In reality I don’t really feel too much like a gringa here any more, this is just my excuse to talk about cultural differences. There are occasions when I still feel like a foreigner though, especially when people gush about their feelings as I’ve always found that hard haha, but generally I don’t feel uncomfortable here. Anyways, on with some more cultural differences. I’ve covered lots of them already but here are some more that have come to mind.

1. The fashion here. I can’t really explain what’s different about the fashion here but it’s just different. It’s more bold and block colours and also lots of rhinestones and stuff. I am coming round to parts of it (though not the rhinestones. Never the rhinestones) and adapting to it but some bits I’m still not a big fan of! When I was clothes shopping with Marta & we were looking at skirts, the assistant brought a skirt along with about a billion gold studded bits on it. Horrendous. But people here wear that kinda thing. They also wear big fat platform shoes. I like some of these! But some of them I am not a fan of. (See picture below). My ones I have I call them my power shoes or my big girl shoes. (Although I like them less now that they caused me to twist my ankle 🙄)

2. The little phrases they use here are different! I’m not just talking about Spanish, but for when it’s cold they say kinda like “Tchwy” (cheewwy)! I’m not even sure what the English equivalent is but it’s definitely not tchwy! Maybe just like “oosht” or “brr”!? I’m not sure 😂 And for when something is too hot it’s like ‘toooey!’.

3. In England there is generally an unspoken rule that you a) share the food equally and b) no-one ever eats the last one of something incase someone else wants it. Well, not here! Having food is a free for all and if you want it, grab it, before someone else does! This has taken me a while to get my head around and I still sometimes forget and find myself internally counting “well I’ve had three slices which is my allocated amount so I’d better not have anything else” before I notice that someone else has just had their FOURTH slice!! I feel like this is very British. Although, maybe it’s just a my family thing because we’ve always made sure to share things out absolutely equally, even down to milimetres of drink 😂

4. It’s abso fine here if you can’t remember someone’s name, there’s no awkwardness or embarassedness at all! At family ocassions with Nolz I’ve been like “who’s that then?” And he’s like “uhm… That’s my cousin but I can’t remember their name…” Which is just bizarre 😂

5. There’s not so much tiptoeing round people here in terms of not putting people on the spot. Before at youth when we’ve been playing a game they’ve put us into teams and then called one person from each team out the front and asked a biblical question. Other time it’s been picking people and being like “Nadia, what’s the person in the blue hoodie called?”. This is funny for me as I think in England we’ve become a bit terrified of making people uncomfortable if they don’t know the answer! I’m not sure I’ve explained this one very well but basically they pick on ya publically and it’s fine if you don’t know.

6. There’s a drink here called maté which generally most people love (I’m not a fan, it basically tastes of mud and the earth for me) and it’s often a social drink so like if you’re sitting around then one person will be in charge of the maté and will pass it round to different people and everyone drinks from the same straw. What I found strange was that in one of the classes at Camelot they asked if they could drink maté and passed it round, asking if I wanted it too!

7. The emphasis here when you’re in a group is more that you’re there. If you’re on your phone it’s chill! I feel like in England there are a lot of social expectations that you have to live up to – sharing (point 5), making small talk, not being on your phone too much, remembering details about the other person and asking thought through questions etc – whereas there’s less here Id say. At least I think so!

8. The cacophony of cars beeping here is quite something. Being right in the centre of the city there is constantly a hum (or blare) of noise coming from the road outside my window. For me, I quite enjoy the background noise and it doesn’t bug me but I think it would be a mare for some people. I also don’t understand the frequency of cars beeping here. I’ve been walking along the road and a car infront of me has beeped, purely for the thrill of it from my point of view, as there were no other cars around nor even in sight! Taxis also sometimes beep or flash their lights at you if you’re walking along the road, incase you’re looking for a taxi and want them to pull over for you.

9. Present giving here is much less of a thing! At least for me and my social circle at home, we think about presents really carefully to try and strike a thoughtful and loving tone through the present. From my perspective it doesn’t seem to be that way here and you kinda just buy what you fancy! Although, perhaps this impression comes from shopping with Noly who immediately jumps to the first thing he’s laid his eyes on and declares “I think this is pretty good I’m going to buy it” and off to the till he goes.

10. Shopping. Clothes shopping here always makes feel foreign. This is linked to #1, but because the fashion is different here, I don’t gravitate towards the same clothes as other people. Whilst the clothes they gravitate to are nice I don’t generally absolutely love them. Up until recently I found it hard to be honest with expressing my opinion as generally in England unless you know the person suuuuuper well you’ll be very polite about it (generally), but the other day someone was outright honest with how much they hated something and nothing happened! Nobody died! So that was helpful for me to see 😂

Okay, there endeth my third feeling like a gringa post. I have a feeling there will be more!

After a long, busy week of planning and teaching, Friday finally arrived! Friday is usually my busiest day at Camelot but not this Friday, no sireee. This Friday was a bank holiday and the start of a weekend away for me!

So at 7.48 am, I hopped into my taxi and off I went to the airport. All went fairly smoothly apart from a fair lot of confusion about what gate I was supposed to be at. My ticket said gate 2, the lady at the check in desk said gate 1, another passenger I asked said gate 3 and I swear I heard them say over the intercom system that they were boarding at gate 6 for Cordoba. Well anyways, I managed to get on the right flight (at gate 1) and before I knew it we had landed again. My norm for a flight is about 12 hours and a total journey time of at least 24 hours, if not double that, so a flight just over an hour literally feels like nothing. In fact I get kind of confused that there are actually flights that don’t last for 12 hours as that’s just what I’m used to these days.

Again, all was going swimmingly until.. we got pulled over by the police ! Monica had left her driving license in the hotel and so got a fine for driving without it.

Onwards again and after a while we get to the hotel in Carlos Paz, a city in the province Cordoba. Upon further inspection, I found there to be loads of things to do at the hotel! Bikes in the morning, kayaks you can use on the lake in the afternoon, archery, a ropes course, a coupla pools, a kids area etc.

We whiled away the afternoon exploring and seeing fab views by the lake. Poor Nolz was starving hungry and lamented, what ended up being the refrain of the weekend, “we’re never going to eat 😭”. Always such a drama queen. Inevitably we did eventually find somewhere to eat and set to scoffing the lot.

After luncheon Javier & Moni dropped me and Nolz somewhere and we explored for a while. We wondered around an aquarium for a bit before going on the aerosillas (chair lift) which looked out over Carlos Paz. Much to Javier’s disappointment, I didn’t manage to get a good selfie on the chair lift.. alas! We wondered around at the top, had a smoothie and the like and just generally explored and chilled. After a bit we went back down the chairlift and went to the “Casper house”. This was cool! It was optical illusions and bits. Noly explained it all afterwards to me through physics haha. We were the only two who went round and there was a lot of crowd participation haha but it was fine.

After this Moni came and picked us up and we went on a lil shopping trip whilst Nolz slept in the car. Nolys cousins and their kids, who live in Cordoba, then came to join us and we had dinner together ☺️ when last I saw them Noly had to translate most things for me but was satisfying bc on the whole I understood and could chat to them a little 😊💪

The next day [Saturday] was a hotel day. Nolz and I went in one of the pools for about half an hour (typically I got burnt 🙄) before going out for some lunch. Moni and Maria Jose (Nolys cousin) went off for some more shopping but I opted to stay with the boys and go back to the hotel. We did some archery which was really fun! I, eventually after a lot of difficulty, managed to hit the red and Nolz got a bullseye on about his second or third go! He is now convinced he’s a professional archer which was also helped by the fact that he won the competition 😂 over the next few days another refrain he would say, in response to pretty much anything was “yes but did you know? I won the archery competition”! 😂

After archery was a little ropes course in the trees and a zip wire which was fun 😊

Nolz and me then headed inside to have a cocktail each because what’s a holiday without cocktails? Twas yummy 😋 and then just chilled really for the rest of the day.

On Sunday we went to Maria Jose’s church which was nice. The people there were so friendly! It reminded me a bit of how churches were in Romania when I went when I was younger. They did a whole spiel on teachers day and students day and I was bracing myself to have to go to the front but didn’t have to in the end, hurrah!

We then had lunch, did a spot more shopping before in the evening going down and sitting by the lake. This was one of my fave parts of the holiday, sitting outside just being all together. Monica got a serious case of the giggles because Nolys cousins kids were being hilarious and it was all just very joyful. After the obligatory round of photos we headed off. Said goodbye to Nolys cousins and kids and went to see a very unspectacular cockoo clock 😂 wondered around for a bit, munching on chocolate before having dinner and heading back to the hotel for sleepies.

The next day we checked out of the hotel and before heading to the airport there was just time for Nolz and I to have a quick pedalo on the lake before having our lunch and catching our flight!

All in all it’s been a really lovely holiday!! I didn’t really want to come back haha. Not only has it been so good to have a change of scene and see a little more of Argentina (I’ve come here so many times but I haven’t been to many different parts of Argentina) but was also so lovely to spend more quality time with Noly’s parents and wider family ☺️ I’m really pleased with how much more I can speak now and communicate, compared to where I used to be, and it makes me really happy!

Last week was a weird week in terms of teaching, but was quite quite intense! I say it was weird because there were two bank holidays, so it hasn’t been a full week. That being said, on one of said bank holidays (teachers day 🎉) I worked fairly solidly all day to try and get ahead on my planning for next week. It’s also been intense because I had to switch 1:1s around and squeeze in some more this week since I’m coming back from Cordoba on Monday and hence can’t do my usual 1:1s that day.

I felt super teacher-y this week! Mainly because in my class on Tuesday the students had to do a test and then I took all their tests home to mark and correct them. Can’t work out if Noly enjoys the fact that I’m a teacher or not as he often mutters to himself “I’m dating a teacher” 😂

My other teacher-y thing from last week (other than the norm) is I did my first grammar lesson here! I did it, noone collapsed (although I nearly did when my huuge stomach ache hit) and everyone seemed to understand so hurrah!

On Wednesday it was teachers day 🎉 they seem to have a “day” for something or other most days 😂 so no Camelot or 1:1s for me! I got a fair lot of planning done on this day (💪) and as a treat went out for lunch with the Nolzster.

To celebrate teachers day, the next day a fair amount of us Camelot gals went out for dinner. Twas a really nice evening and really enjoyed it! We even managed to leave at around 11 (super early for Argentine standards) and all bundled into Rocio’s car for the drop off back to various people’s places. I had needed to leave around 11 because I had a flight to catch in the morning. I’ll write about that in my next blog post so stay tuned! 😝

As you may be able to tell from my highly creative blog title, this is a quick post on some of the more noteworthy bits and pieces I’ve been up to over the last week and a bit. Before I start this post though, exciting news! This is the first time I’ve ever been in Argentina in September – say wuut! Anyways, on with the show…

Sunday 1st September – Luci’s birthday. After church we all headed to Luci & Cristian’s house and had a glorious birthday lunch, milanese, salad and the like and then a huge variety of cake. Was mega yum! Really nice to feel part of the family although did also make me miss my fam at home.

Monday 2nd September – a really exhausting day! Generally I’m feeling very settled here but Monday was a difficult day. I had an early start with one of my 1:1s that’s half an hour away and then came back, did some planning, had another 1:1, a quick phone call with Nolz and then my dad and then my sister and then headed out to meet Nolz for merienda (snack meal) for about 40 mins before meeting Vale from Camelot for a cake and a chat. I had texted Vale earlier in the day to say I was feeling a bit sad (well done me!! Being brave and talking about my feelings and all) and so we met up to chat for a bit.

Tuesday 3rd September – cabsha at Camelot!! It was Florencia’s birthday and so Laura bought cabsha just to mix it up. I’ve evidently made it very clear that cabsha is my absolute fave cake here because everyone was like, Nadia!! Your favourite! Haha. Mission achieved.

Wednesday 4th September – went back to the all you can eat breakfast with Nolz. There were also mini cabshas there. Happy Nads? You bet.

Thursday 5th September – In the evening Ale (from Camelot) popped round to Marta’s with me and we made a video. At her other work she had told her class about me and so they wrote a whole load of questions for me to answer in video format. There’s just something a little nerve-wracking about making a video but nevermind! Afters we ended up going for food which was such a nice impromptu evening of chatting, Spanish and laughter! Ale was saying maybe we could go travelling in Argentina sometime when next there are bank holidays which I would be so up for!! I haven’t really seen much of Argentina at all, just to Cafeyate, Tartagal and Iguazu falls and that’s it. Such a bad tourist haha. I also seem to have found another lass like me who likes her food! This is a very happy development in my life here. Between us we had a pizza and 6 empanadas. Mmm..

Saturday 7th September – went for a lil shopping trip with Moni, Javier & Nolz before going for luncheon. Arg has changed me! I never used to like burgers, now I could eat them any day of the week…

Oh and also, a mildly hilarious thing happened later on in this day. Walked to the shop in el tipal (Nolys neighborhood) to buy an ice cream coz was fancying one. Nolz was working so didn’t come with me but I took Lola with me. On my way back, I noticed there was a man walking behind me. Lola kept looking back behind us at the man. After a while of this, I started wondering if dogs just inherently know if someone is a bad person, hence why she kept looking back so I was like, let’s see if he’s still behind me so looked back to see if a car was coming. Yes he was still behind me! And Lola still kept looking back. I decided to cross the road and pick up the pace. I went up the drive to the house and thought well, if he sees me going in here he’s gonna know I live here! Let’s hope he doesn’t follow.. if he does I’ll run in and get Noly. (Both Nolys parents were out). Out of the corner of my eye I could see he was at the gate 😱 then started walking up the drive 😱😱 .. then started stroking Lola and I suddenly realised it was Javier (Nolys dad) 😂😂 after this whole debachle I was thinking to myself, well Javier probably now thinks I’m very rude 😂 so went and explained and he said that he figured I hadn’t recognised him (phew!) And not to worry because El tipal is safe 😂

Sunday 8th September – twas Sonia (Noly’s nanna)’s birthday so after church off we went to hers for empanadas and cake.

Well, that’s all really! This week there are two bank holidays for me- hurrah! On Wednesday it’s teacher’s day, so teacher’s get the day off and friday is a bank holiday too. I’m planning on getting ahead of myself for my planning for next week so I can relax at the weekend! I’m excited because I’m going with Noly & his fam to Cordoba for a long weekend. I don’t have Thursday off but Nolz does, so they’re flying there the day before I am and I’m heading over on Friday. Slightly ridiculous but I feel a bit nervous to be flying on my own!! This is ridiculous because I’ve flown to Argentina on my own so many times which is a considerably longer journey (somewhere between 24-50 hours is my general route) whereas this isn’t even 2 hours!! I think maybe it’s because I’ve not flown to Cordoba before but considering the end destination doesn’t really change the process of catching an aeroplane I don’t really understand myself but nevermind!!

A few quick updates!

On Saturday I had my haircut. I went with Vale, from Camelot, and she helped me, bless her, as I don’t have the Spanish vocab for haircutting and was a little worried they’d start snipping it all off. If you know me well, you know I massively dislike having my haircut! This began from a young age whereapon going to the hairdressers I produced my “haircut face”, just to let the hairdresser know I wasn’t happy at the prospect of them having their hands on my hair. I have always wanted to have long hair so getting my haircut always ends in tears (literally) as cutting it somewhat stunts this progress, though I know that in the long run its good as it will make my hair healthy and enable it to grow.

Anyways, so we found a hairdresser’s and Vale let the guy know what I wanted. Obviously I really trust her but it was still a little worrying to be sat in the chair knowing that I wouldn’t be able to communicate if I didn’t like it and wondering if I’d explained well to Vale what I was after! When he began, I looked down in sheer horror as with a quick snip of the scissors about 3 inches worth of my hair rained down upon me! Well, thought me, too late now, come what may. Anyhows, surprisingly, I think I actually kinda like the end result! I now have more layers but still a fair amount of the length. Now my hair is healthy again I’m going to try and keep it that way, grow out the layers and with any luck I’ll soon have an abundance of long swishy hair 🤞

After church on Sunday we went off for lunch together and despite feeling poorly, was pleased as managed to speak a fair load of Spanish to Nolys fam 😊 and they commented on it, saying I was speaking so much Spanish, which is always encouraging for me to hear! After lunch we went back to the Matus’ house and had some cake to celebrate Javier’s birthday as he was away for his actual birthday. I can’t remember the name of this cake but it’s a specialty from Salta and is one that I actually like! (Often cakes here are just piles and piles of cream and I’m not a big fan). Plus a cake that Marta made which was really yummy. Was pleased too because I had bought a selfie stick for Javier for his birthday as he’s a big fan of selfies! And he liked it so yay 😊

I started Monday still not feeling great but cracked on and went off to my 1:1. They were really sweet, checking if I wanted pills etc and commanding me to stay warm and get better. After my 1:1 went off to the gym with the Nolzster. (In retrospect this was a bad idea since I wasn’t feeling well but ya live and learn!)I had been pondering whether it would be a good thing for me to do more intense exercise to really get my heart going and I think I must have brought it upon myself because the trainer guy made me do some reps (lolz I think this is the term. I’m just pretending I know what I’m talking about r.e. the gym) and then running on the treadmill in between. That’s what I get for thinking these things! In truth, I only ran once and walked the other ones haha shh don’t tell anyone 🤫 after this I went to do another 1:1 and by this point was really not feeling great. The first hour was okay but the next half an hour I couldn’t really think straight but managed to soldier through. After that I headed back to Marta’s and stayed resolutely in bed watching Netflix. Typical that I get ill again when the weather is hotting up! I think my Argentinian defences are low. I always used to get bad stomach aches when I first arrived in arg the last 6 times I’ve been here but this time no! So think it’s my defences being low and the very changeable weather.

Well anyways, the next day I went to the doctor’s with Marta. After about 2 hours of waiting, finally went through to see the doctor and turns out I have pharinghytis (a throat infection), but also some accompanying bits as well, cold, bad head, sore throat and feeling really tired. Since Tuesday I’ve been basically on bed rest. It’s quite sweet because even my 1:1s whom I’ve had to cancel have texted me being like “get better soon, let me know if you need anything, drink lots of orange juice”! As someone who naturally doesn’t like doing nothing I’ve started going a little stir crazy but slowly does it..

Anyways, it’s now Saturday and I’m feeling a lot better than I was. Still coughing and coldy but my headache that I’ve had on and off for the last week is lifting so hurrah! 🎉 The plan is to have a nice chilled out weekend and then next week I shall be back to Camelot and my 1:1s in full force 💪

To aid in my recovery, feel free to shower me in praise, love, chocolate, compliments.. basically all the nice things 😉 over and out!

Gonna try and bish bash bosh this blog post out as, yknow, things to do, people to see!

Things of note that I’ve done over the last two weeks:

-Tuesday 13th, went out for a girls breakfast as it was Paula(girl from church)’s birthday. It was an all you can eat breakfast so obviously it was glorious. Will probs go with the Nolzster at some point I’m guessing 😋 couldn’t stay for as long as I would have liked as I had a 1:1 but was still nice! Turns out I can’t speak much Spanish (nor understand much) in the morning 😂

-Thursday, I went out for dinner with Vale from my work. This was really nice! We’re now basically besties fo’ lyf and have been planning funsies together ☺️

-Friday, Marta had some of us round for luncheon which was a nice time together 😊

-Saturday, went out for brunch with Nolz, wandered around a few shops then went up the mountain and just chilled for a bit together and also had a Skype with my family.

-Monday 19th, feriado! So no 1:1s or classes for me, hurrah! Some of the Camelot gals went to Rocco for merienda (snack meal) and I had cabsha (my favourite cake here) so I was happy. This was a really nice afternoon though a bit tiring for me because the place was really loud so it was hard to understand the Spanish and contribute to the conversation but it was still really nice ☺️

Thursday, got up early to go shopping (needed to buy a present for Javier’s birthday) and have brekkie with Nolz. Post breakfast, I had an hour’s 1:1 and then Noly and I went to the gym 💪 my favourite gym trainer was there – hurrah! Although, he’s running the risk of not being my favourite any more because he keeps making me do planks and abdominal exercises. Ouch.

Friday, had my busy day at work and then Nolz came picked me up and commandered the evening. I’m super bad at making decisions so he decided on the restaurant and that afters we’d go for ice cream (classic Argentine date). Twas such a nice eve!

Well, tis now Saturday and I’m planning on a chilled day of just pottering around and maybe doing little bits slowly. I’ve been feeling quite worn out lately – teaching, constantly trying to communicate with people and speaking in Spanish. It’s hard because I never get a real, proper break, so I think I need to take the chance to just chill out and just be today rather than being busy busy busy all the time. (If you are a pray-er, please pray for me with my energy levels and that I’ll be able to manage my time well. It’s difficult to get the balance of immersing myself completely into the culture and life here plus making friends but also giving myself space to just be and relax. It’s in my nature to just go go go but sometimes I really need to rest rest rest!)

That’s all for now, ta ra!

Boy meets girl. Boy dates girl. They fall in love. Easy, right? Well, not for me and Noly! Two very different cultures, worlds, lanugages and time zones are always bound to make things a bit complicated, but, genuinely by the grace of God, things have always worked out for us thus far. God has been super faithful to us and has always opened up the solution to what’s coming next at the right time- it’s been amazing. I won’t go on about it here, but if you’re interested message me.

Since arriving to Argentina a few people have, quite reasonably, asked me how it’s going with the Nolzster now I’m here, so I thought I’d wrote a blog post about it.

For those of you who have known Noly or me (or both) over the last few years, you will know we have been together for a while. In September 2015 Nolz asked me to be his girlfriend (wahoo!) and before we knew it we found ourselves plunged into a very long distance relationship. When I think about it I think it’s a bit nuts really, that both of us were willing to give such a long distance relationship a shot without having a clue how we were gonna make things work. I partly think we didn’t really think through what we were getting ourselves in for but I can’t even express how glad I am that we went for it! Nearly four years later and we’re still together and going strong. Being a long distance couple is incredibly hard. You can’t really begin to understand it unless you’ve been through it, but it has also brought us so many blessings. When you’re apart and all there is to do is talk, no dates or adventures, you get to know each other pretty well! As well as requiring a whole load of other things, trust, commitment when things get tough, good communication etc etc.

Over the last four years we have spent it going backwards and forwards between the two countries. For me, this has meant I haven’t had a summer for the last four years, as I’ve been leaving England just as we’ve been entering into summer and I get to Argentina and it’s winter! Then, when I leave, Argentina is just beginning to get warmer but I go back to England and it’s autumn. (I’m looking forward to getting at least a little summer here this year haha). It’s also made my finances quite an interesting topic but heyho 😂 that’s a working progress 😂

Over the course of our relationship we have spent various amounts of time in the other’s country. The longest being when Noly was in England for six months with Latin Link, though this was technically long distance ish as he was about an hour away from me (I’d take this over being country’s apart though haha) and the shortest being for two weeks last year at Easter and also in November/December for Cristian & Luci’s wedding. I worked it out the other day and in total we have spent a bit over one year together in the same country. I am looking forward to when I’ve been here for a while and we get to the point when we’ve been in the same country more than we’ve been apart in different countries!

As you can probably imagine, it’s so lush being in the same country as each other. Even if we’re not doing anything together it’s nice knowing he’s about 20 mins drive down the road from me. To begin with I found it kinda hard to snap out of the long distance mentality and was like, we need to make the most of every second we have together whilst we are together!! But now it’s chill. We manage to see each other most days, even if only for like. 20 mins or just working alongside each other. It’s easy to complain and always want to see him more, but after being long distance off and on for so long I can really appreciate all the blessings and things that we have, as the ‘normal’ couple things really haven’t always been a given for us.

Another thing that’s a change is that usually, we have a countdown clock in our head to when the other is leaving. It’s always at the back of our minds that ‘we’ve had half of the time together’ or ‘he’s leaving in three weeks.. two weeks.. two days..’, and whilst we try not to do this, it’s hard not to do and has been a bit frustrating to always have the end date for when we’re going to seperate again. But for now, at least, we don’t have this, which is so lush!

This time around of being together has been the most like normal life. The other times I’ve stayed in Argentina I’ve stayed at the Matus’ house and haven’t been working. Trying to balance how much we see each other alongside Nolz supporting me (being in a different country can sometimes be incredibly hard y’all) and continuing with his crazy amount of uni work was difficult to begin with but we’ve settled into a fairly good rhythm I’d say. It’s also more like normal life this time round too because I’ve started really trying to get to know other people and surround myself with different communities (By the way, I’ve been feeling so much better lately r.e. loneliness. I’ve been super busy and had various bits and pieces on so I think we’re on the up. I haven’t been down about this for a little while now so yay!) so that I have my own friends here otherwise I feel like I’m not my own person and that I’m just here as Noly’s girlfriend. In England I would do this naturally, but it’s harder for me here. Naturally, I’m kinda shy (..okay fine, fairly shy) and it takes me a while to feel comfortable with people. If you take natural shyness and the language barrier this can be somewhat of a challenge! But as long as I’m feeling generally upbeat, it can be quite fun and I think I’m beginning to rise to the challenge a bit. Being busy and having people around me is the way for me. Plus it’s definitely healthy for me to have other people to rely on and not just rely on Noly.

So yeah! I’m not sure what else to write without going mega gushy but to summarise, things are good and we’re happy 😊

From four years ago to today ❤️

I’m running out of ways to start these blog posts about my week! I was going to start this blog post saying ‘well it’s been another busy week in Argentina’ but I think I always start my weekly blog post like that because every week here seems to be very busy for me these days. In reality, I don’t even know if these blog posts about what I’m doing in my week are interesting any more as I’m in more of a routine now and it feels weird for me personally to just blog about the normal things of everyday life here, but I guess it might be nice to know what I’m up to?!

So, it’s been another busy week for me in Argentina.. (!). My weekend ended up being quite different than I had anticipated. I was supposed to be meeting two Vale’s – one from church and one from work and then I was going to a party in the evening. Basically we hadn’t planned a time for either meeting and the second Vale plan overlapped with the first so I was meant to just see the second Vale and do something else with the other Vale another day, but then the second Vale twisted her ankle (oosht) and so the first Vale thing was on! (Confusing much?). We were gonna do some DIY but unfortunately the shop didn’t have the stuff we needed (bummer) but it was still nice to go, hang out and get a change of scene. I spent a while just chilling out in the afternoon as was feeling incredibly worn out and drained from my week before turning my attention to the evenings fiesta. What to wear! If you’ve been following my blog closely, you may remember a certain new skirt Marta bought for me as an early birthday present? Leather with flowers embroidered on it. Ooh, slightly rogue for me in terms of the leather! Anyways, Marta & I worked hard to find the best combination of clothes and jewellery etc to match. It was really fun!! Getting ready for going out is always the funnest part hahaha and I always enjoy it! I’m still slightly hazy on who’s birthday it was – one person told me it was Moni’s cousin, another told me it was Noly’s – but anyhow, the party was fun and had yummy food, hurrah. We were just about to leave when some chocolate covered strawberries passed by me and so I set off in persuit to try and devour as many as possible. (Sidenote, Noly asked me the other day what my favourite fruit is. I’m not even sure! I think maybe strawberries. Especially if they come with chocolate…)

Sunday also ended up being very random. Off we went to church and was mingling a little bit afters before abandoning ship and going to a game tournament thing with Nolz. I must admit, this wasn’t my ideal way to spend my Sunday but never mind! Thought it’d be nice to go to something gamey with Noly as I’ve never before gone with him (and never will again hahaha I’m joking (..am I?)) and thought it’d be nice for him. About 4 hours later I had an excuse to leave as some of the youth group were going to a showing of Hairspray! Well. Kind of. It was about 3/4 songs but it was really good! Ro, from the church youth group, was in it and it was cool to go. After that, we all went to a cafe and had some drinkies and then after that some of us went to the cinema to see Fast & Furious 8. We had loads of 2x1s which made it really cheap! The cinema here generally is cheap when compared to England. It cost me 155 pesos which is less than £3. Fab.

Then, before I knew it it was Monday again! I have started trying to get up early at like. 8/9ish to plan my 1:1 classes and general classes so that I don’t have to do any at the weekend and can have a break, otherwise I feel really drained by the constant planning. Most of the happenings of this week was me planning classes, but had some funsies too. Here are the highlights…

-Monday, dinner with mi amor to celebrate him taking his last exam! Only until September but never mind

-Wednesday, I went on a breakfast date with Nolz which was a nice start to the day! Also was nice because otherwise we wouldn’t have seen each other for a couple of days. (Ha. I’m now so spoilt now that I can see him all the time haha). I also met a new 1:1 student group, although technically it’s 2:1. It’s an elderly couple who are 80 years old, want to learn English as they are travelling to America soon and know basically nothing. This is going to be a challenge because I can’t really explain very well in Spanish (although the things they’re learning are very basic so at the moment I know the equivalent) but I also really enjoyed! I wasn’t expecting to do a lesson with them on Wednesday but we ended up looking at some basic phrases together and it was really sweet.

-Thursday, such a nice day! After dragging myself out of bed I walked to Vale’s house (from the church, first Vale) and off we went on a DIY mission. We bought some bits for a DIY project (and I also bought some bits for DIY project numero dos) and off we went to get our DIY on. I love DIY! Then after that I went home to do yet more planning then time for Camelot. I think Thursdays class especially find me kinda cute as one of the girls was saying ‘I’m gonna adopt you!’ (although not in a patronising way haha). After class some of my colleagues and I went to a restaurant for foodies. This was really really nice! Especially because I could follow a fair amount of the group conversation and when I couldn’t they all teach English so could explain to me! And also I usually don’t like being the centre of attention, maybe because I haven’t been able to speak much in Spanish when I’ve been here before (or maybe I’m just awkward haha). Often when suddenly all eyes turn on me my mind goes blank and I panic and feel rubbish r.e. language barrier but this night I didn’t get that and that was super nice. Twas a really good evening (and the food was really good too…). We’re hoping to do more things together in the future too which will be fab.

-Friday, for the first time in aaagess Nolz and I went off to the gym. The trainer guy was super mean to me today. Usually I get the little person weights but this time he gave me some of the big boy weights. Oosht. (Well. for me they were big boy weights). I think the trainers find me funny, they said ‘como estas tu brazos?’ (how are your arms) and I responded, in truth ‘mal.’ (bad) and they laughed. Then later when they told me I’d finished and I did a little happy ‘YESSS’ gesture they laughed again haha. I think maybe I’m in the minority and everyone here is very gym-ey and there’s me struggling along with beginner-y bits haha. In the eve on Friday I had my four classes back to back. These went well and soon enough my time was up! Nolz then came to pick me up and take me back to his family house for the weekend as we’re going to the rugby tomorrow so I’m looking forward to that!

That’s all for now, chau chau!

As promised, here are my other musings about differences between England and Argentina. Personally, I find cultural differences so interesting! Hopefully you share this opinion with me otherwise you might wanna stop reading this post now as it’s probably not for you 😂

Also, extra points to anyone who noticed I changed the spelling of gringo to gringa! Ironically, this is a classic Spanish blunder. Ale, one of my fellow teachers at the institute, pointed out to me that it should be ‘gringa’ not ‘gringo’ as gringo is for a male foreigner and gringa for a female. Anyways, on with the list…

1. I feel like this is quite well known about Latin America, but being late is not a problem here, in fact it is expected! The only thing that seems to run to time (in my experience) is getting to work on time. As for anything else, just rock up when you fancy! 10 mins late, 30 mins, 60 mins, eh! It’s fine! You do you!
2. Sauces! Here, they put about five different sauces into a sandwich AT THE SAME TIME! They have way more than we do at home as well – celery mayonaise, sweetcorn, golf (mayo & ketchup mixed together), garlic and I can’t remember any more but they literally have tonnes.
3. This one I’m about to mention is potentially partly a reflection on the economic state of Argentina at the moment (although I’ve noticed it other times I’ve been here), but so often when people are talking about products they will say ‘rey barrato’ meaning soo cheap. Generally, I feel that in England we don’t like to talk too openly about money and it can be a bit of an awkward subject. I’ve found it quite difficult arranging my English 1:1 lessons as I have had to set a rate and charge for the lessons! And then accept the money from people! (I started this blog post a while ago and in reality I now have no problem demanding my money from people haha)
4. This is related to the one above, but I have absolutely no idea what is expensive here and what is cheap. 1, because I have to get up Google and convert it into pounds but also 2, because the cost of living here is different than what it is at home. This is reflected in what I earn being substantially less than what I would earn at home! I have to keep reminding myself that it’s not helpful to keep comparing to home because the living costs reflect what generally people can afford. That being said, my finances are a bit of a worry so if you are a pray-er, please keep this in your prayers.
5. A lot of people here have maids who do the cleaning, sometimes cooking and generally tidying up for them. I am so not used to this and sometimes find myself tidying before Marta’s maid comes because I don’t want her to think I am a complete sloven and want her to think I vaguely have my life together. Kind of defeats the point 😂
6. Often there are things that happen here and I’ve missed the Spanish so I can never be 100% sure what’s going on, what we’re doing or what the plan is. Something that I really don’t understand though, is why there are random trees dotted around Salta with loo roll draped (or thrown?) over them? But it’s not just one tree there’s many 😂 and everyone I’ve asked hasn’t known 🤷 if you’re from Argentina and you happen to know please put me out of my misery and tell me because I’m super curious about this one 😂
7. The way people end phone calls here is funny. One party seems to be partway through a sentence and then the other side suddenly cuts in half way through a sentence saying “OKAY THEN BYYEE” and hangs up! (I think my dad is secretly from Argentina as I’ve experienced this with him before hahaha hi dad 😇). This is suuper different than the norm in my family, where it’s like “alright, I should probably go then”, “okay, well it was lovely to have a chat”, “yeah really lovely! Have a nice rest of your day, see you soon!”, “yeah you too! Okay then, byeee!”, “Byeeee!” 😂
8. Goodness me, Argentinian people are animated. On other times when I’ve been here in Arg and I’ve been at the Matus’ house having dinner and there seems, from my point of view, to be a very heated argument going on. I sit there, sinking into my chair trying to not make a sound and not say anything that will make things worse. Then, later, I whisper to Noly, is everything okay? Do I need to be careful to not do anything or say anything about something etc and he’s like ..what? No it’s fine, they were just having a chat 😂 people like to say what they think here and aren’t afraid to share their views with people! As a very non-confrontational person this has taken some getting used to, but I’m getting better at arguing my side if I need to. Haha!
9. This is a very small observation, but whatsapp messages go off like mad here! Sometimes I come back to my phone and I have a couple of hundred messages, mainly from group chats. I scroll up the group chats and it’s pretty much all just memes. The other day I counted and I had messaged/(been in a group chat that had been active) 27 people in one day! In England I feel like people get super annoyed if there’s a billion messages in a chat and take the very mature route of passive aggressively leaving the chat 😂
10. There are certain phrases that I say in Spanish that when I say them people always just burst out laughing. Often when I say ‘mas o menos’ (more or less) and ‘divertido’ (funny). I asked why one time and they just said it’s cute the way I say these things because of my English accent.

To end, here’s a picture of the sky being pretty the other day 😍

It’s been a busy week for me here in Argentina but I will try and keep it short (ish. I have always been completely incapable of being concise so no promises). You may notice, if you’re particularly on the ball, that in this blog post I skip out Wednesday. This is because my last blog post (A ridiculous 24 hours) was dedicated to the events of this day as, spoiler alert, the day was quite ridiculous. If you haven’t read that blog post, I would skip this one and read that one instead to be honest as it was more eventful than this post is gonna be!

Well anyways, on with the show…

The plan, originally, for Monday was to get up and go to the migrations office with the Nolzster. As we were about to go, the internet people arrived at the Matus’ house to install super fast wifi, leaving us stranded at the house. Thankfully at about 2.20 Monica arrived back to the house, enabling us to go. I was worried because I had a 1:1 at 3 but needed to pop back into Marta’s to drop off my stuff and get some bits. After some rather questionnable driving from Noly, I sped into the apartment and out again and dashed to the institiute. I made it. Hurrah! Both 1:1s passed by without incident, though I’m finding one of them a bit tricky. The student in question is really not too keen to study and happily told me he never does any of his homework, which also includes the homework I set him. Sigh.

Tuesday, I can’t really even remember what happened so obviously it was a very interesting day. All I remember was that I taught the class that evening. In fact, I’m proud of myself for this, because I dealt with a minor crisis in class without exploding! The crisis was that what I was going to do with the students, half of them had already done so I quickly needed to re-route the lesson. I came up with a plan and all was fine ☺️💪

Thursday I was supposed to be going to the gym with Nolz but due to the late night the night before (3am) we ditched that whole plan. Annoyingly I woke up at about 8.30 so didn’t get all that much sleep but nevermind. I spent the day prepping for classes and 1:1s and then went off to the institute for 6pm. Laura, who usually teaches this class, was off because she had a tooth out so it was on me! Normally it’s an hour on grammar (oosht) and then an hour on speaking but I did an hour on listening instead, which Ro, one of the other teachers, showed me about 20 mins before the class. The listening side of things was okayyy but wasn’t totally seamless as I hadn’t really prepared for unknown vocab and the best way to explain things but nevermind. The speaking hour went well as I had planned this one and I enjoyed it! As did the students too. Two of them popped their heads round after the class and were like “miss we really enjoyed the lesson!” So that was sweet and encouraging ☺️ In the course of the lesson I was explaining a bit about culture shock and feeling overwhelmed and I was saying how going shopping here is hard for me and they said “miss we should help you go shopping! We can teach you what everything is” etc which was sweet ☺️ something else that made me happy was that Monica, Nolys mum, texted me to see if I was going to the event at church that evening. I didn’t end up going in the end as I was super tired after the late night the night before but it was nice that she asked me 😊

Friday I spent doing some more prep for my classes later that day and also 1:1s as well as having a nice chat with my mum and dad. I had the institute from 4.30-8.40 and therefore survived another 4 hours of teaching back to back 💪 interestingly, the class which went the worst last week went the best this week! Encouraging for me because that shows me I can plan for all different types of classes I just need to think through them for each class individually. After bossing the whole being a teacher thing (😉) I meandered back to Marta’s apartment and promptly collapsed onto my bed. Nolz came round and we had dinner and then Nolz helped me to Nadz up my room a little more. This involved re-adjusting the bunting in my room and putting up some twining so I could put some photos up. Poor love, I think he thought it’d take about 2 mins to do. Deciding where the bunting was gonna go took at least 30 mins and by this point Nolz was pretty much out 😂 but did help supervise the putting up of my twining. Ta da! Feels a bit more like moi now.

It’s now Saturday morning and I am still firmly in bed. Went to bed late and woke up super early 🙄 there is currently some kind of procession/something noisy going on in the streets outside my window currently. I really love the hustle and bustle and noise of being in the city centre! It’s cheery. Supposedly I am meeting one of the girls (Vale) from church today and then meeting a colleague from work, also called Vale, though none of these plans are set in stone! Also going to a party later so that’sa be fun! Tomorrow will be church and then, very lovingly, I am going to some gamey tournament thing with Noly. I highly suspect I shall be bored out of my brains but nevermind. Might sneak in my kindle and have a cheeky read.

Well this is all for now. Love to you all at home and hope you’re having a nice summer 😊