Una noche en el museo!

First of all I'd just like to start off this post by saying "Stay strong Jasmin Sallis!". She's our family friend here and she's been really brave after she got paralized after being in the middle of the gunfight and a bullet hit her in the spine, so hope all goes well for the rest of her and that she can raise the funds for a surgery in China.

SO in other news, about a month left here in Argentina and I'm already starting to miss it... only about 4 and a half weeks of doing the usual, living a once in a lifetime experience. Everyday I worry if I'm not getting the most out of my exchange and want to find things to do with friends and keep improving my spanish! I'm not really not looking forward to the fact of leaving my life here, the people are amazing and I would do anything just to stay a little bit longer, cause I already know that time is going to fly! :(

This especially makes me sad when I had the best night ever on saturday night. There was an event happening called "Una noche en el museo" (A night in the museum) just like the movie, except what it was is that all the museums in the city were open and free for the night! with free buses taking you from the centre of town on a circuit round the museums, ALL COMPLETELY FREE!

So I started off the night waiting in the cold with my best friends Joaco and Juliana with our free fluro orange scarves that they were handing out, we waited in the line for what was probably an hour and then made it onto the bus that took us to the museum of Natural Sciences, it looked amazing from the outside and was way more interesting on the inside!

Once we made it inside, we didn't really know what to do first, so we went to the first room on the right...little did we know, but it was the trademark room with all the rocks and geographic info that every museum has and no one really cares that much about about... so in the end we made it to the section about planets and I took a picture of me with the sun, because well. It looked cool.

After realizing that none of us had any interest in rocks whats so ever, we made our way into the dinosaur and ocean life areas. That was when I realized that I had never actually seen one of those giant dino-skeleton sculptures in my life, nor a museum with dinosaurs. Do we even have them in New Zealand?? Anywho, I was a little guttered that I couldn´t take any photos because all the lights were off in certain parts of the museum, I think it was to replicate the night in the museum movie! The ocean part was pretty amazing too, with more skeleton sculptures and fakes animals everywhere. As you can probably tell, I enjoyed looking at things rather than reading the information about them.

After that, we we're beginning to notice that a lot of the people we're walking past with face paint on in different patterns, so we asked we they got them down and towards the stairs to the upper floor to the American Indian section. However, our stomach's became our number one priority as we stopped in the mini restaurant for dinner. All the usual meals were up for grabs, so we went in thinking that we we're going to get a wholesome hamburger for dinner. That's was when we ordered the crocodile instead... AND WOW! IT WAS TASTY! Kinda like chicken to be honest haha, We each had a little bowl and a kebab each with portions of crocodile meat, along with other foods such as potato, rice, shellfish and those really, really hot chillis that people are afraid to eat...Joaco...

After that, we made it upstairs to get our faces painted in some indian form. We found the lady doing it and she told us about all the traditions behind each pattern, I can't quite remember what pattern Joaco and I got, I think it was one to do with the Coming of Man or something along those lines and I think Juli got one about something to do with woman, as you can tell, I was just wanting my face to get painted. So once our faces were painted, we had to awkwardly ask people to take photos of us for the memories of a great night. Once we realised that it getting quite late, we decided that we needed to catch the next bus to make it to the museum of music. And so we took, one last photo of our indian selves and made our way to the busstop. What I didn't realise was that we actually missed out on seeing the room with all the mummies which I would have loved to have seen, but ohwell. I guess that can wait for another day... not that I have many left.

Although I'm one of the most musically uncapable people on this planet, I actually really enjoyed the music museum, although it's probably the most smallest museum there is; with it's total of 5 rooms that hold about 4 people in each. There was a little info about all types of instruments and you could play with most of them, so we made some pretty mean beats with the bongos, and I also now have bragging rights of playing a Gong.. After goofing around with the instruments, we learnt how a music box works and then made our way to catch the final bus home. That was when Joaco smudged his facepaint, and we decided that we should probably go get ourselved washed first..

So we ran across the road to the Shell stations and went into the bathrooms, too bad we didn't have soap in the boys bathroom because it turned out to be water-active paint and I just gave myself a giant black beard which had Joaco in hysterics haha, So Juli let us into the girls bathroom, and seriously I think it's a worldwide thing when the girls bathroom is 1000 times better than the mens haha, Once we had got our paint down to the dark tinge, we walked back to the bus stop, luckily the bus hadn't came yet and so we were able to make it back safely to the city centre.

It was at this point when we were laughing and joking around with my camera on the bus, that I realised that hadn't had a night like that in such a long time, a night where I could finally relax and be myself with my best friends. I'm really going to miss argentina, so from now on I plan to make the most of every moment here and make the best memories of my life! Argentina, te amo!

Trip to the Iguazu falls

Hey everyone, Im not sure how many of you actually know but I just returned fron a one week trip with AFS to the falls of Iguazu along with a lot of the other exchange students that I met at my entry camp aswell as ones who have been here since august. The trip includes visits to the falls, Brasil, the wanda mines and the ruins of San Ignacio, The native bird park and some other things that I cant quite remember at this moment.

First of all, here the Argentinians are used to travelling long distances in buses. So this means that after my 1 hour busride to the capital I had to catch my next bus which took 25 hours. Not cause it broke down or anything... just cause its a long distance. If you search the distance from "La Plata" to "Puerto Iguazu" you can actually see where I am and came from. Personally I enjoyed the long bus ride because I had enough time to catch up with Maria from NZ and meet new people aswell like my new friends from denmark, norway, turkey, hungary and iceland. Thanks to them I can now point out where there countries are!

Well as I was saying, we had travelled for only god knows how long but we all fell asleep and woke up at the ruins of San Ignacio for some breakfast. Im pretty sure no one knew that we were stopping here as we were a giant group of just awoken foreigners. Unfortunately because of not knowing this my phones battery had already died and I could take any photos. The ruins were quite neat, they told a story of the catholics in Argentina through pictures on the wall and the layout of the building. For me, I just really liked how cool the ruins looked, I believe Im going to steal photos from other people in the group. After that we made our way to what we thought was the hotel in Puerto Iguazu.

Then we arrived at the Wanda Mines. Wanda actually means Maria in the native language here if you're wondering why they have such a blantantly unspanish name. Here we got to see all those cool gem clusters in the caves and outside aswell, legend says if you put your right hand on the gems and then your left hand in the sun then you'll be charged with positive energy. I thought that was a joke to make all the foreigners look stupid because well, everyone did look a bit silly doing it haha. After that we exited through the giftshop and made our way to the hotel.

This time it wasnt a lie and I was able to charge my phone and relax by the pool with my friends. Oh yes, I forgot to mention I wemt away from cold winter weather into a summer climate where it was very comfortable to go swimming. And also the hotel was really nice! Warm showers, comfortable beds, free wifi and a nice look in general that I bothered to take a photo.

Once we were all settled in and rested, we made our way to the Argentinian side of the Iguazu falls, turns out that the river borders Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. It was nice to see nature full of life again after living in a urban world for 3 months and a bit. And after a million and half photos of pretty much spectacular views and typical tourist poses we finally made it to La garganta del Diablo (The devils throat). It was probably one of the most amazing things Ive seen and I was a bit gutted that my camera once again decided to be lame and run out of batery right before it. Once again, Im just going to have to steal all the photos again. For now, heres a photo of throat from afar.

That night (because I paid to do all the extra things), a few of us went to a dance show called Obba Obba which featured the dancers doing national dances from the countries in south america. This meant I got to see women dancing with five bottles on their heads, the feathered dancing from carnival and real live professional tango. What I thought was the best thing of the night was that the AFS people didnt tell us that we were actually going to see the show in BRAZIL. I now have bragging rights of visiting Brazil.

The next day, turns out we were going to Brazil anyway the visit the other side of the waterfalls! First we went on this little carriage thing that took us to a dock that turns out we were going to have speedboat rides up the river. They told us that we might get wet so we went in our t shirts and shorts only, leaving our shoes behind with our heavy clothing. Also turns out that when they say that you might get wet, they mean they're going to put you under one of the waterfalls for good luck and say youre going to return in 3 years. Eugh. Thanks Brazil once again. After that, we all headed to the viewing platforms in front of the falls, we were lucky that it rained over night because it meant the falls were full of water. It was impossible not to be hit by the spray of the falls while on the platforms but we didnt mind because we were already wet enough. But i must admit that this sight has probably been one of the most breathtaking things in my life, the beauty of nature has never been so powerful and I can see why the cataratas is now claimed as one of the 7 wonders of the world.

That afternoon we found ourselves in the Parque das Aves (Birdpark) in Brazil, close to the cataratas. Ever since doing a project on toucans in year 4, I have always wanted to see one in the flesh. And by god it was stunning, they looked so unreal, the feathers around its head looks exactly like that of a plush toy and the colours looked like they could only be artificially made. At times I questioned whether it was a robot or not... But apart from that, I can now claim that I saw all these amazing birds (including Flamingos) in real life. I'm quite glad I spent extra money to go visit the park now.

That night we went into town to go visit the shops. And because it's a highly touristic place, everyshop was the same. THE SAME. I wouldnt doubt it if all the exchange students could recount all the items in every store. One item that was rather strange was the eatable wood. Yes, you can argue that all wood is eatable but this wood is made for lunch and such. It tasted as I was eating honey-coated bark.. But it actually wasn't that bad... Anywho after our visit to town, we finally went to bed!

The following day we were meant to go flying foxing through the treetops of Argentinian jungle but it was raining and we all finally got to sleep in, because they postponed it until the afternoon and gave us freetime in the morning instead. Hallelujah. So that afternoon, we all headed to the border of Paraguay, (about 200m from it) and wenting canoping. First of all, we went for a short walk, which included a surprise abseil off a rock which made one girl burst into tears from fear, luckily enough I was able to film her screaming the whole way down and have it as a laughable experience. After that, we went up high in the trees and scaled from one platform to the other. To be flying through the treetops of Argentina definately has to be added to my growing list of amazing experiences!

Then the time came to finally leave the province of Missiones and make our way back to Buenos Aires. I made so many life friends from this one week trip and everyone was really sad to say by to eachother, even crying was involved. Not on my part though haha. But it's pretty amazing to come to realise that it takes less than just one week to make strong connections with other people in this world and all I can really think about now is how sad it is going to be to say bye to Argentina. I think i'm already beginning to miss the place.

Life as I know it.

Aye! I just realised I haven't done a blog for almost a month, where has the time gone!? Everyday I relive the nightmare of the fact that my time here is almost over! less than two months now...BLAGH! It seems a little unfair to me that I have to have  my exchange cut so short and others get to stay for almost 6 months in other countries. I'm raging with envy. Although, the offer to do this has been so amazing and beneficial to me, I just cant be mad.

Life here is good, the people are friendly, the schools are just like home, the language is coming along and the culture..I'm accustomed to. In this blog, I've decided I'm going to write about life here because I feel like I haven't really described an everyday for me and described the cultural differences, so where do I start? The morning of course!

Every morning, I wake up at 6:30am and take an hour to eat breakfast and get ready for school. Here, they don't have breakfast. My brother eats a small packet of biscuit and my mum has these miniture toast slices that are about the size of your hand, and then they're pretty much ready for the day. I come along with my westernized body and make myself a muesli from all these mixed ingredients because the fact is that it doesn't exist ehre because of the lack of breakfasts.. after that I get dressed in winter clothes that I actually have to wear or else I'll get frostbite.. haha kidding it's not that cold! but it's more cold than whangarei has ever been, so I always get a bit of a grin when my friends post a billion statuses complaining. After that, I'm ready to go! And so we take a taxi to get to school.Taxis are insanely cheap here, for us it's probably less than $5 drive for a distance like Kamo to Okara Park. And then I arrive at my giant, antique school.

It is through those doors in the middle where I meet my friends every morning. And this is probably the biggest cultural difference, The greeting. All we New Zealanders should be ashamed of how cold we are. Here, if you enter a group, you go around and "Saludar" everyone. You go around an shakehands with every one of you guy friends and kiss all the girls on the cheek, If you're a girl, you just go around and kiss everyone on the cheek. And even guys sometimes kiss eachother on the cheek. Actually all the time, I lied. Its only teenage boys who shake hands instead of this, and then again we sometimes greet eachother like that. If you don't do anything, you get like an awkward stare and the moment passes, but you feel guilty for not making it known that you're in the group and so is everyone else. People have asked me why I'm so bad and awkward at "Saludando" (Greeting) and that simply because it doesn't exist in New Zealand, then they follow this with "Well what do you do when you meet your friends in the morning" and I have to explain that we walk in and don't have to say anything, we're kind of just acknowledge mentally, but after I say this I always get the same laugh and comments of how weird and cold that is. I would try to bring it to New Zealand, but the aspect of being exiled by my friends for acting like this is too much of a risk. So I'll pass on that.

After we stand around greeting eachother and asking what we have first period, we go to our first period class and hope for the teacher not to come, because here, they don't usually (never) have substitutes. and so we then have about two hours off to go around and do nothing, most likely play some game of take advantage of a free coffee deal at Mcds. However, It's more often that we have class than we dont. In my school we have those little desk table things like you see in all the american movies and it's really easy to manipulate the classroom into grouped tables or straight lines. Whatever you want. And then we sit there and listen to our teacher rattle on about nothing in particular and give us some work. This homework is always constant and not too difficult, I prefer it to the homework in New Zealand which is more or less like 3 x 1500 word assignments to do in one week after doing nothing at all in the previous 4 weeks... I can't wait for the pile of catch up homework I have waiting for me when I return... Then the grading system here is a lot more simpler aswell. It's a score out of 10 for every subject, 7/10 is a pass, you have 3 exams or homeworks and you need a total of 21/30 in the trimestre to not sit the resit examen. so, it's a bit complicated but a lot less complicated than NCEA...yeesh!

After a long, hard day at school, where we normally just take advantage of the free wifi and play games, I walk home through the forest and pass the university buildings and arrive at my house where lunch is in the process of being cooked, (oh yes, i forgot to say that I only go to school during the morning and arrive home around 1-2 and my sister goes to school for the afternoon shift), the food here, is...well I'm not sure if it's just my family or what but we don't cook a lot, like my family in New Zealand does by fiending on different spices and foods. Here we eat a lot of cheese and meat with the oil and salt coated salad on the side. I eat the salad normally because I'm so afraid of exchange student weight gain, (I've already witnessed some of the kids from the United States with a bit of extra weight on the side...) but all in all, I can say the junkfood is amazing and so is their "Melanesa" (Schnitzel). But I wasn't really coming over for food in the first place.. now where was I? Oh yes, and everyday afternoon.

And so after lunch, I either fiend my homework, or go and "read"(Which is normally me falling asleep without getting through one page and has become a running joke in my family, I blame dad for giving me this falling asleep gene.) otherwise I actually go to bed to sleep a siesta. A siesta is an afternoon nap if you don't know, and everyone has them here, It's so often, that most shops close up between 2pm-4pm so people can go sleep and the main business hours is from around 4pm-7pm. and then I wake up at around 7pm or even 9pm just in time for dinner, Oh yes, they have dinner at like 9pm or 10pm here, but then again they have a massive lunch which you're most likely still full from so it's not that bad, then they have their giant dinner and you go to bed again, It's quite like having two miniture days within one normal one, with one big meal and a sleep. Life is good.

One a weekend, It's slightly different because there's always a chance to go out to a "Boliche" nightclub and luckily enough it's normally organised by school students and so we get all the VIP stuff that comes with it. So then my weekend is spent organizing how to get to the fiesta and then resting from going out and partying for so long. Great way to meet people, every new week, I shake hands with new mates and kiss more girls on the cheek! Me encanta la vida.

Past Events:
For the past few weeks, I've been a bit busy with moving house but now I'm finally done and what a mess that was. First we'd been cleaning and moving things around all week and then the day came to move, so we put all our things in the movers truck and took them all to the new house after giving over the keys to the new owners of the house and letting them move in, when we got to the new house (only one block away), the old renter was saying that she wasn't moving... We we´re shocked and had to explain that everyone was organised to move in that day, but she decided to change her mind and wouldnt leave. SO then we were homeless with a truck full of furniture... we had to make a few calls and the old landlords had to come and try kick her out. In the end we were allowed the garage for all of our furniture and the old landlords booked us a hotel to go stay in for the night, the next day I had school and it was a bit weird getting ready at a hotel to go to school, but nonetheless we just went along with everything. That day, my family spent it organizing to get the lady removed from the house and then it was still uncertain if we were going to have to stay in the hotel another night or not...But fortunately for us, the lady moved out and left us to move in late at night so I ended up going to bed at 1am! Yikes!

The other day I also went to Buenos Aires to go see the Feria de los Libros and the Zoo, it was lots of fun and It was quite strange to see animals that I've never seen before but only read about or seen in movies, for instance seeing all the lemurs. I couldn't help but think of Madagascar all the time! After about two hours of hanging out in the zoo taking around 200 photos, we went to the Feria de los Libros which was literally across the road! I have never seen so many books.. IT WAS MASSIVE, the was about a 500m walk from one building to another just to see more and more books, I ended up taking advantage of the currency exchange and get 7 books for reasonably cheap prices. Mainly all being books that I've read before so it's not too hard to read in spanish aswell, and I few more to test my skills while I'm at university...like shakespeare...  after doing alot of walking, we returned to our house via the subway and the bus and finally got some well deserved rest.

Last weekend, the kids from Buenos Aires came for a visit to La Plata and we had a picnic in El Bosque and then moved to Plaza Moreno for some games and promotion of AFS, It was good to see all the kids again because last time I had only my 3 weeks worth of spanish and couldn't speak very confidently, so this time I was having chats with all the kids and felt pretty good being able to speak haha, The best about speaking spanish more confidently now is that I can make jokes like I used to, it was rather strange being silent for a few weeks.

Next week I'm heading off to the Iguazu falls with a lot of the other AFS Students that I went on camp with, Im really excited because I haven't seen them for about 3 months now and a lot of us bonded well through the camp. That means it'll be a week before I post an immense amount of photos and maybe a blog post if I'm bothered enough, I might try write a day by day diary or something just to make sure I do it, can't wait to see you all soon! Chau amigos!

The Blogs are becomed distanced..

As I have noticed, my blogs are becoming a lot more distanced from the previous blog post. And right now as It's a lazy sunday afternoon, I decided I have the time to write one. The only problem is that I can't remember what I've done over the passed two weeks so I'm just going to update everything I guess.

First of all, my language, As I came here on a scholarship focusing entirely on improvement of language, It means I have to constantly monitor how my language is improving, or declining...like my english for example. I'm too lazy to edit this whole blog, so you'll see how much my english gets. But, I'd like to say my spanish is improving but I don't really think it's a matter of improvement or just being confident with how fast you speak it, I'm pretty sure my spanish is the same level as it was before I left..But I can easily make sentences now without having to think of the verb, how to conjugate it and then actually pronounce it. Also my listening is becoming better as I am now able to understand most of new peoples voices, Like the TV...I can even hear the accent between someone from spain and someone from here! Apart from my Spanish and English are going, I've also started Chinese classes as a bit of a challenge and I'm thoroughly enjoying the side culture of China!

Second update, my schoolwork and friends. Because I am beginning to understand the TV and newer voices, I can now understand the majority of what my teacher is asking me to do and can actually do homework. Also along with all this, I've realised that I can help people with their French, Maths or English homework if they help me with Literature, Media studies or Production Techniques. I feel a little more settled into my school now as I can make my way around the classrooms and find where all the little offices are and such, and don't always have to follow friends like a lost sheep. My friends are still as awesome and friendly as they were from the start and I really don't want to leave them. I'm already dreading having to make the experiences I have now into memories...But I hope that I can skype or visit them a couple of years time after I have a degree, hopefully in Modern Languages and Linguistics in general. Then I can continue my great argentinian adventure!

Something I have noticed about Argentinians is that they are all really into their soccer. ALL OF THEM. I don't know how many times Ive had to explain that in New Zealand, we don't really have the same thing with rugby or soccer, I know we do.. But I've decided that New Zealand in general is more about their National teams than regional teams, I doubt many of you know all the rugby players ages for the warriors.. And just now my brother just shouted GOAL from his room and walked out cheering... hahaha. Also here, you HAVE to have a team, I'm with my family who's Gimnasia, just like the rest of my neighbourhood. But then my class is Estudiantes, so you get real pressured to choose between them, hahaha. The other day we went to one of the more tougher games for Gimnasia, we came out with 0 - 0 so we we're thankful that we didnt lose! But It was quite an experience to be part of an exciting crowd, you really learn a lot about the culture by getting right into it.. Also they have this giant banner that goes down across the whole of the crowd to show who's boss! Oh and then there was another thing I thought was rather funny, when there was a little dedication about the Malvinas, the crowd started jumping up and down shouting that whoever doesn't jump is an englishman!

Heres a photo of the banner...

Aswell, as the being part of the culture, so is going out...Just like New Zealand minus the binge drinking and adding more to the actual dancing. ITS A LOT OF FUN. They have this music here called cumbia, it's kinda like the same beat the whole time, everyone hates it here but still listens to it in the clubs, exactly like how every hates dubstep but still listen to it. The fiesta I went to two nights ago was organized by my school year for the end of year trips that they have in their final year, They really know how to fundraise here.. anywho, So seeing as it was organized by my year, we all got in for free with our VIP bands which also entitled us to arrive there in the buses. Completely free. They buses were probably my favourite bit as everyone was yelling at the top of their lungs, waving out the windows and slapping the roof yelling about how much they love their school and hate the rival school hahaha. This bracelet also entitles me to the next party next weekend so I guess I might try go to that aswell...if it wasn't for the fact that we're moving house the next day...I dont think I want to die..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR__WMtmN90 My Brother just told me to show everyone this song. This is a famous cumbia song...I just realised that they all look like douchebags when they dance aswell...

Anyway, I can't really think of anything else to update everyone on, but I'm going to go skype my family soon and leave you with a photo of me at the club, I keep getting told that I've already become and argentinian...this photo kinda proves it.

Well, in the next few days, I'm going to get some maple syrup off Sophie and finally cook pancakes with maple syrup, fried banana and bacon. Oh how I miss that so much! I hope you're all having fun with Escuela, NCEA, University, Work or whatever else your doing! And I'll see you all very soon! 

 

Easter Weekend and such!

Dear Blog,

I have now reached week 6(?) of my overseas adventure and I feel like I’ve have finally settled into life here. I even went for my spontaneous bikeride that I sometimes did in New Zealand... The Spanish language is becoming a lot easier to understand and I feel like I can reply to most things with knowledge that what I’m saying is as correct as it’s ever going to be. The slightly annoying thing is that this isn’t actually Spanish that I learnt at school and will have end of year exams with, this is Castellano Spanish and then it further develops into the regional version of Castellano Spanish which is known as Español Rioplatense. Also my English is going down the drain as a few of you may have noticed when I talk to you on Facebook. However all in all, I can understand Spanish in general now...most of the time. Anywho, in this post I’m going to write about a few of the little things that have happened over the past few weeks, beginning wiiiithhhhh “El Boliche”.

El Boliche is what they call a night club here, and some of my class mates we’re buying tickets to the opening of a club or something like that, and it was open for all school students in La Plata...I think. I was a bit sketchy on the details but went along anyway. I can’t remember if I mentioned this before but fiestas here start at like 11ish and go till about 5-6am. They sure know how to party. SO my amigos and I went to a house before hand, got ready and made our way to town at 1am when everything was only really just starting. IT WAS PACKED. I had to wait in a line for around 30 minutes explaining to people that we all don’t play rugby in New Zealand and how I’m pretty sure more people play soccer... Once I finally made it inside we kinda squirmed our way around people and found a small patch of air where some more classmates were, we danced, talked and complained about  the lack of the space the whole night, apart from my bathroom mishap where I needed to pee, and we went to the bathroom and there was 3 identical walls and the taps and people were peeing on whatever wall they choose...so I thought. So I did the same, after 5 seconds I was kicked out and my friend was trying to explain that I wasn’t drunk for peeing on the wrong wall, just foreign. So here’s a tip everyone, when peeing on a wall, make sure it’s a wall you’re allowed to pee on. And after that mishap I returned to the cramped area and then we all decided to leave and sit outside and hangout, that was a lot nicer.. They all explained that the boliches aren’t normally that packed and so I think we’re all going to come back another night. Supposedly they don’t really care too much about ID here, I can just casually buy a bottle of Vodka if I want...

Speaking of which, My AFS advisor, Jose Luis, and I went to a pub the other night and had a beer each. I felt like a real man with my frothy mug and all, It was great. Also the other night was the 21^st birthday of my other AFS advisor who went to NZ on exchange and knows what my culture is. SO I went to his small fiesta at his apartment and hung out with the other AFS Volunteers all night as I was a bit younger than the others, I still had a lot of fun explaining swear words and when to use certain ones.  I hope Joaquin had a good pre-birthday fiesta and I hope his second one will be just as fun and better! Happy birthday again! Also the AFS girls of La Plata, you best be coming to this one. :P

Also, that little fiesta was the beginning of my long Easter weekend of laziness. Ah, bliss. Staying up late, sleeping all day, speaking a foreign language, and visiting family AND A THEMEPARK...That’s the life I want to lead. Let’s skip straight to the traditions of Easter first. Luckily enough, they have the same ones with the chocolate eggs, so I didn’t feel too far from home, we only ate two giant ones amongst each other, but it was still so good. Apart from that, as this is a country with a high catholic population, there was a lot of church services and a giant parade in La Plata and Buenos Aires celebrating Jesus and the resurrection, I kinda half wanted to go, but I only discovered it when we were watching it live on TV. Practically Jesus wanders through town with the cross and everyone follows him. It looked really neat! Apart from the religious side of Easter, we went and visited the family aswell, Grandma, Aunty, Uncle and the cousins! Such a cute family I have! We had “Asado” which is an Argentinian BBQ containing different types of meat and the famous Spanish sausage “Chorizo” It was riquísimo! But In the end, Easter still had the same feel as Easter always had and I’m pleased about that.

And for my final topic, THE THEMEPARK. Hahaha, I’m kidding, it wasn’t really a theme park with a log flume and giant rollercoaster, it was more or less a miniature Disney land hence the name, “El Republico de los Niños” which translates to “The Childrens Republic”. It’s a park made for kids and literally run by kids, the town has a vote for which child they want to be the president of the place and then that child becomes president. Simple as that! Anywho, It had little castles all over the place, a giant lake where you could rent rows boats or go on a pirate ship ride, a train that went round and round the park and if you haven’t seen my photos on Facebook yet, there was a live show of Spanish Aladdin right before the park closed! That park was a lot of fun, I want to go park and explore the rest of it, it was honestly so massive...I think, I ‘m pretty sure couldn’t actually see the barrier fence the whole time I was in there...

Well it’s 11:30pm now and I haven’t been going to bed early because it’s been such a long weekend... and so I gotta be ready to look my best at school as the token Kiwi boy. I don’t think I have anyother label apart from not being able to play volleyball at all... haha :(.
Just so everyone knows, I do miss you all and think of New Zealand every now and then but I’m also in love with my temporary home at the moment so you’ll all just have to wait for my return halfway through the year, keep living awesome lives everyone and I’ll post another blog soon!

CHAU!

PS: Just tried to add photos, but the internet is being lame, so you'll have to go to my Facebook to see pictures sorry. :)

Aventuras

Yay, New post! In this post I'm going to write about my recent adventures in Argentina, being my trip to Buenos Aires, AFS Night and the Fiesta de mi clase! But first of all, I'm going to apologise to everyone for making the worlds worst pavlova...I tried to make one for AFS, but it had no middle and the cream kinda had too much sugar and made the crusty meringue bit soggy and then most of the peaches weren't ripe enough, so we kinda just had a big pile of sweet mush which everyone said tasted good, but I'll never accept their lies :P

AFS Night

So, If you're wondering what an AFS night consists of, it's games, food and a night to hang out with the students and volunteers that are helping you along the way in your exchange. Firstly, I began the day with shopping with last minute food items with Sophie, they lack a lot of ingredients here so we had a bit of trouble trying to find everything and finding replacement foods aswell, but I think in the end, we succeeded! As Sophie and I were the selected chefs, we decided to make national foods, Mine being the failure of a Pavlova and Sophie's being Burritos as the USA doesn't have a national food except Mcds and they don't even have Mexican food here, you would've presumed that they knew what Burritos and Tortillas are..but no. They don't. However, They all loved the mexican food and said that they liked my Pavlova. :D After cooking the AFS chapter these meals, we made our way into playing that game where you have the famous person taped to your forehead and you keep asking questions until you figure out who it is. It pretty obvious when someone is Michael Jackson, because the question of "Am I black?" throws everyone into a state of not knowing what the answer actually is...Also I found it rather funny when "Kony" asked if what they were famous for was a sport. I really wanted to say yes just for a laugh, but I don't know if someone would get offended so I held my tongue. And in the end we all got to know eachother quite well and organised for a trip to Buenos Aires the following day to meet with other AFS volunteers and students, and to also be a tourist for once aswell.

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires, the city where my inner tourist came out, 178 photos the majority being to get the perfect moment of the Argentinian flag in the breeze and taking photos of ourselves in every mirror we found..even if the mirrors were just doors in La Casa Rosada... anyway...The city was maaaaaaasssssssiiiiiivvvvveeeeeee! So many skyscrapers, So many monuments! So many people! (on a sunday aswell!) I just had to take photos of everything! We spent the first half of the day roaming the city shopping and finding little nicknacks to buy. I brought myself one of those toy cameras where you look through it a take photos but it just switches the photos inside the cameras and shows you the famous sites around BA. I thought it was quite a smart buy. I also saw some ponchos that I really want to get the next time I go there, I'm not actually sure if ponchos are part of their culture but I don't care, I've always wanted a poncho just for the novelty of having one! After our shopping trip, we stopped and got some lunch at a very foreign takeaway store called something like...Subway? hehehehe, I actually prefer the subway in NZ but the fact of finding a store made me happy. Once we finished our oh so foreign meals, we made our way to meet the other students at some plaza in some place. It's easy to get lost in these big cities, so we cling to the volunteers like new born kittens and their mother...speaking of which, our kittens are going great! Soon they'll be fun and able to play with! :D Anyway... so we made it to the meeting place with the other Argentines and started the gathering to drink Mate and eat homemade biscuits and then we had a lot of time to socialize with others, we played fun games like duck duck goose and various other games I remember from year 9 and 10 Drama class :D After this ended, it was sad to say goodbye to some more lifelong friends (which I’ll hopefully see again while on my exchange) and then we returned back to La Plata running solely on AFS Spirit and nothing else.

Fiesta
For those of you who think a fiesta is a whole bunch of Mexicans dancing around holding a boy in the air who invented Stand’n’Stuff tacos, you’re wrong. Hahaha The party atmosphere here is a lot like the one in New Zealand, although I have high stereotypes of what clubbing is like here, but I don’t really think I’ll ever do that here..I’m too scared of the criminal activities and transvestites...(I saw a tranny this morning by the way). ANYWAY, So my class organised a small gathering at a country house of our friend Francisco, in order to celebrate the beginning of the year and I’d like to think welcoming me into the class but I don’t want to feel like the special kid all the time... The alcohol was tasty, everybody danced, A few games were played and there was a friendly atmosphere the whole time! Everybody is so cool in my class, I really enjoy hanging out with them, I’m actually trying to organise a primo challenge this weekend at the local park, I don’t know how well that’s going to go down as everyone can literally see you there and will probably frown upon your silly teenager competitions... Ohwell.

I’m trying to think of more to write but I just keep forgetting everything as everything is going so fast aswell! Oh, there was a cartoon with talking eggs before and they played “Walkie talkie man”. I thought that it was exciting to have a famous NZ song in a Spanish cartoon... Anyway, I’m hoping to have more to write about soon, things like the primo challenge and so on, but I’ll try to write as much as I can about the little things aswell, Chau friends, see you all soon! :D

School!

SO I know I said that I'd write a blog about my first day of school but I got so caught up in it all that now I'm writing a post about my first week at school. BUT before I do that I have news the the cat gave birth to kittens!

Three little gatitos! One black and white, one grey and white and one exactly like their mother, Ginger/grey/black spots on white. They're very cute and at the moment, not very exciting because all they do is drink milk and not open their eyes. But soon enough we we'll be able to play with them! Except there is also a sad side to this story, as one kitten died the other night. :( Poor Marco Junior wasn't drinking his milk and left this world a little early. RIP. But we can't let that hold us down, as life moves on and so do we.

SO anywho, I started school on tuesday, I only had two weeks practice of speaking spanish and bam, I was chucked into a school with only one other exchange student, who I don't know who that is still...and all the students here speak totally in spanish, and a very impressive english when they try. But I tell them not to, as I really want to improve my spanish, so it's an emergency only thing. Anyway, So my first day of school started with a long and boring speech from the principal, seems like our schools are exactly the same... After that we were taken to our first class, where our coordinator explained some new system thing blah blah blah, I don't really know, haha but now I HAVE FRIENDS! Two weeks in this country of hanging out with Sophie and Afs Volunteers and finally I have friends!

So there's this process in school called "Hora Libre" Which is caused by the non-existence of Relievers (or substitute teachers or something for you americans). Hora Libre, Translates to "Free hour", meaning that when your teacher doesn't turn up, you get the class off to go into town! I had Analysis of Visual something for three hours, but the teacher didn't turn up. SO My new friends and I went off to play soccer for three hours, I thought I would have been terrible as I kept telling them but they made me play anyway, turns out Onerahi Soccer has made me a little better and I was actually a lot better than I expected. woohoo! So through my soccer skills, I earned a place in my class!

From then on, I've been sitting in each class daydreaming a lot while the teacher speaks because I get way too tired from focusing on what they're saying. And lucky for me, I have a basis on each subject in school because of the subjects that I took at Kamo, like the topic in history turns out to be on the World wars and Russian Revolution...which are the two topics I specifically learnt about in Year 11 History, however, I don't think I'll have any basis in Political rights, whatever that class is... However, Good news is that I ace english! woo! Who saw that coming!

Also there have been so many dopplegangers that I have met on my exchange, Kellie Wharerau, Vaughan Brooke, Anthony from SMOSH and many more! It's like reminders from New Zealand are lingering everywhere! I'm also making a Pavlova tomorrow for the first time tomorrow, so wish me luck!

But apart from all that, My exchange is going really well, I have amazing friends, I have a great school, I have an awesome family, I have a typical routine. I HAVE A LIFE.

Also, Happy Saint Patrick's day and Happy Birthday Grandpa!