Lujan catch up

I'm posting from Bariloche, a really cute town on a lake, surrounded by mountains. I haven't taken any pictures yet, but don't worry, I will. That is a threat. We don't have class this week, so we are here and then we will go to Calafate, where the glaciers are.



Last weekend Rose and I went to Luján to visit María Luján (that's a double name like Mary Anne), our señora's niece. I don't want to get into family drama that I don't understand, but suffice it to say we had to tell the señora that we went somewhere else.




It was fun to be surrounded by family for a change, even if it wasn't mine. Although Maruja and Sophie are wonderful, the señora doesn't exactly make us feel welcome with her fakey sweetness and passive-aggressiveness. So I realy enjoyed eating a big lunch while talking about boring things, sweeting pictures of baby's first birthday, and watching said baby's antics. Later María Luján took us to see the town's main attraction, a huge church built around the Virgin of Luján. Legand has it that her statue was being carted somewhere, and the cart stopped going in Luján and wouldn't go again until her statue was taken off. So they built a huge cathedral, and now it's a popular pilgrim destination. Down in the basement (which was called a crypt despite the distinctive lack of dead people) there's a collection of all the different representations of the Virgin all over the world. The most memorable thing was the pint of fake beer sitting in front of the Cuban. I bet the Irish Virgin was jealous.



After dinner we watched Plant Earth, complete with Mom's gasps of horror during the huting scenes and coos during the baby animal scenes, and Dad's jokes and words of pseudo-wisdom. Then the fifteen-year-old son invited Rose and I to go clubbing with him and his friends, but we declined. It would have been a pretty unique cultural experience, but I was too tired. As we drove to drop him off at a friend's place, the dad got lost and yelled at other drivers. My favorite part of all happened as the son was leaving:
"Ok, I'll be back at 6 [AM]."
"No way, 2."
"5:30"
"2"
"5"
"3, or you're never going out again."



It's not that much of this would necessarily happen in my family (for example, the negotiaton would have ended in 11, maybe, when I was 15), but it was such a sterotypical family experience, which was entertaining to see here. I guess in some ways families are the same everywhere!