North trip

Before I start this post if you don't want to read everything that's totally fine but please scroll down to the bottom where I put a link of a video my friend made of our trip! It's beautiful and defiantly worth the watch! 

The North trip was probably one of my favourite parts of my whole exchange! I say time and time again that exchange students are the best people for other exchange students because we simply understand. We are going through the same things (to different degrees) which makes it a lot easier to help each other. 50 exchange students went on this trip. And I can't say I made a strong connection with all of them but the friendships I did makes are unbreakable and will last a lifetime.

The first day Clement and I took a bus from our city to buenos aires. The bus ended up being late so when we arrived we went directly to the meeting point of our group.. Nobody was there.. We had to be there for 9 and it was only 8:30. Both Rotary and the travel company to left the meeting spot early without all the students.. 

 1. Bus stops are dangerous in general and 2. If you are a foreign everybody knows right away which makes you even more of a target

We walked around for 15 minutes and kept checking the meeting spot calling all of the roarty contacts trying to find out where our group was. Finally at the back of the terminal we found Eva, another exchange student from Germany! I was so happy to see Eva since she is from my district and I already knew her. She said that she had lost the group when she asked to go to the bathroom. Great. Now there was 3 of us lost. Finally my friend Anna (from Norway) called me asking me where I was. She then explained to me how to get to the bus which was outside the terminal in the back. When we got to the bus I waved at the people I knew from my district with a big smile. The first thing the Rotarian accompanant told me was "if your late again we will start counting points" 

This wasn't the best first impression as I still had 5 minutes left until 9. But I just stayed quiet and jumped on the bus. 

The whole first day and night we were on the bus. It was a long travel day but we had time to get to know everyone new and catch up with those from our district which was really nice

Our first stop was Iguazú! 

The first day we went to the point of three countries. Where Argentina, Brasil and Paraguay meet :) 

Later we got to go your around the city a little bit. 

Ok so I don't know if I've told you how much I have missed ranch dressing. I just can't eat salad soaked in olive oil and vinegar (I've tried so many times I promise). For the first time in my whole exchange I found a Casear salad. This was a big deal for me. Casear isn't Ranch but it was close enough. 

This salad was so good! I had to put my vegetarianism aside for a meal to eat the chicken but honestly it was worth it! This salad was like heaven. 

The next day we took a tour of the national park and visited the very famous waterfalls! Within 5 minutes of walking in this park everyone was soaked.. And we hadn't reached a place close to the water yet... It's kind of embarrassing but yeah we were all sweaty! It was so hot and so humid that any activity made you sweat bullets. 

The falls were very beautiful, we all really enjoyed our time there!

Here are some pictures of us visiting the waterfalls. 

Group picture! Can you find me?

The beautiful falls! 

Showing off our entrances! 

Me and Rapha! The only other Canadian on the trip! We actually kind of look like sisters in this picture. 

I really great part of the day was when we actually got to go in a boat and go into the waterfalls! It was lots of fun! And this time we were soaked with water! 

We found these guys when we went for a snack.. They seemed pretty friendly.

(Johannes stole my hat)

Next stop : Jujuy

Jujuy is the highest provience in Argentina and boarders with Bolivia and Chile. We spent the most time in Jujuy out of all the provinces and it was my favourite! I absolutely loved it! The climate was hot but dry so I was nice heat. 

We spent a lot of time in the pool but also a lot of time touring around. 

We visited a cactus maze and took titanic pictures. 

This was our hotel as you can see each room is its own little house.

Yup that's right there was llamas at the hotel! 

Some quality pool time :) 

Ok so our room (with single beds) got infested with ants so we got upgraded for one night to a room with a bed bigger than a king bed that could probably fit 5 people.. You can't even see the end of it in the picture. If you know me you know I love big comfy beds so this was about as great as finding the Ceaser salad! 

We reached a high point! 

Actually maybe too high.. One guy (Martin) actually passed out and we had to call an abulanse. But everything ended up ok! Do you know that Jujuy is the only place in Argentina you can legally buy Coke leaves? (because they help prevent getting sick from the height). Legit everyone bought Coke leaves or drank Coke leave tea to not feel bad. I didn't really enjoy the taste that much.. Now I don't have a picture but while we we were touring, we found this really cool restaurant with writing all over the walls and there we tried llama soup, other rare dishes and I fell in love with gaucamole (something I never like before). 

Las sierras de los 7 colores . Yup that's right! See those fancy mountains in the back ground? They are famous for their speacial 7 couloured dirt. 

We also went to a couple big markets and everyone bought matching llama sweaters. (Llamas are kind of a big deal) 

Some people even bought matching pants! 

We had lunch in the middle of a big market with a live band that was very interested in where everyone was from. We got to talk to them afterwards and they told us their whole life story. It was so neat!

So while we were in this kinda cave thing there was this woman selling jewelry with stones and this paper says what each colour of stone helps you with.

This piece of rock is fenced so that nobody ruins it because it looks like a frog. I thought that was pretty cute. 

 For carnival you can buy wine flavoured icecream. 

But you will also get sprayed with flour or foam... Jajaja

This very Canadian t-shirt was lent to me my a girl from the USA, it really surprised me that she had this shirt! It was a nice gesture. 

Welcome to salta! 

When in salta you must go to the Salinas! All that white is not the snow is Canadians are used to.. It's salt. (But you probably already figured that out)

Yeah we licked a giant salt llama!

We also got to spend sometime in tha capital and I ate McDonald's for the first time on exchange! (Mom don't be mad) 

Shopping and McDonalds (note the first day I started not to fell great but thought it was just allergies) 

There was a monument that you could climb up behind.

Rainbow ring around the sun was cool to see.

Ok I go to bed and wake up the next day not too well.. This is where the story yes interesting.. Because I'm not the only one.. Me and 5 other people were sick. But the worst 3 were Makeena (usa), Alia (usa) and me. So the other 3 went horse back riding with the rest while us 3 stayed in the hotel. Trust me I'm not one to miss a day of excursion! It wasn't a soft sickness. Let me tell you how I felt. My whole body felt sunburn (even though it wasn't), when I marked my skin the mark wouldn't go away (for example indenting your skin with your nail), I had a high fever, the worst headache I have ever had in my entire life, all my muscles were so sore, my nose was running like I had a cold and sometimes also bled, I couldn't control my temperature (one minute I was freezing the other I was boiling) and I felt so weak I sat instead of stood in the shower. The other girls were also vomiting. They wouldn't let us eat anything and the Rotarian told us "go back to your room what are you doing out here! You don't look that sick to me!" When we were only trying to get tea because our throats were killing us. They called doctors to hotel and we ended up having to go to the hospital. Poor Alia actually had to get a shot in the bum which apparently really hurt. When I saw this I got scared praying I wouldn't have to have the same thing done. Thank goodness I had lowered my fever enough (with ice on my forhead) not to need one! 

The hospital was public which was nice but also was dirty and kinda sketchy. 

Basically I only ended up getting a pill and my blood taken. Now as I said we were allowed to eat anything. So when they took my blood I instantly became super dizzy with blurry vision and I thought I was going to pass out. So they found a glass of water and put sugar in it and I drank it which made me feel better until I walked a very short way across the hospital to meet the other girls. The motion made me feel dizzy again and I had to sit down. Finally we could got outside to a little cafe and get some food. We ate grilled cheese and drank Coke to help with the blood sugar. 

Alia was so bad she actually had to get x-rays and take speacial medication. 

We were waiting in the hospital like this.. Looking fantastic. 

Anyways.. After a long day at the hospital they told us that they would get our results back for dengue in 4 days. 

Hot showers and soup helped a lot that night. 

So 4 days later.. We get our results back and all 3 of us are positive. At least that's what they said at first. Then that night they took our blood again and trust me we were in locked down quarantine! Nobody could leave the hotel, more people fell sick, all the sick people were all put in one room and couldn't leave. In only 11 hours the blood tests came back and said we were negative for dengue, but that we had to return back home right away... Hmm.. I smell something fishy. We were also told to go back to the doctor as soon as we got home. If the first results took 4 days how could the second results take less than half of a day? If we were ok why did we need to be rushed home and continue to go to the doctor. Well later on Alia over hear the roatrian telling her host parents that they weren't actually sure if we had dengue or not but that if we had dengue we never would have been able to leave the province. So basically we came to the conclusion that we were lied to about our health... Unfortunately because we had to return home we missed 3 days of our trip :( I did go back to the doctor here in San Nicolas but it's been a long time and I still haven't gotten my results back.. I think they got lost when they were sent to the other city. So the mistery is, did we ever have dengue or not? I personally think we did since we had a lot of the symptoms. But who knows, either way we no longer have to worry because we are way past the time period where we and pass along the diease or die if we get bitten again (the second time is where things go really really south).  At least before we left our trip we got to go to Catamarka! We had a nice time at the hot springs and found a nice hill to take pictures at! 

Makeena and Alia are now my Dengue sisters and we have an unbreakable bond (especially since we spent so much time on the bathroom floor with each other holding eachothers hair up). I hope to visit them since they live only a country away! 

I know it looks like I only brought like 3 or 4 outfits on this trip but I promise that's not the case! hahaha! 

What it was like on the bus?

Well a lot of singing, dancing, goofing around, laughing, heart to hearts, friendship building and of course Regaton!

This is my favourite picture of my friend Louis from when we were on the bus! 

Some people woke up wit drawing on their face..

Besides the dengue, this trip was amazing! A trip of a lifetime that I will never forget with some of the most amazing people in the world! I wouldn't trade this trip for anything! I wish I could do it all over again! It's been a long time now since I've seen all the other exchange student and I sincerely miss them a lot! (Yes we had matching rotary shirts) 

This video was made by Anna (from Norway) of our north trip!  It's amazing! Please watch it! 

http://youtu.be/dmKQFS195is

Dog issues

So here I am, getting ready for tomorrow. Making sure I've packed as much as I can in advance so I have as little as possible to do tomorrow morning when I wake up at 5 am to take the bus to a Rotary capacitation in another city. It's already 11pm so I go and brush my teeth leaving my door just a crack open behind me. To my unfortunate surprise, when I come back into my room after 2 short minutes, the dog is on my bed. OH NO! I thought! I swear I started praying right there and then that my bed wasn't wet.. Which it was. Yes. The dog peed on my bed. I took her off right away but it was too late. My host mom helped me clean it up and put new sheets on she even asked me if I wanted a key for my room. I said no to the key because I'm sure I'd just loose it, but lesson learned.. When living with a bed peeing wiener dog REMEMBER TO CLOSE THE DOOR! 

4 months later

Today I was really happy. For no reason really, just the little things I guess. Also a classmate of mine, this sweet girl named Martina, randomly gave me chocolate as a gift because she knew I loved that certain brand of chocolate. It was a super sweet gesture. (No pun intended). This morning it was raining cats and dogs, a Kamloops flash flood type of situation. Actually it's been raining here everyday for about 2 weeks but not as heavy. We've been having lots of storms. Today it was my teams turn to do our debate. It's was really awesome because they two teams took it really seriously and the two top guys in the class (you know the ones that are leaders and want to be class president) were on opposite teams. Now these two guys are kinda enemies so it's a big deal on who wins. One of them is a really close friend of mine and was on my team. The subject was abortion and we were debating against it. Both groups were super prepared but let's just say we left them with their tales between their legs. It was a good fight but when it came to the class vote they only got 3... #sorrynotsorry

After school we went to Clem's house (which is my first host families house) to make pizzas. It was really nice catching up with my first host mom again. Anyways cooking pizzas with my friends in this house again brought me back to a moment that happened 4 months ago (more or less). If you go back in my blog to my 3 month update you will see a picture that looks a little bit like this one... 

So this is us. The same friends. The same couch. In the same places. 4 months later. 

The rest of the mar de tuyu trip

Ok I didn't take any more extensive notes on my mar de tuyu trip. But I can tell you that we spent a lot of time at the beach, we got to try banana boating, we went to 2 different night markets which were really cool and interesting to see and we went one day to the hot springs and took a tour around the park while we were there. It was a really lovely expirence getting to know not only my third host family and developing a relationship with them but also being able to see more of Argentina's coast. 

I also got to try bombas de dulce (not in the picture) and got to eat more churros! Yum!! 

Mar del Tuyú day 2

Mar Del Tuyu day 2

Last night the lights went off because  there was a big storm with lots of lighting. At least we are assuming this was the reason for it. In the middle of the night I felt a little tap on my bed, then all of the sudden I was being cuddled my the dog. Now I wasn't going to kick her out. I was way too tired and she is way to cute. She started at my back and ended at my knees. When I woke up the little traitor was sleeping with Clement! It turns out she went for a morning walk first so I guess she didn't just move beds. Anyways, we woke up and drank very odd peach yogurt and ate more Dulce de leche snacks, then we played a game where we play music and the other person has to guess the song. We were waiting for our host dad to come back so we can prepare lunch. 

Our host dad ended up having car troubles.. Again.. So we prepared and ate the food without him. The pasta was a little undercooked but it was ok. Then we drove to a really nice beach but the wind was horrible so we left in a hurry and went to another. Now usually I'm pretty good at finding the fun spots in the waves where you can ride them with ease. Unfortunately after a while I got to a bad spot and got trampled by a major wave. Of course as I came up gasping for air much further down the beach when another wave hit me pulling me further and further away from the family.  This happened three times. I was just trying to keep my bathing suit on my body and eventually stand up. My family saw me halfway down the beach flapping like a whale in the sand trying to get up and they all burst out in laughter. (I already can imagine my parents back home knowing this is something only I can pull off) We drank terere, ate more dulce de leche snacks. Later we got this really cool milk shake that was banana and dulce de leche flavour. It was delicious!!! We went for another walk and saw the banana boats being pulled by jet skis. The host parents told us that one of these days we will do that and we were very excited! There were also many suffers and since I've been dying to learn how to surf I asked how much it costs to rent a board and everything. The only problem was if you didn't have previous experience surfing than you need an instructor and I didn't bring enough money to pay for one. Right now I'm a bit stuck with money. It's difficult because we only receive 650 pesos and every day if you want to do anything where it's going "camping" or going out dancing at night it's at least 100 pesos and almost always more. For example I was invited to got to a really nice spot tomorrow but it's 300 pesos for the day. I have a big bus trip to pay for soon so I can't take money out of the bank right now. I guess Argentina is teaching me some serious budgeting skills. Anyways, the city where this beach was, was beautiful! I would have loved to live there! The houses are stunning and very close to the beach. At around 7 we went back to Mar de Tuyu, bought empanadas and had a lovely dinner with great conversation! Lots of laughs! The boys went to buy empanadas while the mom and I stayed home to set the table and wash the bathing suits. Mine happens to be full of sand that won't come out from being bashed around in the waves. The boys only had to go to the corner so we though they would only be 15 minutes max. 40 minutes later they return because there were no empanadas so the lady had to make them some right there and then. We also took showers the only thing is that there isn't really a hot water tank so the first person that showers gets warm water and everyone else takes freezing cold showers even if you wait the 20 minutes. I have taken the quickest showers of my life here barely getting the shampoo and conditioner out of my hair because it's just so cold! 

So far this has been the best trip in of my stay in Argentina.. Especially since there hasn't been many others.. My city (San Nicolas) seems to be isolated or our host families just don't have money to take us anywhere. At least I have good friends to keep me company. I'm already really enjoying this family who will one day become my third host family. 

There is no wifi here so we are totally disconnected this week which is kinda refreshing! 

Mar Del Tuyú day 1

Today we arrived in Mar Del Tuyu. 

I woke up at 4:30 am to be ready for 5 am when my third host family was supposed to pick me up. Of course this is Argentina so they were 15-20 minutes late. I didn't mind because it gave me more time to eat more cereal. Unfortunately last night i couldn't get any sleep, it was crazy hot even with the fan and I left my window open so I was swarmed by mosquitoes. I was notified when i got in the car that this was going to be a six hour drive. I was so tired but I couldn't sleep. I got to see the amazingly beautiful coloured sun rise. Before I continue I should probably tell who is all on this trip. Yesterday my soon to be host sister and her boyfriend already got to the beach house and today it is my host parents, Clement the Frenchie and I on our way to meet up with them. Hours later, with Dulce de leche snacks (absolutely delicious by the way)  we, of course, have car troubles.

(Dulce de leche snacks^^) 

By this point in the day I was dying of heat and trying so hard to sleep since I was so tired. I got some winks in but it was really too hot to sleep comfortably. Because of our unexpected car troubles, our 6 hour trip turned into a 9 hour trip. Either way we got here at 3 pm. My sister and her boyfriend with stay in the house next door while my host parents in one room and Clement and I in the other. We have a sick living arrangement! Even though the house is very small we have 2 bunk beds all to ourselves. We both decided to put our belonging on the top and to sleep on the bottom. We call ourselves cell mates because with the bunk beds, Clement's hat and him playing the harmonica, it kind of reminds us of a nice prison.

Soon after arriving we went for a quick drive to get some groceries to make sandwiches. Next we hit the beach! Our house is one of the closest ones which is awesome! We set up and ate our sandwiches and then went straight into the water. Even though the water was quite dirty it was still really fun splashing and jumping through waves!

We had a great time! Clement and I raced in the waves and I tried to get him to go out further were the waves were more fun. He was a little nervous at first but I used the "your only in Argentina once" line and he finally got out of his comfort zone and admitted I was right, the waves were much more fun where I was. The French boy was the whitest person on the beach and needed a lot of sunscreen! It was hilarious to see everyone looking at him so strangely. Something rare started to happen, the whole beach started clapping. We saw a life guard caring a little girl and learnt that when someone is lost everyone starts clapping to notify the others and to find the family. It was a very interesting strategy and something I've never seen before. The rest of the family wanted to take a little break and sit down so we went walking down the beach to see what we could find. We found some drummers and comedians but mostly just good conversation and funny games. Next we decided to play paleta which is kind of like beach tennis. Unfortunately this game got us covered in sand. I decided to go back in the water a second time with my host sister and it was really fun! We spent the whole time laughing and getting knocked over my waves. We came back to our umbrella and everyone sat down to eat the corn on the cob that we bought right there on the beach! It started to get quite windy and cold after that so we slowly made our way back up to the beach house and took turns taking freezing cold showers. At least we got the sticky sand off our bodies. The rest of the night we spent chilling on our bunk beds talking and listening to music. Look at the dog! Clement says she looks like a sock! Her name is Venecia.  

They fell asleep together.