trip to comment on my porteño accent (You're number 100! You win a dance party!). We danced to 80s music until 4am, when the police arrived to notify us there was a noise complaint from a neighbor. Good night!

The next day I walked around the river for which the town is named with K-Gore, and pondered about what happened to the first, second and third rivers. There were horses all over (but here it wasn't just the trash collectors, and it didn't seem anachronistic) at the park, and Katie remarked that this maybe was what Chicago would look like a century ago. I could see it I guess. A lot of the buildings in Río Cuarto seemed to be new and they had a very blocky, modern architectural style, juxtaposed against the humble homes on the fringe of the river. We ate some really amazing facturas and drank maté at a nearby municipal field, which soon was invaded by a 9th grade boys' gym class. Haha.

Later on we studied vocabulary for the GREs (Linds is taking them too) and then recorded some songs (me on vocals, guitars and Miss Sovereign on vocals, drums). The songs can be found on my MySpace:
http://www.myspace.com/checharlyeua
Happy listening!

Anyway, then it was off to La Plata on a bus the next day. Soon I'll be hanging out with Brazilian friends (Renata and Ygor are visiting, see earlier posts) and Agus and Tino and all my platense peeps.