Tuesday this week it was a bank holiday (independence day for Argentina) and so went out for luncheon with Javier, Monica, Nolz & Marta. En route Marta said to Noly ‘a donde vamos?’ (Where are we going?) and Noly replied ‘a Dubai’ (a restaurant called Dubai). I figured this was most likely the restaurant and we were not, actually, going on a surprise trip to Dubai (although, I wouldn’t be against that) but couldn’t resist the chance to say ‘Vamos a DUBAI?!’ (We’re going to DUBAI?!) haha.
Anyways, off we went to have lunch and it was delish. Interesting to have food from a different culture! I feel like we don’t have Arabic food in England, although maybe we do and I’m just completely ignorant, who knows. It’s very yummy! Noly & I shared a thing called shawarma (kinda like a pitta bread filled with yummies) although I was tempted by the Arabic empanadas. An empanada is classic Argentinian food. It’s a bit like a cornish pasty but much smaller. The Arabic ones are my favourite though I can’t remember why especially. Generally you only eat a few, though I remember when I was on my gap year here about 4 years ago us English kids didn’t know that! I’m pretty sure I ate about 10 and one of the boys nearly ate 20!
After lunch, we went to a cross between market and second hand shop, in English terms. Here they call it a ‘feria’ which translates to a fair but that’s not quite it. I had mentioned to Monica that I wanted to buy a jacket here because the coat I have is quite long and heavy and so off on the hunt we go! I found it really sweet because there was Noly (who despises shopping), Monica, Javier & Marta all looking for coats being like ‘Nadia, try this one!’ or ‘What about this one?’ and then evaluating with me whether it was good or not. At the second little market bit we went to there were two contenders! And in the end decided on one which I’m happy with. I always get super excited when I buy something new and get to wear it for the first time 😂 It’s the small things in life that thrill me haha.
The rest of the day passed by with nothing really to report other than I was still feeling somewhat poorly so mainly just chilled the rest of the day.
Due to feeling poorly I took Wednesday quite slowly as well, not really getting up to much until the afternoon where I treated Noly to merienda (#girlpower) with my hard earned cash! (Smoothie and sandwich, as per), we came up with a vague plan for my 1:1 lesson I was going to have the following day and then went back to the Matus’ for a bit to play the crash bandicoot version of mariokart (eek!), have dinner (yum!) and watch an ep of stranger things (help!).
Thursday was the best day of my week thus far! In between the things I have mentioned, I have found this week to be quite a hard week of trying to adjust to a different culture and country, but Thursday was the first day this week where I’ve just had a full, really nice day with no getting frustrated or upset about anything so hurrah! 🥳 Plus feeling very nearly back to normal health wise (although I still can’t hear very well because my ears are constantly blocked. It’s going to be weird to resume life again at normal volume after such a long time!) so double hurrah.
Started the day quite slowly, got up, read my Bible and then started planning properly for my 1:1 student later that day. I spent the time after lunch before my 1:1 beginning to tidy my room a little bit (I’m naturally a very messy person but it does actually make me feel much better and level headed somehow if my room is tidy). Before I knew it it was time for me to head out to have my 1:1 class. It’s still the winter holidays here at the moment so we met at a coffee shop (the same one as last time) and I was greatly pleased to see that I could more or less remember the way there! Usually my sense of direction is terrible so this was gratifying. One of the first things my student said to me was ‘I have a present for you’, which to be honest, is always the best 6 words one could possibly hear, and out of his bag came a big fat lindt chocolate bar. Mmm, what a star! Top student me thinks haha. The 1:1 class went well and before I knew it it was the end of the class. Once again he covered the cost of my smoothie (major news flash by the way! I have decided banana is my preferred smoothie now. No longer is it frutilla (strawberry). Crazy news.) so happy days! The last thing he said was ‘make sure you share the chocolate with your boyfriend eh?’ to which I smiled, nodded, as if a dutiful, loving girlfriend whilst inwardly thinking to myself ‘pssht. No chance’.
I jetted back to the apartment (well. in retrospect I should have but ‘ambled back’ would be more of an apt desciption) to quickly get ready for the birthday party I was going to that evening. Nolz came to pick me up in his new car (ooh yes I forgot to mention this! He got a new car on Wednesday and didn’t tell me anything because he wanted to see my face when I saw it and him. I was very shocked and surprised and now whenever I don’t hear from him very much from whatsapp I’m like hmm.. What are you up to this time?) and back we went to his house for him to get changed and then drive there with his ‘rents.
I wasn’t sure what to expect because I’d not been to a big birthday bash here when it wasn’t in the person’s house. It was such a nice place and the food was mega superduper yummy! Before we sat down it was so lovely because I started talking to Luci in Espanol and could manage to say more or less what I wanted to say most of the time (sometimes with horrendous grammar but she could work it out) and she complimented me saying I’m learning a lot and also I’m talking quicker. That made me sooo happy and I can see that actually, some of the time I am speaking much faster in Spanish and it’s actually super satisfying to be able to. When I notice myself speaking super speedy I’m always a bit like, eyy, check me out! Haha. Also I actually managed a few funnies! Usually when I have a funnies to say I can’t explain well enough in Spanish because I forget the words or say it in a weird way or have to keep asking for the translation so by the time we get to the punchline it’s already fallen a bit flat, but for once this didn’t happen! I’ve realised in recent years I put a lot of stock into making people laugh and so it was really nice to feel a bit more like me again.
After the milling around with canapes bit off we went to go and sit at the table and have food. It was suuper yummy! Definitely want to go back there again as I think everything that comes out of the kitchen is likely to be perfection. Then there was obviously the customary happy birthday singing and then the various different cakes were cut and served up. There was cabsha!! (My all time favourite Argentinian cake) so obviously I was happy when I bagged myself a big fat slice of that bad boi. This second part of the evening was also really satisfying for me because I managed to speak to Facu, Noly’s cousin, with a little bit of help from Noly but mainly not! And I could follow their conversation more or less. I also managed to answer a question directed at me from across the table from Javier without the help of Noly, which I was super pleased about, as often I get the whole rabbit-in-the-headlight sitchu when a question is directed at me infront of lots of people and forget every bit of Spanish I know, but not today amigos! Not today. (Well. Yesterday technically but that doesn’t have the same ring to it). And then Cristian (not Luci’s Cristian, Noly’s uncle) complimented me on my improved Spanish so hurrah! As well as speaking to a few other people in Spanish I spoke with Noly a lot of the evening too. So much so that after a while he looked super tired and was practically begging me to speak in English for a bit. I was in the swing of it though and kept replying in Spanish by mistake haha. Poor love. All the correction gets a bit wearying I think. Later he told me that I go through phases – for a while I will speak almost perfectly with like. No mistakes (don’t fully believe that part haha) and then I will go through a phase when there’s 5 mistakes in every sentence (that I can believe!). Plus, apparently I now talk with intonation – used to speak really robotically before apparently! I also got super excited tonight because I was on a roll with rolling my rrr’s (see what I did there😏) and managed some really good ones! Plus, another exciting thing, I had malbec red wine. It’s supposed to be pretty decent from Argentina and I’ve never had it here. Red wine just makes me think of Christmas because of mulled wine, but actually, I didn’t hate it! Watch this space. Maybe I’m gonna turn into a red wine drinker! Gosh.
Friday – the plan for today is to go to the gym with Noly this morning whenever we wake up and then do a little bit of sorting (I need to get some bits photocopied at the photocopiers but I have no idea how to say what I need to say etc so Noly is going to help me) and then we’re planning on splitting off for a bit, for me to do some TESOL revsion (man. I was going to do so much during this winter break and literally barely done anything! Owp) and him to do revision and then later maybe go for dinner 🙂
Nadia's Adventures 