La Cultura de Argentina!

The Culture of Argentina!

I don’t know if it’s just my school but just about everyone is good at sport, especially the older they get! We had a tournament day at school with volleyball, basketball and football. Everyone in my class played in at least one sport and I played mixed volleyball. I had such a good game, so many long rallies it was amazing! 

P.S Ms Hanley if you are reading this I’m getting some good practice here and learning some new formations!

A comment especially for Uncle Hayd ;)

Here in my province there is no talk of hunting at all. My host family were very surprised when they saw this photo of my brothers and were like "is that common in NZ?" "How can your brother carry that?" haha  They told me in a few provinces they hunt but only because some wild pigs come down from the mountains and eat peoples animals and damage properties! 

The meat here is so different to New Zealand. They have special places in the supermarket which are basically like butcheries where you pick a meat and they carve and cut it for you. You can imagine how long the wait is when it is busy! For me looking at the meat, the standards and the way it looks are not as good as NZ but the way they cook it makes up for that!! Another thing is I haven’t actually seen any chicken breast here.. All the cuts all have bones and fat or skin with them.

The attitude about school isn’t really there. As I go to a Public school I can’t say this is the same for private schools as well so I’m simply making an observation. Here teachers miss classes often so there is a lot of free time where we play sports in the gym. Also absences are very common; some days people will decide not to come or will not go to school but turn up for gimnasio (p.e) after school. Often when there’s heaps of people in class it means there’s a big test or something haha. A very weird thing I found is that no one knows when school ends for the year, not even some of the teachers! Funny since people in New Zealand are counting down until the end of school!

Boliches are a very important part of the social life here. They are essentially a club where they serve alcohol and play music until about 6am or so in the morning. Lots of young people go because they don’t seem to really care about the 16-18 year olds going. Here they mostly play cumbia music Como Me Gusta la Noche, Mueve El Toto and a wee bit of Reggaeton La Nueva Y la Ex

Also at this time of the year they are starting to have Despedidas, which are like parties schools have to say goodbye to the older students and ‘to end the year’. If it is your school you get the day after the despedida off.

 I went to a Despedida on Wednesday night in a boliche and it started at 1am and finished at 5am (luckily I was allowed the day off school) It was really cool and so unlike anything I had ever been too in NZ. 

Two of My Friends and I before the Despedida

Something I also haven't mentioned is the price of technology here! The level of technology is not like New Zealand because it is just too expensive to buy. For example no one has dishwashers because of this and if you do, you are considered pretty rich! Any apple products are scarce as well, an Iphone here costs about $21000 pesos which is about $3200 nzd! This is just because of the massive tax that is put on electronic products coming in. Another example is a scientific calculator, here they are about $400 pesos which is $60nzd, almost 3 times more expensive than in NZ for the same exact brand!