Letter from Molly - November 2016

So we arrived on Cordoba on Thursday in the middle of the day and we met up with some of the exchange students to go and buy tickets to this festival we were going to; “wecolor” and a football match that was the following Tuesday. It was nice to see some of the exchange students again and we chilled majority of the afternoon together which was really nice. 

On the Friday Amy and I left early in the morning to go to Alta Gracia (a small city about half an hour out of Cordoba) to meet up with the 5 other exchange students who were living there. It was such a beautiful place and we stayed with the most incredible host family. In Alta Gracia we spent one of the days all day by the river, the other day we just spent hanging out in Callum (the exchange students) house and had the other exchange students over! It was really relaxing and we had excellent weather which was very nice.

 

On the Saturday evening we all then went back to Cordoba with the plans to go out to have something to eat later to celebrate my birthday (which was the following day). The 5 exchange students from Alta Gracia came and we all went and had dinner at a small bar in the city. The thing that was probably the most incredible was that all my school friends called me from Bariloche at 12am to sing happy birthday. It was so lovely. The exchange students from Alta Gracia then went home that night.

 

The next day (my birthday) I skyped my family, we met up with 2 of our best guy friends in Cordoba and went bowling, to the movies and played pool all afternoon. It was so lovely and just a very chilled afternoon! We then went to a gorgeous market at night and brought a few artisanal things. It was a super lovely birthday (if very different from my birthdays in NZ). The Monday we then did very little except watch movies, chill and sleep a lot haha.

 

Tuesday however, was a very very very full day. It started with a reasonably early morning in which Amy and I met Tomi and Simon at the bus station to take a trip to Carlos Paz (a very popular summer tourist spot about an hour out of Cordoba) for the day. Once we arrived, we met up with Sif (a danish girl who is now one of my best friends here in Argentina) so that she could show us around. We went down to the river and drank mate (typical Argentinian drink), we had lunch out in this restaurant that was 100 metres above ground and it had a gorgeous view of the whole city and then finally we explored the tourist shops ! At around 4pm we hopped back on the bus and quickly went back to the apartment to get changed and ready because we were going to a Argentina vs Paraguay football game that night! 

 

Amy and I made the very tedious and long trip to the football game in taxi and eventually got there and met up with Jan (a Slovakian exchange student, who had been waiting for us for 40 minutes :/). The game was so incredible and there was such a crazy vibe and while I didn’t get to see Messi play as he was injured and we lost to Paraguay (which wasn’t so fun), we had a great time! After the game however, we had to wait for so so long to get back to the centre in the bus as there were so many people! For this reason, the next day we slept all morning. 

 

At around 2pm Amy and I went to the bus station to meet Sif , who was coming to Cordoba for the day! We picked her up and then walked to the park to go and drink mate! It was super lovely to just chat and hang out! From there, we took the bus to Tomi’s house to meet the other 8 exchange students who were going to have dinner there. We cooked pizzas, hung out outside, chilling and chatting with music until around 11pm. 

 

The next day, early in the morning Amy left to travel back to her town and I woke up feeling completely awful. I said goodbye to Amy and went back to bed. I spent the whole day in bed, and I think for me, that day was a real low point as all I wanted was to be in nz, in my bed or even in Bell Ville in my bed and not stuck in a tiny apartment in Cordoba city. I was going to be staying in Cordoba until the Sunday and go to the wecolor festival on the Saturday, however I was feeling so bad and instead went home on the Friday night.

 

My friends then came back to Bell Ville on the Sunday and I was so so excited to see them! I was then in Bell Ville for a week and a half and it was really nice catching up with my friends. They brought me back a t-shirt for my birthday which was super cute. It was quite hard though because all my friends could talk about was Bariloche and I felt quite excluded. That was super hard, but luckily I only had to endure it for a week and a half and was then on my way back to Cordoba to start the South trip with 56 other exchange students.

 

It was so incredible, not only the landscapes but also the people with whom I travelled. I have made friends for life on that trip and I miss them so much already! I wish that I had some more exchange students in my town but I know that I am going to see them someday in the future , as I already have plans to go visit them. I also want to make the most now by travelling a fair amount in my last few months of exchange (while obviously keeping a balance so as not to lose my school friends and have issues with my host family). Like my exchange friends are the type of friends that made 36 hour bus rides enjoyable (and thats not an easy feat to accomplish!). 

 

The places we visited were amazing.. Patagonia is like something out of this world. I would say it is like the nz south, but with everything more spaced out and a lot bigger. I already want to return and travel down the south for a longer period of time. Some highlights were whale watching, seeing penguins, walking on the perrito moreno glacier, going to the southern most city in the world, going to this gorgeous town that is surrounded by mountains and lake called Bariloche and seeing the sea for the first time in 9 months.