Getting to know my friends and other such things

I cannot believe it has been a week since I last wrote (and like I swear I say this every time I write here) but what the heck?!?!?! Like I went onto my blog to see what I last wrote about and what I needed to update you guys on and I can't believe I updated it this time last week... I swear it can't have been more than 3 days max.. Anyway here we have my blog for the week:

Firstly I’m going to tell you a little bit about each of my classmates so that in the future, if you don’t know who I am talking about, you can refer back to here haha. I have also included a photo so you can know what they look like (to visualise them if you want ahah).

Starting from the left in the back:

Agostina Alignani - She is really really lovely and gorgeous and is always willing to explain things to me and help me with things which I honestly appreciate so much. I'm not with her a lot of the time outside of school as she doesn't really hang out with this group so much as she has loads of other friends outside of school (and a bf to occupy her time) but she sits in front of me in school and so she is someone who I spend quite a bit of time with in class. 

To the right:

Flor Bacci - Flor is a very bubbly and happy person. She is a dancer and is someone who I really want to get to know more as I haven't spent too much time with her as we don't sit together in class. She is super involved in everything and she is someone who I know will go very far in life as she is an all rounder.

To the right:

Lara Simian - Lara went on an exchange to America with Rotary for 3 months over the summer and every time she talks about America and her experiences it’s so cool to see how they relate with mine. She is so lovely and also someone who I am really appreciative to have in my class as she understands what I am going through and is always around to include me or make me smile. She is also just in general a really really lovely person.

To the right:

Guadalupe Polo (sometimes I might refer to her as Lupe) - Lupe is the person who I share a desk with and she is quite a mature person. She is very funny and I love her laugh haha. She always voices what she thinks and doesn’t care what other people think of her which is so cool. She also doesn’t work too much in class and so often we are quite far behind everyone else as often I don’t understand and she doesn’t listen haha but I love her.

Directly in front of me:

Kimberly Pepicelli - Kimberly is someone who I haven’t really gotten to know too well as she doesn't sit very near to me at school and yet from what I know she is very very nice. She is someone who is always engaged and willing to help people. She is studious and very good at volleyball. She also is someone who I'd like to get to know better.

To the right:

Milena Garro - Milena is someone who is very very sporty. I honestly really like her. She always tries to include me and make sure that I am okay. She is also very studious (more so than a lot of the others haha) and is one of the first people that I remember meeting from my course. She is in all honesty just a great person. 

To the right and back a little bit:

Huerti Zegatti - Huerti lives quite close to me and so often we end up walking and talking together after school. I really love her personality, she is bubbly and has an infectious smile. She is someone who also has made an effort to get to know me and talk to me which I really appreciate as I know for a lot of people, talking to a person who doesn't speak the language too well is a lot of effort. She is also very gorgeous. 

In front of Huerti and a little bit to the right leaning in:

Lucila Domizi - Lucila is so cool, she’s like a little ball of energy haha. She is always laughing and smiling. She is also a dancer and someone who has also made an effort with me, to get to know me. She is someone who is always in the middle of everything, often right at the heart of it and she reminds me a lot of my friends back home and the type of people who I love. She is also very funny when she is drinking ahah. 

Now to the left of Lucila and squatting down (basically bottom right hand corner):

Gimena Tejada - Gimena is someone who I adore. She never seems phased that I don't speak perfect Spanish and treats me as if I am just some normal Argentinian which I like. She is also quite mature and is the oldest out of all of us (as she is already 18). She always makes me laugh and I get on really well with her. She has a big personality and doesn't really care what people think of her which is so great. She's also someone who, if for example there's a circle and due to some reason I end up a bit out of it, she will call people out and like bring me into the circle. 

To the left:

Candela Tobaldi - Candela is a bit more quiet than the others and lives very near to me. She is so kind and is always someone who I walk home with and so have gotten to know on a more personal level. She's also a dancer and is very caring and an honest to goodness great person! She's hardworking and yet knows how to have a good time and yeah I like her a lot.

To the left:

Gina Antonini - Gina is such an amazing person, she’s a dancer (an incredible one from what I gather as she wants to do it for a career) and is honestly so so crazy and big and out there in the best way possible. She has a big heart and is also really compassionate. She never fails to make me smile and she is also so funny when she drinks hahahaha (very much like Lucila). I have lots of time for her.

To the left:

Ana Morales - Ana is the funniest person in the group hahahaha. She is also someone who is so out there like she is always doing crazy things (for example she marched into the boys bathroom the other day to try and find someone who she wanted to introduce me too) hahaha. She is always someone who will go out of there was to explain things to me if I don’t understand and is so much fun to party with because she is always doing crazy things and making me laugh.

Others that aren't in this photo and a part of a different group are:

Priscilla Perez (sometimes I might refer to her as Pri) - Priscilla is someone who always thinks of others first and is the person who probably most goes out of her way to make sure that I am okay. She is super accepting of everyone and very studious. She has a gorgeous smile and I often will chat with her in class. I really like her.

Mica Bona - Mica is very very quiet from my experiences with her. She is one of the first people that I had a long conversation with as just two people. She is very nice and 

Karen Mondino - I really like Karen. She is so lovely and is someone who is very selfless and very helpful. She also goes out of her way to help me without me even asking which is a trait that I really appreciate as an exchange student. She is honestly just a really really great overall person.

Angelica Loza (sometimes I might refer to her as Ange) - I didn't really know Ange until Friday and she is someone who has quite a big personality haha. She is very loud and isn't afraid to voice her opinions. She is very sweet and also very studious.

Agustina Quiroga - Agustina  is someone who is quite quiet in class but one time I went home on the back of her motorbike (nearly everyone uses motos to get around here) and she is someone who is very selfless. She will always offer me lifts or speak with me when I am around. I really like her and want to get to know her better.

Lucia Urcia - I don't really know Lucia too well, but from what I know, she is very studious and a really nice person.

I don’t really know the guys too well yet and in truth the class is quite segregated majority of the time (although not in the boliches haha) and with time maybe I will do another character profile type thing on them but yeah for now just the girls of my course.

So yeah in summary those are the girls of my course and I honestly love them all so so much. I am so lucky to be blessed with such amazing friends and I cannot wait for this year to bring many memories together.

Now for the normal kind of stuff:

Something I think is a sign of major improvement in terms of my language skills and my confidence in them, is that now I don't get nervous at the idea of having to have a conversation with people one on one. I think this shows improvement and confidence in my ability to hold a normal conversation with someone without the distraction of other people. I remember the first time I had to walk somewhere with someone one on one and hold a conversation, my heart was in my throat and I swear I was physically shaking I was so nervous.

The weather here is honestly loco (crazy). The day before yesterday we had temperatures of 30-37 degrees and then suddenly yesterday the weather decided that it wanted a change, and suddenly we now have temperatures of 13 degrees. For me the weather feels numbingly cold and I think this is because of the sudden shift in the weather. Hopefully it settles down soon, preferably somewhere in the middle

On Thursday it was the birthday of Juli (one of the girls in quinto año (year 12) at Al Huerto) and so I went over to her house after school with loads of the other girls who I first made friends with (Sara's group). It was so so nice to see them all again, as I hadn't seen them all since school started. It was really cool as I understood so much more and spoke a lot more with them and was basically more me. We also played uno (the card game) which was really fun (ofcourse I won the first game haha) and it was honestly just so great to see them all and catch up.

Last night I went out (despite the freezing weather and rain) with the girls of my course. I honestly had such a great night! We went to the opening of Templo (a boliche here that is only open in winter) and it was so so cool. It is really really big and all indoors. It has stairs up to a platform on one side and numerous bars (on the sides and at the front and back). I'm not too sure why I had such a great time last night in particular, but I think it's just because I was really really included and I danced and just let loose and was more myself.

Something that is coming up is that next week my family are going out of the country for the birthday of my host dad and so I am going to stay with my second host family for a week and I am really nervous at the prospect of it. This is because I have had the same family the whole time I've been here and I just can't imagine living with another family and starting again from scratch to build a family type of relationship. Like I've just started to feel 100% comfortable and feel like this house is my home and I know it's only for a week that I'm going to stay there, but it is going to be a taster of what's to come. The good news is though, is that my second host family are so so nice.

Another new thing that I was introduced to this week is a group called Interact. Interact is a group that is apart of Rotary and its aim is basically to get teenagers involved in projects to help people. I really love the whole idea of it and can't wait to get involved in it all. We had a meeting yesterday to talk about upcoming projects and now I have numerous things to look forward to. For example on Thursday we are going to make Easter eggs and then sell and/or donate them. There aren't that many of us in Interact and the majority are quite young but they are all really great people.

On Friday I had to stay after school for an extra hour and a half because I didn't get something signed (that I didn't know I had to get signed) and so me and about 6 others all stayed behind at school while everyone got to leave early. At first I was quite disgruntled about it, but in truth it was actually quite fun! I got the opportunity to get to know the people that stayed behind on a much more personal level and in a casual setting. It was fun as we didn't have a teacher so just played music and chatted.

Another thing that was a bit of a mess last week was that I found out that we had a test for Geography this coming week and as I don't really understand everything in class, I wasn't sure what I had to do to study for it and if I had to do the test at all. So I went and I talked to a teacher in the school who in turn then went and spoke with the principal. A couple of days later Roxy (a teacher from the school) came up to me and told me that I would have to sit a test but it would be about something else, like how does NZ differ from Argentina geographically (for example) and it would be something much simpler so that I could understand, as the content my course is doing in geo is ridiculously hard.

After this however, on Thursday my Geography teacher told me that I have to do the test after all as I can't be treated as something special just because I am an exchange student and so I have to do as the class does (which I understand) but now I have a test tomorrow and I am so so so screwed. I'm not too sure what I'm going to do because I have tried studying but basically, it all just went in one ear and out the other. I think this is mainly because I am super tired and I don't really have the motivation of needing to do really well. This is because my grades here don't matter so much as I already have the points for uni and it is more just for the culture and the people, so hopefully if I fail badly I won't get into trouble.

I have also been blessed with a nickname by the girls in my course now haha. Ana made a comment about how "molly" is such a soft name and that here they use a lot of swear words in normal conversations and molly (according to Ana) just doesn't really sound right with these words. So we decided that I needed a nickname and Lucila immediately suggested "moledad". Everyone agreed on it and now it is my new nickname haha. I love having a nickname as it just makes me feel even more apart of the group.

Something else I've found quite interesting is being an outsider. I don't mean this as feeling left out, but it's very interesting to watch a course that has been together for many years and the relationships formed, when you come in as a new person. Normally I would be in the thick of it all and so watching from an outsiders perspective is very different for me. It's very intriguing to watch how certain people work to get attention or who's feeling left out or who has a crush on who.

That's it for now, thanks for reading about my thoughts and feelings. To finish here a few photos from my week:

This is a photo of me and the girls of my course at school.

This is a photo of my whole year group at my school, with both courses; ciencias naturales y ciencias sociales.

Here we have a really quality photo from last night.

And another photo from last night with Lara.

Starting school and 3 weeks worth of update

I haven’t posted anything here for 3 weeks now and it is because in all honesty, my life has taken a turn for the crazy busy. Here though we finally have an update which I think will mainly be centered around the thing that has been occupying my time; school.

Firstly, my school is a public school and I am in sexto año (year 13). I’m in a social science course and this is because all the schools here have an orientation and you have to do the subjects of that orientation, for example we have arts schools, commercial schools and engineering schools (to name but a few). Mine is centered on science and so there is a natural science course and a social science course and I am in the latter due to it having less students. This means we do subjects such as History, Geography, Methodology, Philosophy and Political Economics and unlike in NZ, we don’t get to choose what subjects we want to do. My favourite subject has to be English haha because everyone else hates it and it is so amusing to notice how the people struggle to piece together sentences and pick up things and it reminds me of my spanish class last year and the difficulties I face everyday. Also I find that I can pick up quite a bit of Spanish from English class, as often she will say something in English, the students won’t understand so then she repeats it in spanish. Other subjects I enjoy are surprisingly Math and Chemistry hahahahaha. This is because the level they are working at isn’t quite as advanced as nz and so I find them very easy. Also they are very structured and often use equations so I don’t need spanish to figure them out. Also the vocabulary is often very similar to English, for example with chemistry, sodium:sodio, chlorine:chloro etc.

Something very different is that the teachers change classes and the students stay in the same class for the whole day, so you always end up sitting in the same seat for the whole day. School starts at 7am (when normally it is just getting light as you can see below) and finishes at 1:30pm (and some days at 12pm when we have to go back to school from 2-4 for Drama or other subjects) and while this is very ideal as it means we have the whole afternoon free, it means that the days are very long here (especially as we dont go to bed until 1-2am here). Also everyday I find that I am so overwhelmingly tired, because firstly I can’t live on 4.5 hours sleep per day and secondly because so much spanish 24/7 means that my brain is always in overdrive. Luckily sometimes I get to nap in the afternoon during “siesta” however I often have stuff I need to be doing and so miss out on the opportunity. Although sometimes in class when it’s a subject that I am not to fond of and it’s 7:30am, I grab a quick power nap.

Being in sexto año means that I am in promo (promotion) and this is a big deal here in Argentina. It is basically the idea that you are graduating that year and so for us we get to wear a specialized polo shirt and letterman jacket with our names. I don’t have the special uniform yet but as we speak it is being made for me. Promo also means that it is a year full of parties and very little work. For example, on the first day of school I arrived to find my whole course outside the school playing drums and dancing around with masks having not slept and been at the park all night partying. This meant that there were only 7 of us (out of 35) in the class on the first day and I ended up spending every lesson being asked ridiculous amounts of questions about NZ by the teachers. The good thing about that though was that I got a chance to get to know a few people in my course on a more personal level before school started the next day. Another thing that came of this though, was that because I spoke reasonable Spanish and understood a fair amount, all my teachers now just seem to assume I understand everything which is an issue haha but that’s okay, my teachers don’t often pick on me to answer stuff so it’s all okay.

My classmates are all crazy and I love them for it. It was so amazing how on the very first day of school they were so welcoming and willing to talk to me. Like within the very first period I had been added to 2 different chats of my course and already had plans for after school. I don’t really talk too much during class or when I’m with them unless I am asked questions as often I am still processing what had just been said and they are already onto a completely different topic haha. This is very different for me because I think anyone who knows me would agree that I like to be center of attention and am often really loud and someone who likes to voice their opinions. I know talking and conversing with people will get easier and for now I am happy to listen and continue to learn. However everyday that passes I feel like my classmates are getting to know a little bit more of the real me. I also know when my spanish is 100% great we are going to be so close, as the people (especially the girls who I spend the most time with) are so my type of people. It’s also really different in my course as we hardly ever have a quiet moment in class and often the students will just yell across the classroom to each other over the teacher and I can’t even begin to imagine this happening in NZ, but for me I love it. I love the craziness and vibe of my class. These are few of the girls in my course:

In the school we also have a massive inter school competition called UBES. This is basically a couple of weekends later on in the year when all the schools compete in things like dance, sports, singing, theatre etc. It’s in September but here they start practicing really early on. I’m really excited for this as it means that I get the opportunity to be involved in the school and have a couple of completely different groups of friends. Yesterday I auditioned and was selected as 1 of 18 out of the school to be a part of a group of girls to do modern dance which was really cool. The selectors were my classmates and so it was really weird having to dance for them but I knew I had to prove myself as they had never seen me dance and in all honesty I killed it. Now everyday (and yes I mean everyday for 2 hours+) I will be busy practicing and hanging out with these girls which I am so excited about but it means that everything is just going to get double as busy. 

With my spanish, yes it continues to improve everyday, yet I find the students so much harder to understand than adults. Often when I talk to adults I can understand nearly the whole conversation which is very helpful but with my classmatess it is honestly a whole other language. This is because it is filled with swear words and colloquialisms but, more than that, it’s because I don’t know about the things they talk about. So basically not only can I not understand the language but also exactly what they are referrering to I don’t know haha. On a backwards note though, I seem to find that sometimes I can’t find words in English when people ask me “how do you say it in English?" or I will write in English and write words in the wrong order and it’s so odd to see my English deteriorating, especially as I have always been very good at English and it’s like my brain needs a switch that flicks me from English and then to Spanish. 

Something else I find so crack up, is that nobody can say my last name: Stanbridge. So everyday when Roxy (a teacher) comes in to take the roll she always goes through everybody’s surname and then with me it’s always “Molly”. It’s so crazy though because in all honesty I have such a normal last name compared to everyone else haha. Also all the names of my classmates are so odd, like Guadalupe, Lautaro, Candela, Gimena, Leandro and then they think I have a weird name?! It’s really cool though because it means that I’m getting to know a whole array of different names. 

My family here are continuing to be amazing. I swear everyday I get more and more personal jokes with my host dad and my host mum and I have bonded over everything as she is someone who I can always talk to. I’m so happy with my family and am going to miss them a lot when I move families. Like yeah sure there are times when we don’t agree but that’s part of being a family and here I am much more level headed about voicing my opinions and it’s probably I should take back with me to nz haha. 

Last weekend was also quite exciting and so I will tell you about it day by day because of it:

Firstly Friday after school there was talk of going to the park (which is a place where my classmates always hang out) but then after school everyone kind of dispersed so I returned home. I ate lunch only to then get a message from Lupe saying to come to the park and so I changed and made my way there. I remember walking through the park, past other groups of people in promo from the other schools and hearing them whispering about how I’m an exchange student and it was so weird, almost like I was famous haha. I finally found my classmates and they greeted me with a chorus of my name. It was really chilled and they had a bbq going and we played a bit of football and chatted. Later I returned home, got changed, showered and ate dinner before going over to Candela’s house as that was where we were having the Previa. It was my first time partying with my schoolmates and they danced basically 24/7 and if they weren't dancing they took photos (as you can see below). It was a really good time and Lex called me on Skype during it and they all met her and screamed down the phone at her in Spanish which was very amusing. At 12:30am everyone took taxis from Candela’s house to the bus station to catch a bus to Morrison (a neighbouring town) and I walked the 2 blocks home as I couldn’t go to Morrison. In all honesty it was probably good that I didn’t go as I was already so tired and I managed to have a decent nights sleep while everyone else had about 3 hours that night. 

On Saturday I went to Cordoba with my family. The journey passed quickly and once there I saw Vir which was really really great! After that I went with Ignacio (one of my host brothers) and Fati (his girlfriend) for a walk around the neighbourhood. We went into this really cool art museum that was in this old palace. It was ridiculously antique and amazing (you can see just how cool below). After that we went through the park and to this gorgeous church (as you can see below on the top right) We finally ended up at this place which they call “the hippies” and it’s basically a massive market with live music and loads of people! We had a bit of time constraint and so i didn’t get the opportunity to look around but i know that I am going to return next time I’m in Cordoba because it is close to Vir’s apartment, there are loads of really great shops and I just love the vibe of it. 

After that I went home and got changed before heading off to a dinner for my host dad’s sisters birthday. Ignacio and Fati picked us up and we drove to their house. I was a bit nervous but also excited to meet a whole new bunch of people. When we arrived everyone was so so welcoming and I immediately felt at home with everyone. It was also a good chance to catch up with Vir! We ate the most ridiculous dinner with about 500 million different salads and an asado (bbq) with an endless stream of meat filling the table. It was so so delicious! Benja’s sister was honestly so lovely and she said that if I was ever in Cordoba that she would love to have me over! I was asked numerous questions about nz and I could see the family resemblance between Benja and his family as they were always joking and laughing. There was also about 5 little kids and they screamed the majority of the night, but they made up for this frustrating racket by batting there long eyelashes and laughing for the rest of the time. One of the girls was called Azul (which means blue) and she had the cutest big blue eyes and dark hair and now I really really love this name. We left at about 1:30am and returned to the apartment to sleep because I was honestly so shattered. 

The next day my family and I went on a round trip to visit some of the tourist attractions of Cordoba! Firstly we went to a place called Laguna Azul which is where I was supposed to be going as a part of a Rotary meet up. My family had never been there before and so we proceeded to get very lost in the process. Google maps took us on this ridiculous detour in which we ended up driving through an over grown trail before we finally figured that surely this wasn’t right. After this we asked numerous people for directions and finally found our way there (on a decidedly more normal road). It was a really gorgeous lake surrounded by mountains and there was a gorgeous little hippy bar there as well (as seen below). They also had this flying fox type thing over the water except that instead of a seat, it had a board so you could wake board without a boat (as shown below)! It looked really nice and hopefully we can go back and enjoy it with a day trip or something. 

After that we continued to drive up north towards the Sierras and stopped to look at these gorgoeus views you can see below and also to have lunch in a small, open cafe on the side of the road. It had a really cool vibe with music, fresh goats cheese hanging from the roof in bags and loads of people. I had a goats cheese and tomato omelette and it was so delicious! After that we continued the journey, passing through Carlos Paz and finally going up into the Sierras. 

The Sierras are basically some very high hills (or a small mountain range) and we wound our way up them in the car. I peered out the window the whole time as we climbed higher and higher and passed through gorgeous villages. It was so special and I thoroughly enjoyed it. We then drove back to Cordoba and stopped to get something to take back to the house for a light snack. We got back to the house, drank coffee and snacked on rice biscuits with a drizzle of chocolate before making the journey home. I slept for the majority of the journey home and so it passed rather quickly haha. After this we had dinner and then went to bed for an early night before my first full week of school.

I really really miss my family and friends at home, if I am being honest. It’s not that I’m homesick as such, it’s just really weird to think about life going on at home and people carrying on their day to day lives without me in it. Also I really do miss the normality and the ease of NZ and often in moments where I feel very apprehensive about something or unsure of myself, I feel homesick and miss home. However I Skype my family normally once a week but am also in contact with them nearly everyday through messenger and for me this helps. I knew it would be hard being away from my family especially as we are really close but I am really looking forward to seeing them in June. I know that I can’t spend time pondering about life in NZ as I need to make the most of my life by living in the here and now (which I am don’t you worry).

I keep a schedule of my life and things coming up and I can already see how increasingly busy I am going to be. This past week alone I has been hectic and this coming week I am adding a whole bunch of extracurricular activities to the schedule. I have also signed up for the North trip with Rotary, and this is happening at the end of April! I am so so excited for this!! I cannot wait to meet all the exchange students of my district as I know that we are going to get along so well and make amazing memories. Something that is quite unfortunate though is that one of the boys from another district, went with Rotary to Iguazu falls and got Dengue (a really dangerous disease) and so now we aren’t able to go. This really sucks as it is one of the most spectacular falls in the world and now I probably won’t get the opportunity to go there. 

I have now been here for over 7 weeks and yet I feel like I have been gone a lifetime. The weird thing is though, is that everyday seems to fly by and the weeks keep going faster and faster and yet I feel like I’ve been here way longer? It’s honestly such a weird feeling. I know this exchange is going to fly by though and yesterday we got confirmation of our flights home sent through from Roger. It’s weird because I have so much time ahead of me but I can already feel the clock counting down and ticking away. 

The food here is so different and yet not? Here there are definitely more gf alternatives than I first thought there was, for example yesterday we made the most scrumptious spinach and boiled egg pastry with this amazing store bought base. The base was more delicious than any I’ve tried in nz. However with things like bread it is definitely not on an NZ level, and same with cereals. God what I would give for a bowl of Brookefarm’s muesli or smoked salmon on toast. The food here is really really good though and I am happy with it all no matter how much I miss my bread haha. At least 4 times a week we eat Milanese (which is basically schnitzel) and most days we have meat in some form.

The music here is so crazy. It is just plain dance music and everyone knows all the lyrics to every song haha. While I don’t know the lyrics I am now becoming familiar with the tunes and some of the choruses. I love the music here as it has such a cool beat but whenever English songs come on, I jam them so hard haha. Often the people will stare at me like I’m crazy haha especially the people that don’t know I am an exchange student as often here no one knows the lyrics to English songs. A song we find common ground on though is “hips don’t lie” by Shakira as it has both spanish and english lyrics, and my school friends and I have such a great time with this song. Also there’s a popular song here that has a chorus that goes “tumba la casa mami” and every time it comes on, my school friends all sing “tumba la casa molly” and so it is kind of now my song and we always have a great time together with this song too.

Before I left, one of the mums of the other exchange students said that being nice was one of the hardest things she found. I understand this on so many levels now. Like yes the language is hard, yes becoming integrated in the class is hard, yes homesickness is hard, but being nice all the time is harder. It’s like I don’t have an opportunity to vent or voice my opinion and I always have to be on my best behaviour. Although this is so hard, I know it is honestly so good for me as I know I am not someone who is always very nice and so hopefully this is something that can help me grow as a person.

What’s more, in the past few weeks I have taken some big steps! I managed to go to the supermarket myself and buy a shopping list full of things, I managed to give a lady on the street directions and also managed to buy a pair of pants at the uniform shop. These are all big things for me as I honestly have an irrational fear of people asking me stuff or having to ask people stuff in Spanish. It’s ridiculous but with these steps I can already feel myself overcoming it.

I can feel myself changing and growing more and more independent everyday and essentially growing up. It’s really weird but I think it will be so interesting to see where I am at the end of the year and how different I am when I return to NZ. I think being in a new environment, with new people and facing new challenges really does make you reflect on things and helps you to learn a lot about yourself.

So yeah, that’s basically what’s been going on with me over here in Argentina, well a relatively quick overview, and basically in a nutshell I love my life here, despite the ups and downs.