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!

Sunday scares and Monday strolls

Today was a beautiful sunny (& hot!!!) day spent in the city with one of my really good friends Rocio. 

This is a picture of the city from Simon: 

We got ice cream, went to the plaza and talked about life. I love these kinds of days. 

Me hiding my face from Rocio taking pictures of us. 

This is a beautiful mural painted by the school of Art in San Nicolas. 

Yesterday I spent some time at a friends house and played with his cat, while we waited for a ride from another school mate to another friends house. (Still following me?) 

This is a very bad picture but this is Emi (we all went to his house) holding his pregnant cat! I can't wait to hold those little baby kittens! 

We ate pizza. By the way I have now gone full vegetarian (like no meat what so ever) here. So we ordered half a veggie pizza for me (no I couldn't eat it all by my self! I had plenty of help!).

Argentina is smarter than we are when it comes to pizza! 

After pizza we were goofing around in the backyard playing games and being loud until the neighbours called to tell us to be quiet... Oops.. We tried to watch a movie outside but then decided that we were getting cold and inside was a better choice. I was carrying blankets along with my other friend and we decided it would be fun to jump up and belly bump each other. Unfortunately I jumped first and when they hit me I went flying back crashing into a meatle door and a big flower pot! I was so happy the flower pot didn't break! It didn't hurt all that much but my elbows and wrists are still a little sore. 

These crazy kids wanted to watch a horror movie. I hate horror movies! I was sure I was going to have nightmares for a month! 

I didn't end up having night mares because I didn't see much of the movie. I was hiding behind pillows and blankets for the whole thing! My friend tried to scare me once by grabbing my head but it was more like a massage so it didn't work. 

Anyways I'll keep you updated.

Chau for now! 

Art and ice cream

I would like to wish one of the sweetest people in the world a happy birthday! One of my best friends from Germany! Happy sweet sixteen Anni! I hope you had a great day today! I know you read my blog! Thank you so much for still keeping in touch! Love you lots! 

Now, 

I finally got those pictures from the Art expo I was talking about. 

(Ok look at Jero in the background of this one! His face is so funny!) 

Saimon did a really nice job on both his pieces! 

And then today I shared this really interesting ice cream! 

This is my friend Agustin (the guy that wants to go on exchange!) 

Starting to get sunny!!

Sun tanning in the morning and wandering around town in the afternoon. Sounds pretty nice. We sat in the plaza eating and drinking when 3 little children decided to bomb us with grass and sticks. We watched them for a little bit as they creepily stalked is hiding behind trees and bushes. Then 2 of the the kids just walked away. Soon their mother came to find them and they weren't there. Turns out she has 5 children and isn't very good at keeping track of them. 

Left to right 

(Jero, Agostina, Simon, Valentina, Paulina and me!) 

It's getting quite hot here! It's 11 pm right now and still 21 degrees Celsius! 

Just enjoying life

The other night was my first night going out in quite some time! But we had to celebrate 3 months! It was quite a night travelling to a different city by bus (a private one) and hanging with friends. 

(Don't mind the flip flops... I changed them! But lucky I brought them with me because after the night was over, my feet hurt so bad I couldn't take another step in high heels!) 

Yesterday we went to my friends ranch. It was a very beautiful and sunny day!

There was a lot of us so we had a big water fight followed my a fruit fight. (There were lots of berry trees around) 

We cooked both lunch and dinner like this. But of course I had the vegetarian option. 

The sunset was very beautiful! 

And we drove home in the back of a pick up truck. The perfect end to a great day! 

Today was more relaxed. I spent some nice quality time with my host family, and then in the evening walked around the centre with a couple friends. Later we came back to my house to watch a movie and eat pizza! 

New goals!

One of the biggest satisfactions of exchange is people telling me they love Canadian people when I'm the only Canadian they've ever met, or that they want to visit Canada after meeting me. It makes me realize how much of an influence I have on their views of my country and my people. One of my dear friends asked me "is everyone in Canada like you?" I replied "what do you mean?" He said "well, you are just so nice and friendly!" I couldn't help but smile and give everyone around me hugs because it just hit me so hard. One of my other friends has been thinking of going on exchange but isn't sure, the more time I spend around him the more I realize he would be a perfect exchange student. My new goal is to make him fall in love with exchange just like I did. I know I'm the best person for this job (not to toot my own horn). I know this because exchange students themselves were the ones to make me fall in love with exchange before I got to expirence it. Let's just say that now I'm head over heals in a way I can't describe.  As an exchange student I know that I hold more power than anyone else to do this and I really want to use it to the best of my ability! 

I hope to make Rotary proud with this one!