If you had told me at the beginning of this year that I would be going away with a bunch of people I’d never met, I would never have believed you. If you had added that it was to Rio de Janiero, Brazil, with my work, I would have thought you were losing your marbles. But, as it is, that’s what’s just happened!

It all started in August. I had been working for the company for about 2 weeks, when the email came through, saying the company’s end of year party was to be in Brazil this year and we had 10 days to confirm if we were in or out. I’ve always wanted to go to Brazil and so excitedly, I said yes!

Fast forward four months and the date finally arrived! It started with a 7pm flight for me and a long wait in the airport. After 7 hours of waiting, all parties travelling from Argentina had arrived and off we went!

The next few days were a whirlwind of activity! We arrived on Saturday and went straight out to lunch since we couldn’t yet check in to where we’d be staying. Despite all being on about 1 hours sleep, we chatted and ate and the drinks started flowing! Eventually we were able to get into our place and whilst the others went off to the beach I took a nap which did me the world of good. That evening we went out for dinner, samba music and dancing.

Sunday- we made our way to the docks and onto a boat for our end of year party! There was asado (bbq), games and of course more drinks, as well as woggles for those brave ones (me included) who wanted to take a dip in the sea. The afternoon passed by in a blur of sunshine, dancing and laughing and was an incredible way to start getting to know my new colleagues without being under such a haze of tiredness. That night we stayed in and had pizza (and I confess that I tried the Brazilian thing of chocolate on pizza for pudding and… I’m shocked to say I liked it! The base was super crunchy and tasted like biscuit. I’m sure I’m getting judgement on this but go to Brazil and try it and let me know what you think! haha).

Monday- time for some coworking, in the same actual room as our colleagues! I can’t begin to explain how bizarre it was, to put faces to names, only seen before on emails. With 22 people it was no mean feat remembering everyone’s names! But anyways, so Monday we worked and then in the afternoon we went to Pao de Acucar (Sugarloaf mountain in English), which included 4 cable cars to get there and back. Ya gal Nadz is a big fan of cable cars so I was buzzing! The views at the top were absolutely stunning. Rio is absolutely immense. Sea, mountains, rainforest and a huuuuge city all in one place. Never seen anywhere like it. Then that evening we had a free evening. One of the big departments of the company were having a team dinner so some of us who weren’t in that team decided we’d go out for dinner, a toast and the first round of “Happy Birthday” for Juan’s birthday!

Tuesday- day two of coworking. That afternoon/evening we then spent on Ipanema beach (somehow quite different to Copacabana which we went to on a previous day though I can’t remember when) and chatted, had yet more halloumi-like cheese (I made the most of this being a thing in Brazil as we don’t have it in Argentina and it’s just SO GOOD) and something called acai which looks deceptively like chocolate/ice cream but is actually a fruit! Anyways, we chilled on the beach, sang happy birthday to Juan about 10 times in all different languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, another Spanish version, Romanian, Polish..!) and then went back to the accomodation to have an asado (bbq) and sing happy birthday to poor Juan another 5 times.

Wednesday- I had the day off work. After much trying, I hadn’t been able to find anyone to go up to see Cristo el Redentor with me, however it worked out for the best as it was a cloudy day and I wouldn’t have been able to see anything! So after a decent lie in, I headed off to the beach to spend some time with some of the gals before going back to the penthouse for some lunch. After lunch five of us went for a lil hike. It took about an hour and at the top we were rewarded with such a beautiful view! As well as a friendly monkey who literally started smiling at us (more like a grimace if I’m honest), in the hope that we might have some food for him. We also saw a toucan with a black beak! Didn’t know you could get toucans with black beaks. We then got very lucky and were able to jump into a big adventurey jeep car and got to travel back to Ipanema beach in style. It was so weird, one minute being in the rainforest, then being in the city and then five minutes later on the beach!

We hung out on the beach for a bit and then since I had some reales left, popped into a few shops and got some bits and bobs but nothing terribly exciting. Got Noly’s Christmas present though so that was a score! Then we had to rush off to our goodbye dinner. It was in a “churrasqueria, and there were waiters constantly circling round with different types of meat that had been cooked on the BBQ as well as a huge buffet section with delicious food! More drinks were had and we all ended up absolutely stuffed. Soon enough it was time to head back to the penthouse, pack up our bags and prepare ourselves to leave at 6am the next morning ready to catch our 10 am flight back to Ezeiza, and then eventually back to Salta for me.

So there you are! There’s a quick summary of my time in Rio. Since I’m so new to the company it was somewhat overwhelming to begin with- a whole load of new people to meet all at once in a new place all whilst chatting in Spanish, but as soon as I’d had my nap on Saturday afternoon I soon got into it and honestly had such an incredible time. Such an amazing time, place and people. Now I will be sleeping for the next week to recover! Merry Christmas one and all xxx

It’s come to my attention recently, that I am, potentially, an oversharer. I mean, it’s probably not news to you. Particularly if you’ve been on this journey with me for the last 4 and a bit years, you might have noticed. Although, in my defence, that is kind of the purpose of a blog. It’s not particularly a two-way street!

But anyways, I digress. I confess (once again), that the title of this blog is mainly just to catch your attention. What I really want to talk about is not particularly related, but I couldn’t come up with a title to start my blog in a semi interesting way. What I really wanted to share with you, is that I got a new job!

In fact, I’ve been in this role since August. It’s a bit crazy how it all came about. Right as we were in the midst of wedding planning, preparing to come over to England whilst finishing up bits here (lessons, sorting out the little Loons and the house), I had a second message about this job opportunity. This time I listened to it and, a little begrudgingly, realised it would probably be a good fit for me. So, in all the pre-wedding, pre-coming to England, pre-getting covid AGAIN madness, it was time for me to do a job interview! Anyways, long story short, I got the job. Wahooo!!!

So when I came back from England, I jumped straight into the new job. It’s such a good fit for me and has really helped me with the transition of coming back to Argentina, after being in England. My role is that of an Academics Advisor. I work for a company that teaches all kinds of languages that you can imagine (and probably those that you don’t even know of- Tagalog, Afrikaans, Kashmiri, Uzbek, just to name a few!) all over the world, and I have to send suggested materials/lesson plans over, write profiles for the teachers who want to work for us, provide training sessions to new teachers. All things, which I have learnt to do as a teacher / like doing since I like writing. And with the economy as it is (a complete mess. It always has been but within this year it’s got markedly worse), getting the job has come as a big blessing to us financially too.

As a Christian, it really just seems to me like God is ordering my steps and opening the way up. I can’t begin to explain what a relief it is to have a secure job and not have enddlesssss lesson planning to do constantly. Plus, it’s nice to be working in a team again andddd, they’re flying us out to Brazil in December so we can all work together and have the end of year party, which I’m seriously buzzing about!!

So, there you have it! Ya gal Nadz has got herself a new job. I am still dabbling in a bit of teaching (intermediate conversation group classes y’all, hit me up if you’re interested! haha) but mainly in the new role.

Well, that’s it for me. I don’t really have a related picture, so enjoy this picture of Nolz and I when we went to the south recently!

Well, we went and did it! We had wedding celebration number 2 in England! Wahooo! And whilst I will fill you in on the wedding celebration day in a mo, I feel I can’t really start straight there as it all starts with us coming home…

The journey home this time was bizarre. It was a classic (for me at least) 40 hour journey, + Nadz being poorly, + last minute flight drama kinda situation. Our second connection was really a miracle that we got, thanks to the kindness of a few different people helping us out (and for us therefore God helping us through) where really they probably shouldn’t have. I vow not to be in a position where I’m huffing and puffing all through security, passport control and up until the gates with our big, supposed-to-be-checked–in-baggage, again! (They had closed bagdrop but they said if we could get it thru the security scanners and we made it to the gate in time they’d let us catch the flight). Then arriving at Brazil we had 20 hours to wait, so checked in to an airport hotel and it was really rather relaxing but very strange knowing we were in an airport, waiting for a flight! Anyways. The important thing is that we made it!

So we touched down, got home, and then the first week went by in a blur of appointments and busy-ness. Not surprisingly, it’s quite hard to plan a wedding whilst abroad. And we had oh so many things that needed our attention immediately when arriving. Hair and makeup trial, a trip to the florists, a meeting with the photographer, cake tasting and confirmation of what we wanted, meeting with the venue, alongside all the other wedding jobs that needed to be done- scrubbing labels off jam jars and wine bottles (shoutout to Hannah & Auntie Ray!), signs to be made, flower arch to assemble, twine on jam jars, pallets set-up (big-up to my girl Jade on both of these! and Ellie for the pallets themselves) and the list goes on…. So it was incredibly hectic. Then, Noly’s fam arrived to London, so in the midst of all the busy, crazy hectic wedding stuff, off we go to London for the day to pick em up from the airport and take em to where they were staying in London for a few days before coming back to Bracknell. Then, back to wedding things! Checking the fairylights, scouring marketplace for anything that could be helpful (good tip Isabel), working out the timings. All fairly standard things for wedding stuff but it was crazzzzyy busy. And I wasn’t working at all so allll my time was being dedicated to wedding things, and a lot of people were facilitating that too, helping with other things to free me up to do the things !

A few days before the wedding celebration we managed to do some small fam meet-ups for some of fam glover/stede’s who were around to meet fam matus, which were really lovely meet-ups and very special for us. Arg culture has a huge prominence on getting fam together and this has definitely had a huge impact on me. It was so lovely to have both of our worlds colliding and interacting. Incredibly hectic still, constantly being called to translate in this conversation, and then being whisked into another, all whilst having my own convos!! But that’s all part of life for Nolz and I haha.

So anyways, before we knew it, it was the Friday and we were whizzing through the rehearsal, bridal party lunch, a quick break for mariokart and a cup of tea (priorities) and then off we went again, loading the cars to get everything to the venue ready for the set up team (LEGENDS!) the next morning. Final last-minute dance practise for Nolz and I and off to bed…!

So after a nice, restful, relaxing nights sleep….. (lol jokes, woke up at FIVE a.m. WIDE awake AND READY TO GO), up we got! Time for hair and make-up and a delicious breakfast spread (great job Aimz). At some point through the morning Nolz was carted off to where his fam were getting ready before coming back to us STILL having our hair and makeup being completed haha. Was quite fun having “the groom” there too! Soon enough it was time to go and, despite the car taking the bridesmaids getting very diverted bc of road closures, unlike last time, we were bang on time! Couldn’t get over the fact we were actually on schedule!

Before long we were at church and waiting to go down the aisle, this time being arm in arm with Nolz! Walking in made me super emotional. This time around I knew every single person in that room, all the nearests and dearests in one place. Oof! Gave me all the feels.

The service went by in a flash and was so so so lovely! We had the songs up on the screen in Spanish and in English, dad leading the service, one of my oldest pals Emma doing the reading, Lynn doing the message (known her my whole life!), prayers for us in both English and Spanish, renewals of vows and friends/fam affirmation. It was so lovely! Then we did the whole procession out and since it was raining, meaning we couldn’t go outside, we soon found ourselves, in a konga-like state, going round the side of the church haha. We then had the big group photos, a little chat here and there, hellos and hugs before getting whisked off to make our way to the reception.

Upon arrival, the bridal party went off for some rather wet but fun photos in the gardens and rooms over the road, before going back to the main reception for more photos and milling around. Since we weren’t able to do a confetti shot at the church (one of the things I wanted the most!) we set up a confetti tunnel at the reception and goodness me! Not only did we get multiple confetti shots but we were also spewing out confetti for ages afterwards hahaha.

Next was time for food, milling around between courses, and then the speeches! We had all the classics- dad, followed by Tim my brother and Nolz- which were all so lovely and rather amusing!

After the speeches, Nolz and I popped over the road for some couple photos whilst the barn was being re-set and then back we came to cut the cake, do the first dance and the waltz, as is Argentinian tradition. It didn’t go quite to plan as the plan was for Nolz and I to do the waltz with whoever fancied it, but instead, in a sudden and rather unexpected turn of events, everyone was just suddenly there around us waltzing! Which, whilst not quite what we had anticipated, was lovely and maybe even better than the original plan haha.

A quick outfit change later for me and then back into the barn, where the barn dance had started. Love a barn dance!! It was so fun to see everyone all dancing together, young and old, fam and friends, Spanish and Argentinians etc! Have always loved barn dances (as probably you all know if you’re reading this post) and sooo loved having one at our wedding celebration.

And there you are! The evening progressed, we had a break for evening buffet and cake before round 2 of barn dance! We had planned to do sparklers but the rain didn’t really allow that (if anyone needs 90 sparklers then just hit me up lol) so we did a human arch tunnel for our exit and off we went!

I cannot even word what a day it was. It was so perfect and so special for us. Thank you so much to everyone! Everyone who came, who helped in any way, whether big or small, for everyone’s support and love. We thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it and felt so much love and joy the whole day. I’m still on a high from it to be honest. A truly incredible and unforgettable day. Thank you to everyone, we love you all ❤

One of my first blog posts I ever wrote here was called Putting On My Big Girl Pants. It seems somewhat poetic to me that after 4 years of being here (literally 4 years just gone last mongth!) I write another post along this theme. I remember vividly what I wrote about last time- I was new to living in Salta and the fusebox went when I was home alone for the month! And I also had to learn how to use a gas oven/hobs, which seemed incredibly scary and now, 4 years later, I can’t quite identify why.

Anyways, four years later and here I am putting on my big girl pants again! Although, in fairness to me, I rather think I’ve had them on continuously the last four years. After 4 years of being here, we finally went to Buenos Aires. I’ve been wanting to go for ages but haven’t wanted to go on my own (some parts of BA are a bit dubious to say the least). It’s a bit like going to England and not going to London which is a bit ridiculous so we finally did it!

The thing that pushed us to do it, was that Nolz had to go there for his work (fancy ennit! Can’t believe this actually happens in real life). So we thought I’d tag along too, lovely jubbly!

However, since Nolz was working until 6 and got back at about 6.15, this left me with a lot of time to fill. And we realised that, whilst I had never wanted to do BA on my own, I was kinda gonna have to! At about 6.30 it got dark and so we couldn’t really go out and see much after he had finished work. Time for Nadz to be brave and do the things 💪🏻 but with the added pressure of keeping myself safe and making safe decisions. Maybe it sounds like I’m being overly-cautious but basically everywhere in BA they say you need to have ya wits about ya, not walk along with ya phone in ya hand coz they’ll steal it off ya, don’t go out at night etc, and all these things were ringing in my head whenever I did anything!

Anyways, we arrived on the Monday evening and headed off to the hotel. That night Nolz and his colleagues pootled off to get some food but I stayed behind. The next day I had a morning class and then went out for lunch with one of Noly’s cousins and grandma who happened to be in BA, and then they helped me find the stop for the tourist bus. It was so good, I really enjoyed it and, uh, definitely learnt… a lot…? Y’know, they said something about some kind of thing that happened at some point and then a while later this other thing happened and then this chap was about, you know the kinda thing! V interesting but in my case I never remember anything from it about 5 mins later. But it was fun and gave me a feeling of the city! And I got off at a place called La Caminita or something like that which was fun 😊

Then that night Nolz and I took a taxi to a place like 5 mins away and went to a jazz event which was sooo cool! It was all guitars and one bass but it was so so good. The first half an hour sounded so much like monsters Inc the whole time 😂

Another day I had a class or two at random times so I headed out to a famous cafe called Cafe Tortoni. It’s a pretty old cafe, French I think, and you have to queue to get in. Funny, considering there actually were free tables inside, think they’re just tryin’a seem mysterious and exciting. But anyways, had a lovely hot chocolate and churros which scratched an itch (when I told Nolz the day before that we needed to find me some churros urgently he was like, dya just always need churros when you’re on holiday? (The answer is yes.) Throwback to our holiday in Chile).

Then, that afternoon I was just chilling out at the hotel when Nolz unexpectedly appeared! They’d let them out early from work so we jumped into a taxi and off we went to the Japanese gardens, which were so lovely! But completely baffling to have this hustling bustling city and then, right in the middle, this place of such tranquility!

After we had wandered around the gardens for a little bit we jumped into a taxi again and headed out to the theatre with Nolys work colleagues. The theatre is called Teatro Colon and is seriously impressive.

As it’s such a huge and famous theatre, we thought we’d be clever and, instead of pay an absurd amount of money for tickets, head up the stairs, keep going, keep going, up up up and get to the very top, where you were able to stand to watch. Now, I’m not going to lie, whilst it was fun in that it felt like we’d snuck in and weren’t supposed to be there, I’m not entirely sure I would recommend standing to watch opera for three hours! The opera itself was completely bizarre too. It was called “The Magic Flute” and tbf, I think it’s quite famous so it was cool to see it but it was definitely not what I was expecting! The funniest part of it all, was standing there and suddenly a glass of wine appeared in front of me. Noly’s work colleagues had smuggled a bottle and a glass in! And set to work passing it between ourselves.

After the very arduous task of standing for three hours we were starving! So off we went to grab some nosh and some very nice cocktails, though they were about 90% ice!

The next day I had some classes and was feeling in need for a bit of a rest so mainly just chilled out and then that evening we went off for a meal with some family of Noly’s who live in Buenos Aires, which was really lovely! I’d only met them a handfull of times so it was lovely to meet and chat more with them.

The next day was our final day. Nolz pootled off to work as usual and I hung out for a bit before jumping into a taxi and going to a French restaurant I had been recommended. It was honestly the best meal I’ve ever eaten in my life! It was rather unfortunate that at the time there was a bit of a drama going on for Nolz with a bank thing (now all resolved, don’t worry!) whilst I was there eating the most delicious lunch ever. But such is life!

Anyways, soon it was time to leave so I reconvened with Nolz who gave me a quick tour of his office and off we went to the airport and were back to Salta in no time.

So, there you have it! Write again soon, chau!

Living in a different culture is a bizarre thing. There’s a sort of push and pull to it. English culture vs Argentinian culture. Sticking by some of my English customs but also letting myself be moulded on some things, by the culture and way of life here.

I’ve realised recently, through a few expat events, some of the Argentinian customs that Ive embraced, without even noticing it. The first of these things being the kiss greeting. At an expat thing a few weeks ago one of the ladies got up and started leaving and I caught myself being like, “oh! She’s just going! She’s not giving us all a hug and a kiss! How strange!”, which is hilarious that I thought that, because I never much liked the whole greetings and saying goodbye to every. Single. Person thing! Well. Truthfully, if its a room full of people who I don’t know I still don’t love it like. Am I really supposed to go and say hello and give a kiss on the cheek to every single person at church, and then again when I’m leaving? Its a bit of a faff if you ask me. But in a small group of people, all of whom I know, I found it a bit odd, though I wasnt offended. And the fact that I found it odd is inherently, odd! Especially being British and having a high regard for personal space. Which, by the way, having spoken to my students recently about this, isn’t even really a concept here 😂

And then the other thing that I’ve particularly noticed, is the attitude and assumption of sharing what you have with other people around you, in terms of food. Ive come a long way since my gap year 8 years ago! I bought a packet of muffins, thinking they’d make for a perfect pick-me-up later when I was feeling a bit peckish, and I remember later the Argentinian missionary who was helping us settle into the culture, questioned why I hadnt immediately opened up the packet and offered them round! Now, it’s not that Im giving muffins out left right and centre, certainly not! But I noticed when we went to the lake a few Saturdays ago with two expat pals, myself and Noly bought along a whole load of things to share. A huge bidon of water, another drink with 4 plastic cups, a huge packet of crisps and various other snacks. And in the end, we were the only ones to have any of these things! I guess maybe in England it’s a bit forward, would you say, to accept to share? Idk, it’s funny, I just realise in these kinds of moments that this culture has had an influence on me, even without me realising it. So watch out guys! When we’re home in July I’m gonna be coming all up into ya personal space, enforcing a sharing routine and giving you a kiss on the cheek to say hi and bye! Haha.
But anyways, it’s weird and fun and cool to see the influence of culture. Now that Nolz and I are married we have our own lil mixed culture in our house. I definitely still have English customs dont worry, dinner is had by 8.30 at the latest if I have my way (that may sound late but thats pretty early here), I am a planner and I like to arrive on time! But it’s fun taking some things from one culture and mixing them and having the best of both worlds 😊

Anyways! As I mentioned, we went to the lake the other weekend and have done some things with the expats lately, so I shall leave you with some pictures of recent events, one of which being my first ever time riding solo on the jet ski!

That’s all for now though, toodles!

Well, dear blog readers, I regret to tell you that it’s happened. I have officially, and unashamedly, embraced my role as… a dog mum 😂 I always used to think it was slightly ridiculous when someone would refer to their dog as their baby, but since adopting Luna, I’ve joined the ranks 😂

Now, before you judge me too harshly, let me just defend myself slightly. We’ve had Luna for over a year now (it was her “birthday” the other day. Since she’s a street dog we don’t know when her actual birthday is but we celebrate when we adopted her as her birthday), and as I’ve mentioned before in my blog, it’s been a bit of a bumpy ride. However, the dog we have now is completely changed from when we first got her. Seeing her progress and change from an insecure, super skinny stick of a dog to a happy healthy dog has been such a joy. Whilst we’re still training her on some things, like her aversion to workmen and new people entering the house, she’s come so far and is very receptive to learning new things. Over the past few months we’ve been letting her off on walks and she’s becoming more obedient, staying close when there are cars newby and not charging into orher peoples gardens (although this probably has a 70% success rate 😂).

Anyways. I think the reason I’ve accepted the dog mum role is because of this change in her and seeing her grow and overcome things. It’s been so rewarding and just lovely. So yeah. I could go on about our little pampered pooch for ages but I don’t wish to bore you, dear readers, so I shall leave you with a few Luna shots

Since living in Argentina, I’ve always been weirdly looking forward to coming across a snake. We saw one on honeymoon on a tree but it was such an incredibly dinky little thing, I feel it didn’t really count. Well, after nearly four years of living here, I came across one! And I can say that it was actually quite scary and I am oficially not a fan 😂

To explain what happened, oddly enough, I need to go back a few years. When Nolz and I got engaged, I told myself that when I was married I’d pick up running. Now that might also sound slightly strange, but I knew by that point I’d be living in a new neighbourhood and I had been put off running in the city centre due to the various times I’d twisted my ankle just walking along the pavements in the city centre, let alone trying to run. Unbeknownst to me, when I made the decision that in future I would become a runner, I didn’t quite realise how much of my neighbourhood would be uphill. So, fast forward to March 2023, and we’re on week 5 of couch to 5k. For the first time we need to do two eight minute runs. I was highly doubtful I’d manage to get through this if any part involved an uphill, so I decided to go for the path of least resistance (or so I thought) and drive to the one part in the neighbourhood that’s nice and flat and run along there.

All was going smoothly and I, for once, was leading the charge and was up front! Well, technically, Luna was leading and the two of us were floundering behind her, but I was slightly ahead of Nolz. It seems that when I run I look down at the floor (perhaps due to so many twisted ankle experiences), because suddenly, right there in my vision, was the snake, just lying in the middle of the path. It was such a shock that it was suddenly just there that I SCREAMED which in turn startled the snake who flung itself into the air in an attempt to get away from the crazy screaming lady but therefore directly towards Noly who also screamed and jumped over it. Goodness me!! I’m not quite sure what Luna thought of the whole thing as she was further away from us and evidently trotted past the snake without noticing it thankfully.

Now, if it hadn’t suddenly been infront of me whilst I was running, I would like to think I would have reacted with no scream and calmly just moved away from it. I’m aware that’s probably the expected procedure, especially since my scream prompted such a reaction from the snake. However in our situation, whilst I definitely scared the snake out of its skin (I suspect it was having a little siesta), it was a good thing I did scream as Nolz wasn’t looking at the floor and would have stepped on it. At the point that it jumped into the air he was already nearly ontop of it and didn’t have time to go round it, hence why he jumped over it.

This is the part that has been going on repeat round in my head, seeing the snake suddenly fling itself backwards directly towards Noly. It’s part hilarious part completely horrifying!

But anyways, after the initial shock wore off, we were just so thankful to God that nothing worse happened because not only did Luna trot right past it without wanting to investigate and Noly nearly step onto it, but its markings and arrow shaped head suggest it was highly venomous so the evening could have ended up very differently.

Since then, we have been through our what-should-we-do-in-a-snake-bite protocol and have decided that we probably shan’t be going for a run again down there any time soon!

So there you are. I definitely would not recommend coming across a snake! For obvious reasons we didn’t stick around to take a photo, so I shall leave you with a completely unrelated photo of us hanging out with Nolys uncle and family when they come across from Spain. Ta ra!

Well hey there chums! Recently I did a lil post about how things are looking up. One thing I didn’t reveal, which I now can, is that I’ve finally taken the leap of faith and made the decision to stop working at the institute where I’ve been working for the past few years. It makes much more sense financially and logistically. One of the huge factors in this decision was that working at the institute took up two of my evenings, Tuesdays and Wednesdays working till 10pm. I realised that this isn’t good for me in terms of having social things in the evenings, which is really important for me as I can feel somewhat isolated living in a foreign country and living in the neighbourhood I do.

Since January I’ve not been having these classes and I cannot begin to tell you how much nicer life feels! I have a more definite cut off time for when work finishes and my own working hours, which is a dream.

So there we are! Nolz and I are both happily working from home. Nolz is still on his induction phase for the new job, which seems to be watching many’a video. Even Luna has been having a little look at what he’s been doing…!

So where I last left you was that we’d returned to Salta from Chile. We got back at about 7pm on Saturday, went to pick up our little Loons (good thing too, as she had a huge tic on her ear) and do some errands, as we had a pretty quick turn around before going away again! Thankfully we also had the whole of Sunday to get ready as our flight to Cordoba was on Monday morning. We readied ourself in the day and then in the eve pootled off to the city centre. Supposedly there was an event to celebrate the Chinese new year from 4-8, so we got there at 7 and it was already finished! I found it quite disorientating that I was in Argentina again, not Chile! But anyways, then we decided to go off to a Mexican restaurant which had been recommended to us for a quick bite and an early night and as we got there, saw one of the expat pals sat outside! So joined her and had a nice dinner there, which resulted in a much later night than planned! But was really lovely.

The next day we set off for the airport to come to Cordoba. After a 22 hour bus journey to Chile, I can’t explain how lovely a plane journey of an hour 15 is! It confuses me you can go on the plane for so short a time. I’m used to coming out to Arg which for me has often been like a 40 hour + journey door to door! But anyways, we arrived and soon found ourselves sat by the pool, telling of our Chilean adventures.

Our Córdoba holiday was very chilled! We spent the week sitting by the pool, pootling around town, going out on the boat (I did the banana boat for the first time. Great fun! And of course, as soon as Nolz took over driving, he managed to get us straight into the water!) and doing wakeboarding. In the evenings we sat around, played games or went out for food and it was just all very chill and relaxing. Oh and one night, unexpectedly, Nolz and I found ourselves going to a musical! The others went to a stand up comedy thing and we thought there would be a lot of cultural references and things I wouldn’t get so we decided to go see Kinky Boots and oh my! It was sooo good! We went in without really having much expectations. I mean, a musical about shoes? But it was great! And I impressed myself to be honest, as I followed all the Spanish and understood the songs and basically got it all ! 💪🏻 musicals just make me so happy too haha.

The weather was pretty good! Only had a thunderstorm or two in there and, unbeknownst to everyone else, for me I’m rather tanned! Which noone here really notices as the bar for being tanned is a lot higher hahaha.

But anyways, before we knew it it was time to make our way back to Salta and was the end of our holiday! So I shall leave you with some more pictures below 😜

So I’m not gonna lie, about 10 hours into the seemingly never ending bus journey to Chile, one does begin to start questionning ones life decisions. Even more so at 2am the following morning when on the world’s bumpiest bus whilst everyone around you seems, inexplicably, to be sleeping. And again, even more so when arriving in Chile in a rather sketchy bus terminal at 4.15 am, desperately needing to find solace somewhere, anywhere, until we can leave our bags at our inn. It was rather a long, drawn out wait until 8am, but we made it through! Off we went to the inn to drop off our things. We couldn’t do check in until 1 supposedly, but the inn owner took one look at us and told us to come back in an hour or two and she’d have a room she could let us sleep in until we could check in. Hallelujah!

So off we pootled! We went to the main square on a hunt for breakfast and a nose around, and soon enough we found ourselves getting stuck in to breakfast. Rather baffingly, what they offered us was a beef sandwich and a cuppa. Not quite what I anticipated a Chilean breakfast to be but gratefully we sunk our knashers in and it was pretty good!

Then, after we were fed and watered off we went in persuit of the sea, we found it and found ourselves scrambling over the rocks. I find it quite funny that in the Glover clan, if you see rocks on a beach, there’s no question that that’s where you’re going! Nolz doesn’t have this unspoken agreement in his family (confusing, I know), but has come to expect this sort of thing and now rather likes it too 😜

So after the rock exploration, we moseyed back to the inn and had the best nap of our lives, quite possibly the best nap in the history of man kind. Delicious.

That afternoon we pootled off to find some more nosh (ended up in a Peruvian restaurant somehow 😂) and went for a little wander on the nearby beach. Then we turned in for an early night but not without first ordering a dominoes! Now, I realise this is a tad ridiculous. First a Peruvian lunch, then a dominoes dinner, however! I was complaining the other day that Argentina doesnt have dominoes and my eyes happened to alight on the dominoes ad when we first arrived which made me very happy indeed…

Now, the thing is, there’s not actually loads to do in Iquique. It’s mainly a place to go and sit on the beach and have a little wander, around, eat some food, go back to the beach and brave the water if you fancy getting chilly in Chile 😉 so this is what we did the second day, a little read on the beach, lunch at some nearby food trucks, sitting on a smaller beach where Nolz braved the water and then went back out again for a hot chocolate and to watch the sunset before having a spot of dinner and retreating back to our lil Inn for the night.

Day number 3, Monday, was a couple of hours on the main beach. And goodness me, let me tell you, it’s an assault on the senses! Every five seconds there’s a vendor yelling “EMPANADAS, RICAS, CALENTITAS” then two seconds pass and “MOJIIIIITOSSS, CORONAAAA” and then a few more seconds pass and “FRUTILLAAA CON CHOCOLAAATEEEE” and that’s not even mentioning the ice cream horn that would intermittently join the cacophony of sounds, all jostling for attention. Both myself and Nolz actually quite liked all the background noise and it was quite amusing at points.

It seems that the thing to do at the beach here, is rent a sun shade. The whole beach is literally a sea of sunshades. However! It wasn’t too busy for us as we went in the morning and stayed till about 3, giving me enough time to have a little swim. The Pacific ocean is pretty cold! But the thing one is most worried about is the jellyfish, there are sooo many dead on the beach but you can also see them floating about in the sea. We were planning on eating on the beach, but typically enough, the one time we wanted the “EMPANADAS, RICAS, CALENTITAS” guy to come our way he never did! So at about 3pm, with grumbling stomachs we went off in the persuit of food.

After eating, we wandered round to the other bay and goodness me! There was basically noone there. I don’t know why everyone masses to the one beach, this one was really beautiful and basically deserted! We hung there for a bit before returning to the main beach.

On the main beach, we decided it was time to be adventurous. I’m not sure exactly what it was that we did, but imagine this huge circular inflatable thing (… okay, best if you look at the picture below), that up to 8 people can clamber up onto, thats pulled by a guy on a jetski. Now the whole purpose of this is to spin you around and around and around whilst going incredibly fast and you’re clinging on for dear life, trying not to go flying off. Sounds fun right? It was quite fun actually! Just somewhat dizzyfying. Turns out that I just laugh in these situations. They just seem incredibly funny to me but I can’t quite explain why 😂 I also noticed, whilst whirling around, a fin go up in the water a little way from us! When I told Nolz this afterwards he was rather bewildered as to how I had spotted this as he was just clinging on and there was me, giggling and looking for sea life. Anyways, I suspect it was a dolphin! Which is sighting number 2 as I think I spotted another one the other day too.

Then, after surviving whatever the above thing was, we wandered back along the beach, picking up some churros on the way! And returned to our inn. Was thinking we’d get a second wind and probably pop out again later but the second wind never came so we watched some disneyplus and called it a night.

Day number 4, off we went into the little town to pick up a few bits and bobs and have luncheon. Then, after a little afternoon siesta, off to the water park we went! If youre reading this from England, you might know what water park I mean. It’s an inflatable water course, with slides and bits to climb up and jump off of. Its good fun! Here they have one in the sea so obviously we were always gonna do that 😜

The water park was fun! Recently I’ve been doing lots of swimming as exercise so swimming out to the park was quite satisfying as I could get there quite quickly 💪🏻 and I managed to get on the water park trampolines, which I was pleased about as at my hen, part 2 in England, I didnt manage to get on them. Incredibly difficult to bounce! But still, I did it. The funniest thing about the water park was that it was in the sea. So every now and then I’d look around and be like, oh! Look! A seal! Pretty close to people swimming actually. I’m surprised by the animals here, they don’t seem super afraid of humans. I guess they’re used to the mob of people here.

After the water park antics, I felt like we deserved some more sweet treats so walking along the beach we kept our eyes right for the appropriate thing – ice cream for Nolz, churros for me! And along the beach we went, ambling back to our lil inn. Then that evening we popped out for some cocktails 😊

The next day I stuck my nose in my book all morning! We then pootled off out for some lunch and then went and sat by the sea for a bit. We went back out in the eve for our normal walk around the beach and to watch the sunset.

Day number 6 we had a beach afternoon! To avoid the sand, we invested in two beach chairs this time. Oh the luxury! It was suuuper comfy and we just hung on the beach, me reading, nolz playing a game, listening and watching the goings on around us. V nice and relaxing! And of course, we had our daily walk along the beach back to the inn 😊

Our last day, Friday, we headed off out to a nearby shopping centre to kill time! Had some Chilean pesos to use up so that was rather fun hunting around for what to spend it on 😏 then when the time came, we hopped into a taxi and headed off for the bus station for our first bus at 10pm. We were very thankful to arrive in Calama at 5am instead of 4, as our next bus was at 6am and it was very cold ! Then the rest of the journey went without a hitch and we arrived back in Salta at 7pm on Saturday.

So, there you are! The full account of our holiday to Chile. Well done if you made it this far on ma blog, it was a long one! Stay tuned for holiday part 2 😜