Dear reader, I confess things have been a little tumultuous lately, but things seem to be on the up again now!
After a difficult month of December, various students cancelling on me, feeling very burnt out and missing home, the cherry on top was Nolz suddenly and unexpectedly being made redundant. Oof! That came as a bit of a shock and was obviously somewhat stressful. However! Whilst it was a shock for us, we knew that God was in control and we were convinced that in the longrun it would be a blessing, even if we couldn’t see the way forwards ourselves or know what was going to happen. So Nolz finishes up at his work (he worked up until the end of December), fast forward 4 days and he has an interview and subsequently a job offer 🙌🏻
The next thing that is looking up is our sense of being in a community. After being here nearly 4 years, I finally stumbled across an expat group! It’s a truly delightful group of all sorts! Different ages and nationalities and because of this I feel like I inherently fit, ya know? There’s no one age, no one nationality, it’s a whole mix! Which is quite unusual I feel. Usually people come together because of their similarities, but this group unites in their similarity of understanding the cultural difficulties, whilst having a whole load of differences between ourselves! Whilst Nolz is obviously not an expat, he’s come along to a few things too, as a few of the ladies also have saltenian husbands, so it’s a good fit for him as well.
Thus far there have been 3 things we/I have been to: a book presentation, a girls dinner (just me on that one!) and an asado (bbq)/ pool party. I cannot even begin to explain how nice it was for me to go to the girls dinner. My own plan, not connected to anyone here, my very own thing!! And then again with the asado. So good for me 😊
And thing number 3 to fill you in on, is that we’re currently having a little holiday in Chile! But more about that in my next post 😜
By this point, it’s no secret that living abroad has its challenges. Well, I feel it shouldn’t be anyways, I’ve been banging on about it for the last three and a half years 😂 (nearly 4! How crazy is it that I’ve nearly been here 4 years by now 😱)
Anyways, recently I feel like life has been a case of two steps forward, and one step back. I decided I needed to make some changes, try and get out the house more, gain some more independence, start my own things. We put in steps to do that. I’m about to start pilates. I go to play a girls game of paddle (kinda a mix of tennis and squash) and five mins in, I twist my ankle. Oof. Time to rest. Pilates is on hold. Project independence is a little bit on hold really!
Then after that, I was hit with a whole load of health things that plagued me all in a row. My ankle was better, but then I had other things that meant I still couldn’t continue with project independence. I had weird bouts of dizziness, then a bad tummy bug for about a week and then to top it off I had a migraine. Then recently, I’ve gone from having 10 private classes to having three for the next few months. So things have been somewhat turbulent to say the least.
However! I realised recently how far I’ve come (yep, this is gonna be one of them blog posts where I big myself up haha). It was when I was watching Love is Blind (would you believe it), where there was a couple and one was from America, one was from Nigeria. For their wedding they were trying to mix the two cultures and she was trying to learn a little bit of the language, and I caught myself thinking, oh well I’m glad I didn’t have to do that! … hang on a second… Because that’s exactly what I’ve had to do! But that made me realise that for me, it feels completely normal now. It still has its challenges obviously, but I’m like, doesn’t everyone do this? It’s completely baffling to me that its become so normalised, but is a really good thing I think. Whilst I still get tired of being in a different culture, speaking the language, being far away from my friends and family back home and my own culture, it doesn’t tire me out half as much as it used to and I’m way more used to life here.
In the first year of my time here, when I was struggling, I remember my sister said to me that I’d get there. That things would get easier. And I probably wouldn’t even realise that I was there but that I would be. And I feel like I’ve now arrived 🙂
Anyways, that’s all. A short one from me today for once but I shall leave you with a picture of Nolz and I infront of a pretty flowery arch
Looking back on all the birthdays I’ve had in my time in Argentina, they’ve all been quite different. This year’s birthday was the most chilled of all. My birthday was on a Monday this year, which is generally probably one of the worst days to have a birthday. For me however, it worked out quite nicely as at the time I had no set classes on a Monday. But it did include an early morning pilates class, so I jumped out of bed and off I went to pilates.
It was only my third ever class so no-one knew it was my birthday 🤫 the teacher decided to do one of those horrendous, really hard exercises with them resistance bands, which I had also done in the Fridays class, and at that point I nearly said “but please! Its my birthday! Lets not”, but I manned up and just cracked on with it.
After pilates I made my way back home, did a bit of work, before Nolz arrived home with my luncheon 😋 (a very yummy schwarma if youre interested). Unfortunately that mornings pilates class had rather wiped me out! So had a lazy afternoon before we went out in search of dinner, which we brought back home and watched in front of a film. Nolz then sang me happy birthday and I happily tucked into a piece of cabsha (my favourite cake here, think v sweet, lots of chocolate) and returned to the film before requesting a daiquiri to top it all off 😜
So that was my actual birthday! And then on the Friday we invited some friends round for a game night which was really lovely and good fun! We ordered pizza so it was less work than when we celebrated Nolys birthday and played various different games 😊
And a very talented friend made the below for both mine and Nolys birthday, which is my absolute favourite present from this year!
One of the things that I’ve been finding difficult over the last couple of months has been the change to my level of independence.
Being in my flat in town, I was near to where everything was happening, I could easily walk to the supermarket or go off into the city centre if I so pleased, with no real planning needed to accomplish this. Of course there were also down-sides to being in my flat, some rather unexpected and perhaps not very relatable, like waking up to the sound of cockerels crowing (who, contrary to popular opinion, do not only crow at daybreak but periodically through the night) or the dogs barking and don’t even get me started on my ongoing war with the trespassing cockroaches. Ergh! Then there were some more serious ones. I always felt fairly safe in my flat, mainly due to my neighbours having various different family units in different flats and houses around me, and to get up to my flat you’d have to pass the guard dog, go up a flight of stairs and walk all the way to the back before getting to mine. But still, I wouldn’t want to be out and about at night and living on your own in a foreign country is kinda scary at points.
The neighbourhood that I’m in now, is a real blessing. We’re completely safe and secure here and walking outside at night is not a problem. We have a garden (oh how I missed having an outside space when I was in my flat!) which is lovely anyway, but also means we’re able to have our little pooch! I’m not awoken to the chorus of cockerels and don’t have the cockroach problem (thank GOODNESS). The only thing is that now, I’m cut off from town and people. Nolz and I have been working on project get Nadia driving, but I’m a while off from being able to drive on my own here. Driving here is terrifying! People view road rules more like guidelines and when I ask Nolz who has right of way he said it’s the person who’s going. Plus I don’t have a car, so I can’t just nip out in the morning, even if I was happy with the driving situation, as Nolz is already out at work with his car.
So anyways, over the last couple of months I’ve kind of slowly been coming to the realisation that I need to do something about this. With my job being a work from home kinda sitchu, this also means that I can very easily just stay at home all week if I’m not careful. So, what could I do to help this? Thinks me.. Well, up until a few months ago I had been doing online pilates classes with my mum (shoutout to you mum!), which was really lovely and enjoyable! But I realised that this is something I could do here. It would get me out of the house and get me meeting some people. And even if I didn’t speak to anyone, being able to get out the house would surely do wonders for me.
So we found a pilates class, signed me up and Nolz and I did a trial run on the bus to see the timings and when I’d need to get off and all and I was all set… With trepidation, I set off on Monday morning. My trip starts with a 25 min walk to the bus stop, a 10 min bus ride and then a 10 min walk on the other end. In classic Nadia style, I arrived 30 mins early to counteract my fear of being late to a new place and ready myself to go into a new place on my own. After my half an hour wait, in I went and… I loved it! It wasn’t quite the pilates I was expecting. With mum, we’ve just been doing it on just a mat. This one is called “pilates reformer”. You have this weird kinda bed thing which has different springs that have different amounts of resistance, and you lie back and go whizzing (sorry, I mean, you go back, in a slow and controlled manner) backwards and forwards waving your legs about in the air. If you have more coordination than me, you may also wave your arms about in opposite directions (to be fair to me, I can sometimes do the arms! with much concentration). Then after a while you do them resistance band exercises or some stuff for the arms and an hour and a half later, you’re done! And then your legs / abdominals / arms / back (or a mixture of these) ache (but in a I-did-a-good-thing-for-my-body-kinda-ache) until it’s time to go back again! (My explanation of pilates reformer is perhaps not the best. I would recommend googling it for a slightly clearer and accurate idea.)
My second class I went to was on the Friday. Usually the groups happen on Mondays and Thursdays and Tuesdays and Fridays, but I can’t do Tuesdays and Thursdays coz I have morning classes, so the teacher has let me do one on Monday and one on Friday, so I’m in different groups on the two days that I go. Amazingly, I got into the Friday class, was introduced and immediately the lady next to me clocked that I was English, started speaking to me in English (I always find this v disorientating and takes me a while to remember I should reply in English and not Spanish!) and mentioned that she’s in an expat group of people here in Salta who are from various different places, and would add me in to it. I mean, what? This was more than I was hoping for if I’m honest, I thought that maybe, if I was lucky I might make a friend or two, and even if I didn’t I was happy just getting out of the house, but meeting someone who knows a whole lot of expats?! I have since been added to the group who seem to be very active, and a hoping there will be some kind of meet up at some point soon!
So what can I say, pilates has been a big success! Oh, and something funny about the classes, is that I seem to have signed up to the two chattiest groups according to the teacher. It’s difficult for me to chip into the conversation, being a foreigner, not always being able to follow the rapid conversation topic changes and not knowing if people are talking to me or not, but it’s quite amusing lying there listening to it as they discuss all things from the local gossip to the benefits of using white soap..!
So there we are. This is phase 1 of project Nadz’s Independence. I’ve also been trying to meet up with someone once a week, outside of the house, who is not Noly or his family for coffee or something, but this one has varying levels of success. That being said, a few weeks ago I met up with someone who has links to England and she commented that there are hiking groups who go hike different places on Saturdays and she could pass me some info on one of them, which I, and also Nolz, are quite up for doing! But just waiting for my ankle to be completely healed before I follow up on that one.
But there we are! Phase 1 is in motion and I’m very pleased to have found such a good group. The days that I’ve done pilates I’ve generally just been in a really good mood and I think it does good things for me, taking myself off somewhere, on my own and doing my thing. I think being in a foreign country can quite easily strip away your independence if you’re not careful, so I’m fighting back and getting into shape at the same time.
That’s all for now chums! Coming soon, the birthday blog!
Things have been pretty busy around here lately y’all! What with various celebrations and birthdays and graduations, we’ve had quite a lot going on.
The first of all these events was the Queen’s funeral, of which I am immensenly thankful that I could watch. It’s weird when big things happen for the country and I am outside of it. I’m part of it but I’m not at the same time, so being able to watch it was a big deal for me. I’m hugely grateful to Noly’s parents for letting me steal their tv for the day haha.
The next thing we had was mum’s birthday! Then, on the Friday it was not only my brothers graduation, but also Noly’s grandma’s birthday and mine and Noly’s 7 years of being together. Quite a day! Again, I was able to watch my brothers graduation since it was being streamed online, one good thing that’s come from covid I feel. The graduation was mainly in latin which was… Interesting? But was lovely to be able to watch it and text various family members who were also watching, discussing what was going on! I don’t know if it’s the done thing to celebrate your getting together date when you are then married, but pile on the celebrations is what I say! We’ve got quite a few years under our belts of being together too so I feel like it’s worthy of celebration! That being said, we had a v low-key eve, film and pizza. What more do you need tbh?
Then, the whole of Saturday was spent getting ready for Sunday, which was Noly’s 25th birthday. At the end of Saturday I was absolutely exhausted! I started at 10am with the prep and sat down at 11pm at night. Oof! We also did a trial run of a new bus route, ready for me to start my new pilates class on the Monday (more on that in the next blog post!). And in between all of that, cakes were being made, cleaning, cooking, a trip (in fact 2, since we had underestimated quantities) to the supermarket, all of that kinda stuff. I reached 18,000 steps by the end of this day! A rather nice surprise was Noly’s rents rocking up to our house at 10pm with sushi and hands to help. We hadn’t gotten round to eating tea that night and I was kind of thinking I would never get there, so the food provisions were greatly appreciated!
After all that hard work, the day arrived! We were first on kids church and then we rushed home to heat up the food and get everything ready. It was a really lovely day of tacos, celebrating Nolz, more tacos and cake! Haha. So it was all worth it in the end, but I’m not convinved I want to go through it all so soon for my birthday next week… We’ll see what we do!
So for the last week Nolz and I have been playing tour guide. Considering we’ve both still been working and one of us has (once again) dodged up their ankle (guess who that could have been…), I think we managed to cram everything in pretty well! And most of all spend time with ma gal Ellie and have a good catch up over the last week. And any time I was in a class or otherwise occupied with work, Luna took up the mantle and took over, getting as many cuddles and licks in as possible 😉
To give you the lowdown of what we did, we went for a walk (/ bike for me, on account of my ankle) round the neighbourhood where we live, went for an evening trip up the cable car and wondered around the top of the mountain before going back down and having some dinner. Over the next few days we popped to San Lorenzo for a lil walk, went to the MAAM museum (about the INCAS and child sacrifices and all that kinda stuff) got Ellie to try all kinds of traditional things here – dulce de leche (kinda like caramel), chocotorta (cake made out of biscuits and dulce de leche basically!), cheese empanadas, mate, terere, an alfajor – went on the tourist bus, wondered around the main square and cathedral and had an ice cream (Arg has suuuch a good range of ice creams!) and went to a peña (where you can have traditional food and people turn up with instruments and sing traditional songs from their seats). We also went to the lake and joined a rather jolly tour group (11 sixty-something-year-olds who were friends from school) on a catamaran where the tourguide told us some rather dubious facts! Wasn’t quite sure how much to believe of what she was saying as she kept telling us that a few various different people who knew a thing or two about history came on the tour and kept correcting her! But what we did see was turtles! We didn’t even know there were turtles in this lake, and I definitely didn’t believe it when they said we’d see some, as we’ve been coming to this lake for ages now and didn’t know. But true enough, we saw two getting some rays in on the rocks! Once we’d finished on the catamaran Ellie & I had a little expedition out on a kayak which was really fun! Very peaceful. We went off in search of more turtles, but alas, there were no more to be found.
On the Sunday we went off to church, with me rapidly translating the preach and what was going on. Twas quite satisfying because I could basically translate all of it line by line! And also in the museum actually. A fair amount of it was translated into English but some parts weren’t and I could translate way more than I could when I was last at this museum (in Nov with my fam).
That evening we all packed our bagsies ready for the next day – Ellie to return to England and Nolz and I to go to Cafayate – and finally had enough energy and time for an evening to chill in the house and play marioparty.
So there you have it! Anyone who wants to come out we’ve worked out how to do a whistlestop tour for ya in Salta so now taking reservations 😉 I shall leave below some pics from our week. Toodleoo!
One thing that’s funny about speaking two languages is that there are some things you can express better in one language than another. I would say that being flowery and expressing your feelings is a lot easier with the Spanish language. This is partly why it’s taken me so long to start writing this blog about the time we had at home, because I feel like my English words can’t quite express how wonderful the time we had at home in England was! But finally here I am haha.
It was a busy three weeks! We crammed as much as we could into it, so I won’t go into detail about everything or you’d be here another three weeks reliving it with me, but instead I will try to be succinct (not my strong point lol).
So after about a 44 hour journey we finally arrived home! The first few days we mainly just spent chilling out and recovering, though we did get a Friday sederos lounge lunch in with Lauren, before we headed off to Devon with the fam (mum, dad, and my two sibs).
Devon was so lovely! We saw a lot of my nanna and grandad as well as lots of my uncle and auntie’s whilst there! These gatherings were nearly all based around food! We had essentially a Christmas dinner done by my lovely Nanna (I walked into their house and it smelt like Christmas! It was lovely. And we had my favourite Christmas thing of pigs in blankets! (Sausages wrapped in bacon)), a pizza evening with my uncle and aunt, a meal out with another auntie and cousin as well as fish and chips on the beach! (Well, kind of. It was on an estuary that goes out to the sea). This had been one of my requests though! In the months leading up to going home Nolz and I compiled a list of the food we’ve missed and put in our requests!). Oh and we also had scones and cream, again made by Nanna at their house.
With the fam clan we went to a place called Clovelly which was really beautiful and one of my favourite things we did in Devon. It’s a harbour village but I believe now is mainly just tourists going there to have a nose, it’s very pretty! But quite hard work on the legs and knees as it is very steep to return back to the top! We also had pasties there because of course. I sent Noly’s family a picture of them as in shape they are a bit like Argentinian empanadas, just much much bigger!
One evening the sibs and I went for an evening beach walk (theirs turned into a beach run but I declined to join them on that one!). Another day we had a beach day and did body boarding in the sea which was good fun! But rather hard work! We also went for a couple of evening paddle board sessions. I couldn’t believe how psychological paddle boarding is! The second I tried to stand up my knees started quivering like crazy and when I told them “NO you’re fine”, they chilled out again! Such a mind game. We also went for a coastal walk and another sit on a different beach which was really lovely!
We returned on the Friday and the Saturday was spent half, on a big shopping trip by Aimz & I, and half preparing for the big family BBQ we were having the following day.
The BBQ was really lovely! Lots of the cousins and aunts & uncles on mum’s side who are mainly in Reading and nearbyish got together and we had a lovely afternoon spent eating (of course), nattering and in part watching the women’s finals!
Then on the Monday eve off we went to Guildford to catch up with ma gal Chloe, Tuesday we saw ma gal Ellie at our house and then on Thursday got in a brown bag with Jadeybabes and then double dated it for dinner with Jade’s bf Michael joining us too. We also had a lovely lunch at Auntie Ray’s and saw another aunt and uncle in the morning on Thursday who popped round for an hour or so and a cup of tea! And in fact, we also went to see our wedding celebration venue in person! We’d seen it through photos sent over by mum and dad but not in person. Obviously we asked many’a questions and had a little meeting about it all.
On the Saturday we had my hen! I was brought into the loop about what the vague plan was on Friday evening as people started turning up to help decorate and make over the garden, which was a lot of fun!
The day started at about 9.30 with breakfast and craft at our house! We then pootled off to the Caversham water park which was sooo much fun! Of course, as the “bride-to-be/been” I was the one who fell off and quite probably sprained my shoulder haha, but thankfully it wasn’t too bad and the ache went down throughout the time we were there and the day generally. I can’t believe how quick 50 mins went by though! We didn’t quite get round the water park but we got a good lot of it done. I’m not sure there are waterparks like that here in Arg, so just to explain it’s like a whole course of inflatables in the river with slides and bits you can jump off and obstacle course race bits to race someone on. So much fun!
Then we got back to the house, showered and lunched and then went onto our next craft which was decorating glass tea light containers with pressed flowers which was v fiddly but rather satisfying! I was banned from the kitchen but there was a great spread of cakes and goodies to eat which people would bring out to me haha.
We then did cocktails but one person was the eyes, giving the instructions and one person was the arms, carrying out the instructions without being able to see! Which led to a rather lime heavy cocktail for myself and others putting in double the amount of vodka needed and things like that! We then did a Mr & Mrs style quiz which was really quite hilarious and resulted in me winning a British Abroad kit of things – british tea, an umbrella, a british keyring, cadburys chocolate, a british bag and then a photo album with notes from everyone at the hen. After the quiz we had an Indian takeaway and then moved onto the final part of the night which was firepits and marshmellows! Nolz was finally allowed to join for this bit (the boys had been banished from the house and taken themselves off to do some paddle boarding earlier in the day haha). People floated away at various different points and the impromptu end to the night was with Ellie and then subbed in with Amy when Ellie left, a round of mario kart in the tent in the garden. I cannot begin to describe how lovely this day was! It was so nice for me to be able to celebrate with my British gals as well as having already celebrated with my Arg gals aha. It made me feel really quite emotional all the effort everyone had put in for me! And was so so lovely.
Then on the Sunday we went round to another auntie and uncles for a cuppa and catch up which was really nice!
Our next thing was another lil shopping trip on the tuesday and then in the evening we had food tasting for our next year’s wedding celebration which was really fun! Not done that kinda thing before! (Apart from the cake tasting last year) and thoroughly enjoyed it! Especially the wine they kept bringing for us to try 😉 then after the food tasting mum and dad swapped out and we had a catch up with our pals Adam and Emma which was lush!
Then the following day off we went to London to see Isabel and Matt! Who very kindly put us up for the night and cooked a delicious lasagne for us on the weds eve, then on the Thursday morning out for brunch we went! Before saying our goodbyes and then Nolz and I made our way to the theatre. We saw Hamilton which was amazing! Thoroughly enjoyed every part of it. Then we made our way back home, packed our bilbobaginses (our bags lol) and the next day it was time to make the journey back to Argentina.
So there you are! A whistle stop tour of our three weeks home. I can’t express how lovely it was to come back home and see friends and fam and after two and a half years of not being home it was v much needed! That’s all from me for now. Ta ra!
In June Nolz and I were pondering going on a little holiday for a long weekend. I then had a doctors appointment and he essentially prescribed me to go on a holiday, so we happily obliged!
We went to a place called Cabra Corral. It’s about an hour away and if you’ve been a dedicated or long term reader of my blog you will have seen references to it. It’s where we’ve gone before to go wakeboarding 😊
Anyways, we arrived on a Friday (the joy of bank holidays!) at about lunch time. After grabbing some nosh (pejerrey, the classic thing to eat at the lake, fish and chips basically) we checked in to our little inn and went for an explore in the car around the lake before having a cheeky hot chocolate and stroll by the lake and retreating back to our lil inn for the night.
The next day we checked out of our little Inn and moved over to the glamping they had outside. I didn’t actually take any pics of the inside but it was kitted out really nicely!
Off we went again to explore! We went on a little boat over to an island in the middle of the lake. We went on the front of the boat (with life jackets ofc) bc there wasn’t enough room inside. Pretty sure that wouldn’t be allowed in England lol but it was fun!
We hung around on the island for a while, met the only inhabitant (a very large llama who was rather keen on watermelon), snapped a few pics before whizzing off down the zip wire from one part of the island to another!
Then twas time to get on a boat and go back again in time for some lunch. We then went back to our little glamping place to chill for a bit and at about 6 headed off again with a thermos, some banana cake and some biscuits (what more could you want?) and had our little feast picnic overlooking the lake. Sounds quite tranquil right? Well, it was lovely but you would not believe the amount of sounds parrots make!! There was a whole load of them in the trees down by the lake and they seemeed to be having a very raucous time of it.
After a while we pootled back and just chilled out and watched a film for the eve.
The next day, on Sunday, we went for a wander by the lake and then went for lunch. Then upon returning to our glamping place we went for a lil walk and then just hung out for the rest of the afternoon and evening, playing games and watching a film.
On Monday was our checkout so we packed our little bags and returned to Salta. With much trepidation we had left our little Loons with her doggie friends at Noly’s parents house. They had also gone away for the weekend so we were quite anxious to get back to Luna, make sure she hadn’t escaped or wasn’t incredibly scarred by the whole thing. Well, we got back and all three dogs were absolutely fine! Pretty happy to see us, as to be expected, but all in one piece thankfully!
So there we are! That was our little June adventure! Soon we’ll be back on English soil so I expect you’ll be hearing from me again soon. Toodleoo!
So, it’s been three months since we’ve had our little Luny with us! I won’t lie, now I finally understand why people start instagram accounts for their dogs. I was quite tempted to make one aha but instead am wondering if instead of having my blog as Nadia’s Adventures I should have Luna’s Adventures as these days I feel like I don’t have all that much to talk about! So watch this space in case I activate the Luny adventures 😉
Anyways, the last time I wrote about Luna was quite early on and I’m happy to say she’s a completely changed doggo now! It’s really weird thinking back now to how she was early on. If you didn’t read the blog post, she had really bad separation anxiety and was really quite traumatised when she was first left with us. Then, she kept her eagle eyes on us constantly, making sure we weren’t going to abandon her and would cry and howl if we left, trying to bribe us into taking her wherever we were going. Little by little she got less clingy and would stop being on guard mode whenever we went somewhere and didn’t have to constantly know where we were. Now she’s completely fine! She’s even taken herself off next door to visit the neighbours dog and play with her a coupla times when we left the gate open by mistake. She also happily plays with the dogs in the family without us being present. Before she was determined not to and would sit at the window staring in at us and letting us know she was keeping an eye on us. If we went outside she’d feel comfortable enough to go and play with the dogs but as soon as we left again she would return to her post. Well now this is not the case and it is so lovely to see! She seems like such a happy, stable and secure dog now.
She has also successfully managed two weekends without us! It might sound silly to say we were anxious about leaving her coz, y’know, she’s just a dog, but honestly if you’d seen her the first coupla weeks… Anyways, we left her with Cristian and Luci for the weekend and I briefed them on a whole load of things, if she howls, ignore her (otherwise it reinforces it), she often doesn’t eat much, it’s chill don’t worry about it, she’s an escape artist so watch out! and i am oh sooo sorry if she wees in the night (she did in the beginning when she was unsettled). We returned from our weekend away (this was the weekend away we had in Cafayate which I wrote about in ma last post), and apparently she’d had the time of her life! Absolutely fine, didn’t seem bothered at all that we weren’t there! Cristian and Luci have a dog and they just spent the whole time playing together. Apparently whatever Dona would do (their dog, funny name to English people I know!), Luna would do. If Dona played, Luna played. If Dona ate her food, Luna ate her food (and all of it! Which she barely ever does). If Dona went to sleep in her bed, Luna went to sleep in her bed. So yeah, they had a lovely weekend playing together! This was weekend number 1 away.
Then the next weekend, Nolz and I went away for the weekend (incoming blog on this soon!), and as did Nolys fam, so the dogs were left home alone, just the three of em for the weekend. This I felt a lot of trepidation about. Thinking she’d escape and no-one would be there to rescue her, that she’d feel abandoned and alone or that she’d somehow tear the house down in her stress and we’d return to utter chaos. But when we came back, everything was all in one piece! Little Loons was obvs very happy to see us and for us to be back but she didn’t seem to be traumatised!
So these two weekends have made me feel better about our upcoming trip to England where we will be gone for three weeks!
Whilst we’re talking about Luna, she recently got a gig as a Christmas elf. Unfortunately the outfit was not her favourite thing and a little bit too big for her… so it was donated to a very willing friend!
Another of the recent doggie happenings was she had a friend over for a playdate! Luny and I were just quietly minding our own business at home, Nolz came home from work and then in lollops Dona through the gate! She had escaped Cristian and Luci’s, made her way to our house (it’s about 5 mins walk away but how clever of Dona to have worked out where to go!) to instigate an afternoon of playing with our little Loons.
Well anyways, I feel like I could natter on aimlessly about Luny for a good while but I shall spare you the blow-by-blow aha but maybe I’ll do other instalments of little Loons in future. What d’ya reckon?! I shall leave you some pictures of her for your perusal 😜
So a few weeks ago, after months of waiting and rather a long journey, my parents finally arrived! I still find it completely baffling when people turn up after being so far away, and then suddenly, they’re here right in front of you, but I’m most definitely a fan!
Anyways, I thought I should give you the download on what we got up to whilst they were here.
So they arrived on the Thursday, had the obligatory house tour, met the dog, said a quick hello to the Matus’ and generally just hung out a little bit before turning in for the night.
The next day we mainly just chilled out, giving mum and dad some time to relax after the long journey, but in the eve we had our first ever asado in our house, done by chef Noly and Cristian! Unfortunately we forgot to warn mum and dad not to fill themselves up too much on the salads and breads and things so by the time the beef was ready they were already fairly full, though they did get a good taste still.
Then on the Saturday we went out in search of the tourist bus, which was bizarrely signposted to be in a different place than it ended up being (welcome to Argentina), grabbed a quick bite to eat and off on the bus we went! Nolz and I were of the younger demographic and we were all slightly amused when the bus started playing v traditional music and all the old ladies merrily started singing along!
The bus was fun, it took us around various different places and had a commentary in Spanish and English. This confused me so much that I could only half pay attention to each translation resulting in me not really paying attention to any of the commentary at all. Anyways, we pootled around and got off here and there and generally had a really fun time! At one point Nolz started talking to one of the old ladies, bringing me into the conversation, which got another old ladies’ attention who started asking about our relationship and soon enough about half of the ladies on the bus had turned round to hear how an English lass had ended up getting married to a Saltenian (they love their relationship stories here) 😂
Once we’d finished on the bus we ambled back home and retired for the night. Somehow its v tiring being out in the wind! Bot quite sure why.
The next day, Sunday, was the classic Sunday. Church, then we had lunch out at the golf course, meaning dad could get his teeth into some steak, and back to Nolys parents for tea and cake 😊
On Monday we went out to the castle in San Lorenzo for a cuppa tea and sandwiches and on the Tuesday morning mum dad and I had a little explore round San Lorenzo (Nolz was at work). I had been longing to see some toucans and, after willing it for so long, believe it or not we spotted some in the trees just randomly!
The next day, Wednesday, was census day! So we had to be in our houses until the census person came by and it was a lucky dip as to what time they swung by. I had a private class in the morning and, we were quite lucky in that the census person came at about 2 in the afternoon, meaning we could then leave! So off we went to San bernado Hill to walk up it. We didn’t get all the way up to the top (I did it once on my gap year and it took a v long time), but it was nice even still 😊
Then in the eve we went to Nolys parents to celebrate Monica’s birthday 😊
On the Thursday we had a chilled day and then on the Friday after Nolz finished work off we went to Cafayate! (the place that looks a bit like the Grand Canyon. It’s about three hours away and the drive there is amazing! It’s like driving thru the grand canyon).
We had a really really lovely time in Cafa! And my goodness we ate a lot of food. If we weren’t eating food, we were thinking about what we were gonna be eating next! We also went to my favourite place in cafayate which is the Viñas en Flor vineyard 😍 and we went to the wine museum (a museum I actually enjoy! Surprisingly.), as well as more food places and an artesanal Market 😊 it was such a lovely weekend away! And nice to be a few fewer in number so both families could chat and connect 😊
Soon it was time to pootle back off to Salta, so off we went. On the Monday we had a chilled day just hanging out and went for a little walk in the neighbourhood we live in. The next day, Tuesday, we went off in search of some museums. We had three in mind and, would you believe it, all three of them were closed, despite, mockingly, saying on the internet and outside each museum that they were open on Tuesdays so off we went to have a cuppa tea and cake. I told mum and dad this was a good induction into Argentinian culture and life and enjoyed my cake. Probably worked out best for me in the end if we’re honest. Not a huge museum fan if you hadn’t already picked up on that vibe…
Then the next day we had a farewell dinner for mum and dad at our house and soon enough it was Thursday and once more I found myself at the airport saying goodbye to loved ones… I think no matter how long I’ve been away it will always be sad seeing people leave, always somewhat bittersweet, but we had a really lovely time together and it’s not long now till we’ll be jetting off to England!
Now, if you’ve reached this point I applaud you for getting through this whole blog post (it’s a pretty mammoth one!) and don’t like to keep you much longer! I just have a prayer request for anyone who prays and would like to pray for me. I’ve had quite a lot going on over the last couple of months (/years tbh) and I’m pretty exhausted, which has led to me getting a few bouts of colds and things like that. The combination of all this hasn’t been especially good for my mood either! And living abroad is a tiring thing on top of all these things. Please pray along these lines for strength and energy over me and all those kinds of things. Thank you in advance!
Much love to all at home and those here as well, xxoxox
Nadia's Adventures 