I’ve now been here for just over a month (say what!) as I arrived on the 30th May. I’ve spent a month working at Camelot English institute and I am now having two weeks off! It’s the winter holidays here now (weird. England’s weather is just hotting up I believe according to my sources) so no work for Nadz.
Anyways, where I left off on my last blog past was last Thursday when I was just about to head off out to an arty crafty class. I asked Sofi (a girl from church) if she wanted to come with me and so off we went! I was so glad she came with me for so many reasons, but my complete lack of sense of direction was one of them! (Plus, everything looks the same here to me because it all looks so different from England and is set up in blocks so I am forever slightly confused (well. Majorly confused) with what part of the city connects to what part.) I don’t think I ever would have arrived if it was solely up to me 😂 the studio was about 40 mins away on the bus.
It was really fun! The project is basically making a mosaic (ish) frame for a mirror. We spent most of the first session arranging the tiles, glass and bits of mirror onto the frame. Once we’d finally finished with this, we had to number them all and decide what we’re going to do with the glass tiles – i.e. paint them, stick something on them etc – and write that on them. That more or less took us to the end of the 3 hours (what can I say, I am incredibly indecisive!) and so Noly then came to pick us up and take us back. I’m super glad he came because if we’d gone on the bus I would definitely have been late for work! As it was, I got there on time but I was shattered! I think because of concentrating for so long but also spending such a long amount of time surrounded by Spanish, trying to understand it and speak it – during the lesson and before with Sofi. My brain was feeling seriously frazzled and wasn’t ready for English grammar!!
On Friday I had work from 4.30-8.40 and got paid the first big sum of money I have received here. Hurrah! This did send me into a slight (well. big) panic about my finances as the amount here is significantly less than it would be at home but I have to keep in mind that living costs are very different here, in line with what people can afford. After a pep talk from Noly and the promise that we will sit down and do some budgeting (oh joy!), I calmed down and off we went for some pizza.
Saturday was mainly taken up by being at church. Church band practise was scheduled for 3.30 and it wasn’t till we got there at just after 3.30 that we checked the whatsapps and the time had changed. In the end we didn’t start for ages after (gave me a good chance to practise speaking Spanish with different people but did tire me out somewhat) but it was decided that I would sing part of the song in English the following day! It was encouraging because they asked me if I wanted to lead and I said it’s too hard for me to lead in Spanish because of the pronunciation and Cristian (Noly’s brother) added ‘yet’ so that was encouraging! Haha. Anyways, we divied up the song (Oceans by Hillsong) and decided I’d sing verse 2, a chorus and then part of the bridge. After running an errand Nolz and I felt so knackered that we decided to not stay for youth and go home for an early night before an early start for church the next day. It makes me chuckle to myself that here an ‘early’ night means going to bed at midnight 😂
The next day, Sunday, I did it! In fact, not only did I lead part of the song once, I ended up doing it twice haha. After the preach was finished we were up again at the front and we ran out of songs we had prepared so we repeated Oceans haha. I love singing but I am not used to leading so it’s quite scary for me! I prefer being on harmonies as then I can follow someone else.
The rest of Sunday was really nice too, we all piled into Cristian & Luci’s house and had lunch there. As mentioned before, Cristian and Luci have a puppy called Dona who twice fell asleep on mine and Noly’s lap, spread between the two of us. My heart! She’s so sweet. And a little rascal too but (generally) doesn’t leap up and bite your face any more. Not as often anyways!
Monday Noly and I went to the gym and quite honestly I still haven’t quite recovered from that. I now can’t go on the treadmill without at least smiling to myself (if not laughing) after Laura (the head of Camelot) told a story about her going flying off a treadmill once as she had an itch on her leg and stopped running on it for a second. Once we’d finished at the gym we both had a big fat burger and quite right too. It was spectacular.
The rest of the day I spent recovering from the gym and was about to throw in the towel for the night when Monica (Noly’s mum) asked if I’d like to go to an art gallery showing with her and Luci that evening. Time to put my big girl shoes on (literally. Shoes here are massive, I think they’re called platform shoes) and off we go. It was such a lovely evening! Nice to do something with Noly’s family without him! Well that sounds bad but y’know, independent girl and all.
Tuesday the Matus’ invited me round for the afternoon and night because there was an Arg vs Brazil footie match on. It was also the eclipse day! I’ve never noticed an eclipse before and quite frankly, probably wouldn’t have noticed this one if Noly hadn’t told me it was coming. He’d told me not to look at the sun and so when the time came I kept sneaking glances outside (but not into the sun) thinking, is this it? Am I allowed to be looking at this? Seems pretty bright to me.. But it was only a partial eclipse in Salta. Shame! I’d have liked to see it all go proper dark! It was a bit murky and definitely darker than it had been though.
Anyways, pre-match we spent a while doing sorting bits – looking at my budget etc, y’know, all the fun stuff. Then watched the match with extended fam which Argentina lost, wah. They always seem to lose when I’m watching. Surprisingly I really enjoy watching the matches with Noly’s fam! Everyone’s fairly into football here. In fact there was a match last Friday and in 3/4 of the classes only about 3-5 students turned up!
Wednesday Noly dropped me back to Marta’s and I got myself ready for my 1:1 lesson with a student who wanted to meet in the holidays and offered to pay if we went to a cafe. Fab thinks me! So off we go and I really enjoyed it! And I got a smoothie too so happy days. After the 1:1 I walked to the shopping centre and Noly and I walked around the shops for a bit and had merienda (kinda like the snack meal of the day, usually happens at about 6ish and is the third (out of four) meals of the day).
Thursday I was chatting a lot with Marta as she’s just got back from her travels away in Spain and she was showing me bits and pieces in the apartment. Skyped a pal and then packed, ready to go away this weekend! Then Noly and I headed out to the cinema and saw the new Spider man film. Really enjoyed it and would defs recommend 😜
Now as I post this we’re off for the weekend, woop! We’re going to a place called Termas Rio Hondo and is about 6 hours away via bus. For me this is quite a long time to be travelling (although not compared to my super long plane journeys to get here) but for Argentina it’s nothing as this country is proper huge! Haha.
Anyways, hats off to you if you got to the end of this post! I’m trying to keep them relatively short but been busy and haven’t posted for a while. Over and out!
Nadia's Adventures 