Happy New Years

Today was a horrible yet beautiful day. Although there were many obstacles I had to over come today, the struggles brought me a lot closer to 2 amazing people. Today goes to show me that even with cloudy skies and tears that the most important thing in life are the people you are living it with and I am the luckiest girl in the world to have such an amazing host family and friends here in Argentina. I hope everyone back is having a great New Years and be reminded that frowns turn into smiles! 

Lots of love 

Hannah 

Bean

Yesterday I went to Faus's country house where we swam in the pool talked and had lots of fun with all of our friends. Before we got in the pool Emi asked me if I had sunscreen. I did so I gave it to him and we both put a bunch all over our bodies because the sun was very strong, so did a couple of the others. 5 minutes later Emi comes up to me with my sunscreen bottle.

Emi: "Hannah this isn't sunscreen" 

Me: "but I asked my host mom for sunscreen and that's what she gave me" 

*Emi points to writing on bottle*

Emi: "See! This is tanning lotion! We are going to be black!!" 

Me: "Oops.." 

Of course this conversation happened in Spanish but we found it funny how my host mom accidentally gave me the wrong bottle. We didn't even get that much darker and after further inspection of the bottle it turns out it's supposed to protect your skin aswell. 

Another family was in the house next to ours and the little girl had a pet cat (actually it was her aunts). They didn't feed it or give it water. The kids threw it around like a softball! Long story short we ended up saving the cat, giving it food (well the ham we had left over) and water. In a house full of mostly men, she was the little princess. No one was going to let the little kitten get hurt. She was quite adorable and it was cute to see all the guys being so protective over the little thing. I named her Bean. 

Here she is resting on my legs. 

And another photo of Bean sleeping quietly on the towel bed we made her. 

Christmas Day and pool selfies

Christmas Day I spent in my aunt's "quinta" kinda like a country house. I brought my friend Rocio (I call her Rosu). 

I tried to teach her how to swim but she trusted the floaty more than she trusted me. There was no way she was letting go of that thing!

We say in the shallow end and ate cake. 

And sun tanned until we were on fire and had to jump back into the pool. 

The other night I went to Emi's house with a bunch of friends. 

We took selfies in the pool (was I ever sacred of dropping my phone!) and sat around in lawn chairs enjoy each other's company until 5 in the morning when I decided it was time for me to go home and get some sleep. 

I also made a new best friend!! Emi's dog! Literally (her name is Emma) Emma is so adorable! And huggable! 

Anna, Dorka & Feliz Navidad

I was so happy to have Anna and Dorka come visit me for a couple days! I met both of them in a district camp for rotary and they are very sweet! Anna the one on the left and she is from Norway. The half faced girl on the right is Dorka. She is from Hungary and knows Dory the exchange student in Kamloops! It's such a small world! 

We had a lot of fun! But we ate so much! I'm sure we each gained 3 pounds! 

In the morning we went to eat breakfast at a cute cafe in the centre with my friend Sai. (People from left to right: Sai, Dorka, me, Anna)

And as we were walking back home for lunch we met a friendly owl! 

After lunch we went back to the centre but this time with more friends and spent some time at the lake talking and eating and having fun :) 

We also got icecream (wow we have none a lot of eating)! 

Anna made my hair into a fishtail braid bun! It was pretty impressive! 

And later that night we went to Jero's house. Anna showed us a card game from Norway which was really cool. 

Everyone was so fascinated to have so many people from different countries under one roof! 

Nobody wanted to see them leave! 

Now for Christmas! 

Christmas here (to me) is kind of like any other day. We had a big family dinner on the 24th and at midnight everyone attacked me with cheek kisses and said Merry Christmas (Feliz Navidad). There was a little bit of fire works which was nice but the dogs went crazy! 

These are my beautiful cousins that I spent Christmas dinner with! 

We even have a little tree! 

After that all the teenagers and people in their 20's go out and party. I went out with the usual group (Nuria's friends) and even met one of my own friends by surprise. 

It wasn't a bad Christmas, but it didn't really feel festive or in the Christmas spirit. I think the fact that it just felt like any ordinary day prevented a lot of home sickness! 

Playing catchup

I'm I'm The other week I went to Rosario to pick up my brother, drop of some papers and get some ice cream and by the time we arrived back home in the night there were fireworks welcoming us back into the city! 

Ok so everyone in the world (I'm looking at the United States more precisely) makes fun of Canada for having milk in bags! I have never seen bagged milk before I got to Aegentina! 

On hot days one of our favourite things to do is go "camping" (not like Canadian camping at all) basically you go to a park or a sports club (like TCC but more outdoors) and eat, swim, play sports and enjoy each others company. 

In my town we have an event that only happens once a year where they shut down a couple streets in the centre and everyone walks in the streets. They open up everything so that people can buys things. There is a different kind of dance on every corner of the street! There was even a guy that brought a giant snake so you could take pictures of it! There was an old car show too! It's was a lot of fun! 

Of course there are Saturday nights and birthday parties:

I got to go to the theatre to see my cousin sing, dance and perform! It was a lovely evening! 

She's in the black head band above and the pink dress below. 

So now I've caught you guys up on a lot of what's been going on lately. I haven't touched on Christmas yet but don't worry it's coming! 

I'M BACK

Hi everyone!! I haven't been keeping my blog up to date as much as I should and I'm really sorry! Thank you all so much for all your concern but I assure you I'm very well! So now I have quite a lot to share with all of you.

Cordoba

We traveled about eight hours to get to this beautiful place called Cordoba. My host parents built (well it's not quite done yet) a house in a little village near the mountains. Out of all the things I could have missed from back home the mountains were one of the biggest ones. Living in San Nicolas can some times feel like I'm trapped in a maze. It's incredibly odd not being able to see your city from above, so spending some time at a bit of a higher altitude was really refreshing. I could clear my head and breath a little bit easier. On our drive we stopped to visit a water fall which made everything even better! It was extremely hot outside so a cool breeze was exactly what we needed.

 The start of our hike down to the water fall.

The sun didn't want me to take this picture lol, at least it shows you the lush greenery in the back ground.

I was dangling off a rock, scaring my host parents, trying to take a picture from above the big plunge but it didn't exactly turn out. I was nervous since 2 kids have already fallen and died at this waterfall. 

My smiling host fam!

We finally reached the house! This is the view off the back patio balcony. I would not mind waking up to this each morning.

My host brother was cooking Asado (meat but made specially Argentinian style)  

This cutie is not our dog but we fed him, petted him, cuddled with him and as a favour to us, in return for all our love and kindness, this little guy decided to pee in our house and on our drinks.

Our second day in Cordoba was amazing. We drove to Villa de las Rosas (city of the roses) and every Saturday they have a framer's market type thing (but of course Argentina style). The name of the city is no joke! I have a bunch of pictures of roses, but first I'll show you what the market was like.  You can buy any thing from food to rocks and books.

Yummy?

Want a mini cactus?

this wasn't for sale but the guy who played it did really well.

Stones to makes necklaces.

I thought these colourful little books were so cute!

I wasn't kidding when I said you could buy rocks. Some of them even have illegally smuggled pants from Columbia on them! When I said I wanted my own island this isn't exactly what I meant...

Some beautifully decorated pottery! I love all the colours!! 

 

Mate is obviously one of the most important!

This guy is one of those living statues and when you put money in his box we does his little thing and my host mom loved it so much. She was very amazed and always kept coming back to see him.

This is my host mom enjoying his little gig.

There was a lot of international people there, many from France and Germany and all over South America! I met this one really cool jeweller for New Zealand! He gave us a free earing just for stopping by (the heart shaped one), and Rotary doesn't have to worry because its not a new piercing, its just a clip on.

 

After our time exploring the market we went to see more waterfalls! It was a private location so we had to pay to get in, but just imagine owning this and having it in your backyard!!

The water was so clear and the sand was shimmering gold! Quite lovely!

I had to take a break from taking a million pictures to swim out myself and enjoy the water.

I can now check swimming under a waterfall off my bucket list.

So I decided to climb up and sit at the top of the waterfall and enjoy the view. The owner of the place came running out super mad because apparently someone died from falling here too. I couldn't hear him since he was far away so when I climbed down to half way and jumped off he got extra mad at my host parents. Oops!!

 

A short walk and we are at another set of waterfalls. My host mom nicknamed it gift from god because it was gorgeous!

 

 

 

 

And on the trip back we saw this tree (apparently its the one that makes red wood)

it was a nice photo. 

On our way to pick fruit for the next morning we saw a tarantula and I almost died. I back in the car faster than you can say macaroni.

 

At  night we all laid on the roof at night and counted shooting stars, we must have seen at least 15 and we had a brilliant view of the milky way.

 

The last day we spent the morning sun tanning and packing and then we drove back home.

 

There is still a lot to update you on, but I will do them in separate posts. Thank you for all your support!! Lots of love from Argentina!