Week 12

Hola Everybody!
I am currently in week 12 of my exchange and its starting to sink in that I have less than 5 weeks to go. How fast did November go? It felt like it just flew by and now we are into December.

SCHOOL

Flag part one- School

Last Friday was my last day at school. It was such a weird feeling, I am still in Argentina but the big part of my experience is over. I got so used to the routine, even if I didn't like getting up at 6.30am! It wasn't until my very last day that I realised what great friends I had made and that I how much I will miss seeing them everyday! We have plans to still hang out but the complicated thing is that only me and about 2 other people actually finished on Friday. School classes finished on the 28th but those who weren't able to pass with an average mark of 6 1/2 in any subject have to keep returning until the 19th of December. So for the most part the majority of my class mates have had to keep going to school. This isn't necessarily (but could be..) because they don't try in the class, it is often because the teacher has been absent a lot and the subjects haven't been taught well enough for people to pass the tests with a good enough score. This is quite a regular occurrence in public schools.
On my last day I got all my friends to sign my little Argentinian flag and I'm so glad I thought of the idea, it turned out really well!

EXCITING NEWS
Next week 8th of December to 16th, I am going on a trip with AFS around the south of Argentina! We will be going to El Calafate where the  Perito Moreno Glacier is located and already by looking at photos it looks spectacular! As well as the glacier we are also going to Comodoro Rivadavia and Puerto Madryn which look like beautiful cities and they are both on the coast =Sea and swimming! This will be the first time I've seen the sea since New Zealand! (from my town it is 7 hours drive to the beach)

The Glacier, Photo supplied by google images

BASKETBALL

This week also marks the end of Basketball :( On Saturday my team was in the leagues final but unfortunately I wasn't able to play because I was sick and so blocked up (yuck!) We ended up losing but we were just so happy to have been in the final because that was a massive accomplishment! I was able to go down to the gym for a couple of hours to watch other games with my team mates (while drinking mate of course!) Our club Gimena Padin was in just about every final so everyone was in a massive group in one of the grandstands cheering everyone on. I have never seen such an animated crowd at a local tournament before, it was crazy. Almost like being at a small scale Crusaders game! While I was there I got some of my basketball mates to sign my flag, unfortunately I wasn't able to get everyone because they weren't all there and also because the pen got dropped under the basketball stand and there was that much stuff under there it was impossible to find!

Anyway, the people that signed my flag were my very good friends and I love reading all their messages!

Flag part two (Lots of wrinkles haha!)

FOOD PHOTOS

After we returned from the supermarket the other day I realised that just about everything comes in a bag.. Yogurt, ketchup, milk, mayonnaise, pasta sauce, you name it its probably in a bag. Here's some photos

The yogurt here. This is basically like the consistency of milk but
it tastes like yogurt, so random

Long life milk in a bag. I've never seen any fresh milk
here and definitely none in containers like we have
at home

Mayonnaise, mustard and more mayonnaise. They just about
have mayonnaise on everything, meat, cheese, vegetables everything!
It's basically how us kiwis use tomato sauce

BEAUTIFUL AFTERNOON

Some photos of the beautiful afternoon we had the other day. This was 8 at night, though its still classed as afternoon as it was 30 degrees...

Our we gatita  (girl kitten) Daisy!