None of my posts are going to have any genuine clarity or cohesiveness so I can't come up with a concise or catchy title!

Okay so this is going to be the most jumbled out of order post ever!! Surprise! Remember when I used to be organized? Jajajajaja. Anyway, I haven’t written in forever and I’ve been doing so much, so here are some tidbits about everything pretty much from the past month in no particular order or logical fashion.

Here's a random building in Salta so I can have a pretty heading picture

First of all, two weeks ago I didn’t have school for a week because it was Semana del Milagro (Week of the Miracle), which is a festival that happens in Salta in honor (?) of this religious thing that happened where all of these earthquakes were happening and apparently some saint or other came down and saved everyone in a religious way. Because we didn’t have school, my curso (class) set up a kiosko in the plaza, which is kind of like a little farmer’s market stand to sell food and things, and I went to “help” and pretty much hang out with people. It was kind of a bit ago at this point so I don’t remember everything (GAHHH I NEED TO WRITE SOONER MY MEMORY IS SO BAD) but here are my main highlights: I tried tereré (mate with juice instead of hot water) for the first time! Sooo good I think I like it better than mate but honestly both are so good, I drank like two liters the first time I tried mate and my host mom was so concerned. …: I played metegol for a million years with my classmates, when people blocked the street to protest because the power went out and I taught Tomi and these other random boys how to do the trick with a key-lanyard where you swing it out and then snap it so it comes back to you and they FREAKED OUT, I went to the random art museum with Juli and we talked about how cool art is, I sang while Ivo played guitar in the rain and we got NO MONEY and had to change keys a billion times but still fun!! Also huerfano giving me a hug after I told him I needed more hugs, and deciding to call Franco ‘Huerfano’ (orphan) because of the way he was trying to sell sanguiches on the street. Aw cuchiiii

el kiosko

me looking silly drinking mate

We also went to Juli’s house and I had realllyyyy good chocolate milk and pet (petted?) his sweeeet puppy and then walked back to the plaza in the rain.

Oh my god it is sooooo hot here, I hope I don’t literally die of heat later this semester because it seems like a genuine possibility. I already loved rain before but now I actually need it to survive.

Then at the end of feriado (break) we went to Oran, which is where my host family used to live, and stayed at my abuelo’s house for a few days for my parents to work. Everyone in Salta talks about how Oran is re feo, but I honestly didn’t hate it at all (but my host mom says we were in the nice part jeje).

Oran

The night we got there, Azul, Facu, and I went out for dinner with Abuelo in Oran at this pizza place and Facu wouldn’t stop eating olives and he refused to eat anything besides olives which was so silly, and I told them about how I eat capers by the spoonful, and then the next day Abuelo WENT OUT AND BOUGHT ME CAPERS. RIDICULOUS. Here is a photo:

Anyway.

Then after dinner we got ice cream and Facu’s chocolate scoop tasted like dust so he kept making the rounds between me, Abuelo, and Azul asking for ours. I got banana with dulce de leche (Banana Split), as per usual :))) Then we went back to Abuelo’s house and he told me that the driest desert on earth is in Chile really close to Oran and there’s some big satellite station there, and then I went to bed late because I always go to bed late here. 

The next morning we went to this meat store which I guess they have in the U.S. but I don’t go to them, so that was new, and then we went and bought vegetables and Facu kept picking up tomates and onions and I diced them to make salad while abuelo asked me about politics and religion and made cupi, which is an Arabic food that’s either raw or cooked ground beef and grain smushed together. We made crudo and cocido (raw and cooked), and I tried the crudo but I didn’t like it so Mamá told me to spit it out. But I tried it!! Then I ate the cooked cupi and salad with a half a lemon and salt and abuelo showed me all the things in his house he’s made out of wood. It’s actually very impressive! There were multiple tables and a work bench etc etc. Also we had peaches with dulce de leche which sounds weird but is soooo good. Everything here is so good, I eat sooo much more than I do in the U.S. it’s honestly ridiculous.

Then after lunch we just hung out for a bit and went to Mamá’s office in their old house and Azul and I walked a few blocks with Facu and went to the store, then went back to the office and then went to the store AGAIN to buy cookies. After that we went to their friend Paula’s house and met Paula’s baby and had chocolate milk. (There is this kind of chocolate milk here that’s called a submarino which is a bitter chocolate bar with sugar in warm milk and it’s sooo good you end up with floating chocolate pieces and also the chocolate that’s mixed into the milk and it’s awesome ahhhh)

Me dressed as a colorblind rapper named Mosquitoes Please Don't Eat Me Alive

After that we went home and I painted my nails yellow and that’s when abuelo gave me the capers.

Then the next day we had asado which is always sooooo good, and I learned that asado isn’t asado if you can’t hear it cooking from at least 4 meters away.

Actually I don’t know if that’s what happened for sure because my timeline is all messed up, cos in reality this all happened like two weeks ago so I don’t remember. This is why I should write more on this blog because otherwise every post is going to be completely incoherent. This whole blog is just a complete jumble and a blur, but let’s just say I’m giving you a little insight into the experience of being on exchange. Everything is a blur and I have no sense of time or schedule but also so many things are super awesome and crazy and fun.

Anyway, at some point or other that weekend we went to some family member’s house (tía?? Did I mention I never fully know what’s going on?) and had dinner with allll of Papá’s siblings and their spouses and mom and kids (who were very shy with me because the adults were trying to make them speak in English but it was cute to watch the little kids be cousins) and we ate and then played Uno and Jenga and everyone was very loud and rambunctious and laughy, and I kept smiling and feeling so happy and giddy that I get to meet and play board games with this semi-random Argentine family who never would have known I existed under other circumstances.

Fer is back from Boston! I’m so happy! Yay Fer! Yay exchange!

I feel very at home here right now! My host family is so silly, Facu always does weird silly child things because he’s a child and Azul is a sassy teen and Papá is a literal child also right now he’s bopping around these balloons we got at the super (supermarket) while helping Azul with her math homework, and Mamá is just very on top of everything but always very very late to things and is always making comments about why Argentina is a third world country.

Facu being a silly duck in the super

Oh my godddd and Facu is OBSESSED literally so obsessed with the movie Cars (Autos) and cars in general so he always says “ato ato ato” at any given moment and every single day Cars is on at least one time, probably more. But sometimes he can’t watch Autos because, well, one can’t watch Autos every minute of the day can they, so we’ve started saying ‘No séeee como poner Autos’ when he comes up to one of us and hands us the control (which maybe they said before I got here I don’t know) but it’s SOOO funny because he’ll come up to me and ask, and I’ll say that because I genuinely don’t know how to work the TV, and then he’ll go to Azul and she will say “yo tampoco” and I honestly die of laughter it’s so funny. For some reason it’s hilarious to me that he can’t really speak more than a few words but he clearly understands a tonnnn. You will tell him to do something and he will do it. Totally wacky.

Most of the AFS kiddos in Salta got together the other day in the plaza and we got waffles and everyone made fun of me for saying ‘wacky’ and ‘wild’ which is hilarious. Everyone thinks I’m very U.S. American because of how energetic and excited and personable I am, but I think I’m way over the top even for the U.S. Woohoo! Yay for meeting stereotypes! :D

One weird thing I’ve experienced here is feeling genuinely dumb and lost in every way. In the U.S. I am organized and most things in general are intuitive for me (we just out here preachin facts), but here I always second guess myself, even if it’s about something super simple like when to get out of the car. I am definitely getting better with this now that I’m a month in, but there are still times when I feel like even everyday things that have nothing to do with knowing Spanish seem really perplexing, which is a really odd thing to try to explain.

Also kudos to AFS for setting up such a good support system for the students; I feel very supported which I take to mean the system is successful. I have a consejero, my family here, friends from school, AFS kids from the US, AFS kids that I met at the airport in Buenos Aires, AFS kids who are also in Salta, and then everyone I already knew from the US. I think AFS does a really good job of making sure students have a network (S/O to Martín, the Salta AFS chicos, Dario, and Zoey <333 los amooo a todos)

AFS Salta :)))) (Did I already post this picture???)

Another random thing that I don’t think I’ve talked about yet is that all of the juice here isn’t real except for orange juice. Every ‘juice’ is actually powder mixed with water, but it’s actually really good (except I don’t like the apple one but so it goes). Orange juice at least in my house is fresh squeezed from literal oranges if you can imagine. There’s also powdered orange juice. One thing that my family does, I don’t know maybe everyone here does it but I don’t know, is put strawberries in a glass, pour orange juice over, and then put thick homemade whipped cream, and it’s soooo good. I eat wayyyy too much when we have it oh my god but what am I not eating too much of let’s be honest.

And I learned how to do cafe con leche! There are two ways: The way my host family does it is you take the coffee powder and sugar and put a little bit of hot water, and then you mix that in a mug until it turns a lighter color from the air getting in, and then you make hot milk (because we only have powdered milk) and pour it in. The other way which is the way Abuelo taught me is to mix the milk powder in with the other powders at the beginning. Either way kind of tastes the same to me.

Last thing: I just dyed my hair and it looks terrible! I wanted it to be castaño which is like light brown/dark blonde, but it’s literally grey soooo guess we’re going to the peluquería tomorrow folks. Good thing I like my face.

Sorry to my mother, aunt, and Kayma at home because this whole post is a grammatical and organizational nightmare!! Teehee! Love you!

Chauuuu xxxx

P.S. I re-dyed my hair today at a genuine peluquería not in my bathroom! It is way dark but here we are folks trying new things. It's not an exchange if you don't impulsively and drastically change your appearance.