Photos

The New Zealand group

My House

Sols Birthday

My Argentina Family

The Plaza where we hang out every single day

Sisters at Lago Puelo

Comdoro

Our bus ride to Comodoro Rivadavia went through the night, it was 12 hours... longer then the plane ride here! I had the pleasure of sitting next to a very large man for the journey which was not ideal, but he was lovely and his little daughter behind us was so cute, until she started vomiting everywhere. I didn’t get much sleep on the bus. Sol and I stayed with her great aunty, Rocio and Mariela stayed at Mariela’s brothers’ house a few minutes down the road. Comodoro was very beautiful as it is right on the sea and there are many beaches and it’s really hilly a bit like Dunedin. One night we went to Rada Tilly which is another town about 30 min away to stay with Sol’s friend, the idea of fun there is something like, walk to the plaza, walk home, walk to the plaza, walk home, well you get the drift. I probably walked the equivalent of the length of NZ in one day, no jokes! Rada Tilly was much cleaner and nicer then Comodoro but there isn’t much to do there. We went to the town centre in Comodoro, I was expecting to do some shopping but it seems like Argentinians just like to walk around, not actually go into any shops which was a bit disappointing because I wanted some new clothes haha. The day that we left we had a big asado at the house of Mariela’s brother for lunch which was yuummmmyyyyyyy. I think the whole world should have asados, seriously you don’t know what you’re missing out on.

Last night while I was walking to salsa there was something going on in the plaza by our house. A group of about 15 men had gathered and in the middle was a girl about my age being patted down by a police officer, I don’t know what was happening but it was scary. At night time we like to go out walking with a couple of friends, at about 11.30 we walk to the centre and buy lollipops then just walk around for a few hours in the freezing cold. There are a lot of boy racers on the main street here doing laps with their cars that they think are cool but really aren’t, it’s the same as NZ in that way.

I tried some Cadbury’s chocolate Argentina style yesterday, I think it was false packaging… it was disgusting and did not deserve the name Cadbury on it. I miss good chocolate. I went to the market today and since it’s so hot it was massive!  All the hippies sit around under the trees next to the market and play their instruments and sing; one guy was even playing a didgeridoo, actually a lot of people play didgeridoos around the town. Life is pretty cruisy, everyone thought school was meant to start today, turns out it didn’t so I’m still on holiday. It’s only been oh 4 months since I last went to school. Yay for no school (:

Liifffeeeeee

I tried my first asado the other night, yuuumm!! It is like meat cooked over hot embers, kind of barbequed but not. It’s traditional in Argentina and so tasty. Family friends came over and we shared the asado together. Lots of chorizo and steak. I also went to a salsa class which was so much fun, it was all older people but it didn’t matter.  There is a really cool market fair thing here 3 days a week in the centre of town, it is massive and cheap too. Things that would cost $10 in New Zealand are only $3 here so you can get a lot without spending much. This is a hippy town, they are every where and they all sell cool jewellery, mate cups, art and whatever else they can make. There is a lot of reggae and dreadlocks.

Yesterday was the birthday of my host sister, Sol. She turned 15 which is a big thing in Argentina. We decorated the house with balloons and big banners, there was a massive cake and I think we won’t need to do the groceries for a good week. All the family came over for afternoon tea (about 7pm) and later her friends came. We went out to a disco to dance which was so much fun, you are meant to be 18 to go - like in New Zealand - but they don’t really care how old you are as long as you are good and don’t cause trouble. Just another example of the laid back culture. Here they dance to Cumbia and Reggaeton. Cumbia is a really popular style of music with all the teenagers, youtube it.  We went at 3am but it was too early, there was no one there, the real party doesn’t start until about 4am when everyone piles in of the street. My family thought it was so funny when I told them that we go out at 11pm.

We are going on a wee holiday to Comodoro Rivadavia on Wednesday, just for a few days to visit family. It is about 800km away and we are going on the bus. I’m quite excited to see some more of the country. I found out I don’t start school until the 25^th of this month so there is still a bit of a wait but that’s ok. . My Spanish is getting a billion gazillion times better and it’s starting to get really fun!

First Week At Host Family

My first week in El Bolson has been fairly uneventful, I still have no idea when school is going to start but I have found out that classes will be at a different school a few more blocks away and I will go there for one week, then the next week work at home and so on because I think we are going to share the school with the students that were already there. It’s good and bad at the same time, less school, but more spare time to try and find things to do.

The other day I went for a ‘bike ride’ with Moritz from Switzerland and his host brother, it turned out to be more of a mountain climb. I ended up getting of my bike and walking because it was so steep. It was nice though because there are lots of wild blackberries growing all along the side of the road so I stopped to eat them a few times. After about an hour we reached a lookout point that looks down over Rio Azul and the valley, we then biked about 10 more minutes to look at ‘La Cabeza Del India’, it is a huge cliff face that looks like it has a face carved into it. To get to it there is about a 5 min walk up in the bush, so of course we took the horse track that leads up the mountain instead of the real one to La Cabeza. After walking about 15 min of steep uphill walking we finally realized we had gone the wrong way and had to backtrack the whole thing.

The next day I went to Lago Puelo with my host family, a small town next to a lake about 15 min away from El Bolson, it is in another province called Chubut, I didn’t realise that my town is right on the border of Rio Negro province and Chubut. We went on a walk in the forest and had mate and pastries, it was quite nice and reminded me of Te Anau. We went out for pizza that night and had cheese, ham, pineapple and strawberry pizza – the weirdest combination I’ve ever seen but it worked haha. I feel really safe here, even though the windows have bars and it looks scary, me and my host sisters can still go out to the centre at 11pm for ice-cream and I don’t feel like I’m going to get mugged, unlike in Buenos Aires.

I haven’t really done much else, I got all my school books although I have no idea when the school starts and got my ear pierced because my host sister wanted her nose pierced (sorry mum! I hope you still love me). We go to town every now and then but mostly I’m just sitting around waiting for school to start so that I can finally make some friends. It’s getting easier to understand Spanish but it’s still not easy, I feel stupid when people ask me questions and I don’t understand, and then I wish I could just go back to Invercargill where life is easy and I end up feeling homesick. Even the smallest things are hard to adjust to, like eating dinner at 10.30pm every night instead of 6pm or not being able to wear bare feet in the house, it probably sounds stupid to everyone else but I never realised how different life is outside of your own comfort zone and in another culture. You can’t even begin to imagine how different it is until your living in it, I can’t really put my finger on all the things that make it different, but it seems like a whole new world. You have to learn how to behave and act and speak again. It’s not easy at the start, but I’m sure the feeling will pass and soon I won’t want to leave.