feliz día mamá

 

I know I am a bit late with this post but better late than never.

On Sunday the Argentine celebrated mothers day. In Germany mothers day is usually in May and to be honest I thought they celebrate it everywhere on the same day but now I know it better.

I don't really understand the sense of days like 'mothers day' but here they take is a bit more serious than I normally do.

We didn't do a lot on Sunday to be honest, but we ate lunch at my host mothers mum and dinner at my host fathers mum. Therefor we drove to another town about 30 minutes away from Arroyito.

We often eat at my host mothers mum on Sundays but I've only seen my other 'host grandma' the second time.

We didn't eat something special, she just ordered us food which was a bit strange for me because I don't know any grandma or granddad in Germany who would actually do that. But that's not important because I'm writing this post for another reason.

On this point I want to say thank you to my host mother for making my stay in her family really enjoyable and for treating me like I am a part of their family. I am really thankful for everything she does for me and I really appreciate it.

But this post is especially for my mum in Germany, and probably the only person who will read this post. So excuse me that the following will be in German (if there is actually another person reading).

Mama,

ich bin sehr dankbar für alles was du für mich tust, auch wenn es mir manchmal schwer fällt dies zu zeigen.

Ich bin unendlich froh, dass du mich immer unterschtützt in allem was ich ich mir vornehme und in den Aufgaben die das Leben mir manchmal stellt, ich weiß das wirklich zu schätzen.

Bleib immer so wie du bist, denn so bist du wundervoll:)

Hab dich lieb<3

That's already it for today. There is not a lot happening at the moment but I already have an idea in mind for my next post.
Cara
♥♥♥

dulce de leche

There are some things that make Argentina to an awesome country, with no doubt is 'dulce de leche' one of them. Some of you may have heard of it before, but most of you probably not.

'Dulce de Leche' is the 'Nutella' of Latin America. Everybody knows it, and you can find it in 99% of the Argentine households.

But what exactly is 'dulce de leche'?

The word 'dulce' is Spanish for 'sweet' and 'leche' means milk, which already brings us to the main ingredients. Milk and sugar. The finished product looks like caramel and also tastes similar.

You can buy 'dulce de leche' everywhere here, but because I will really miss it back in Germany, I decided to learn how to make it, therefor me and my family cooked it ourselves yesterday.

You basically just need five things for making the milk caramel: milk, sugar, bicarbonate, cornstarch and patience (some people add vanilla extract but it's totally optional and I decided to leave it out).

We poured the milk into a pot and added the sugar, the cooker has to be on low flame and then you basically just need to stir and wait alternately. The process of making the caramel takes a lot of hours and I don't exaggerate with saying that.
After about two hours we added the bicarbonate, my host mum explained that this step is for the color, and indeed after about an hour later the liquid changed from white into the typical color of 'dulce de leche'. When the caramel was almost finished we also added cornstarch to thicken it.

The Argentine eat 'dulce de leche' with literally everything. I usually eat it with crackers but it's also really common to eat it with bred, cake or walnuts. It's possible to buy sweets here which already contain the treat. One of those sweets is called 'alfajor'. There are many varieties of 'alfajores' and you should definitely try them out if you have the chance or at least google pictures of them.

This is how an 'alfajor' can look like

After 6 hours of cooking, and not always keeping the flame on low because we didn't want to wait, we were finally finished with our first and self made 'dulce de leche' and I was really happy, that we could finally go to sleep because it was already later than 12 am.
 I don't really taste much of a difference between our 'dulce de leche' and the one you can buy in the supermarkets, I only think that ours is a bit sweeter and the consistent is maybe a bit different.
I think I will try out some other recipes sooner or later, maybe one that doesn't need that much patience.
But for now I have a whole bowl of 'dulce de leche'.
Cara
♥♥♥

día de la raza

Today I'll tell you about another holiday that is celebrated here in Argentina, the day of the races/ Columbus day .

The official day is the 12th of October but one of the primary schools here in Arroyito already celebrated it yesterday (Friday).

It was so interesting to see the little festival they made. A few pupils wore the ropes of the native Americans and danced a traditional dance from the north of Argentina. Furthermore they sang the anthem and some other songs. I realised how serious they took this whole fest, which made me really happy to see because in Germany the children would never do such a thing with so much discipline like they did here. To be honest I was really impressed they all knew the anthem, I wasn't able to sing it when I was 6 years old. But I wasn't only there to watch them celebrating. Another exchange student (Japanese) and I, we held presentations about our countries. I think it went well, even though it was in Spanish. I got really good feedback and I really hope they were honest with everything they said. My coordinator also told me that my Spanish improved a lot during the last weeks, which made me so happy to hear.

In my presentation I talked about things like food, clothes, religion, Christmas and the life in a typical German family. It was also really interesting to hear the presentation about Japan, since I have never been to an Asian country. 

Afterwards the festival was over, we literally lived the life of a celebrities. Everyone wanted to take pictures with us or see my hair (which is blond, and really curly). They even wanted autographs from us (not only on paper but on there arms!). We spend a lot of time there with the children, but then my coordinators daughter pushed me away from everybody, because we needed to go. I felt sad because there were a few people I wasn't able to talk to even though they really wanted to. 

It was a funny, weird, and embarrassing experience at once, but I'm also really proud of myself that I talked in Spanish in front of a lot of other people.

The rest of the day I spend at my local coordinators house, eating and drinking 'mate' and in the evening I had to go to my school because there was a little stand of my organisation and I talked to a few people.

After the event in my school was over, which was a lot of fun by the way and I might write an extra post about it, some people from my class and I spend time together and I was back home not earlier than 3 am!

Monday I won't go to school, because of the 'día de la raza'. I'm really curious if my school will celebrate it too next week, if so I will let you know what happened:)

Cara

♥♥♥

 Sorry for the bad quality pictures...

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las alemanas

I had the pleasure to spend the last weekend with my lovely friend Laura. She is also an exchange student from Germany and she lives not far away from my town here. Friday noon my host mother, my host sister and I got into the car and drove to Laura to get her. It was so lovely to see her again, since not seeing her for two months. When we were back in Arroyito we two explored the town, because I never wanted to do it on my own because I was scared that I won't find my way back. After a while we came to a supermarket and decided spontaneously that we wanted to bake a cake. So we bought the ingredients for it and went back home. We didn't end up baking the cake on Friday, because the kitchen was already used by my host sister. She made dinner for us, and in the evening Laura, my two host sisters, a friend and I ate together, because my host parents weren't home that night.

On Saturday we finally baked our cake, after we ate lunch. It turned out really well, and we almost ate the whole cake on our own. I mean we're exchange students, we'll get fat anyways. In the afternoon we went to the center of Arroyito, with the mission to find some clothes we could wear that night.

Indeed we found clothes really quickly. I got a dress and Laura bought herself a top and a skirt.

Back at home we watched a film called 'What if', because Daniel Radcliffe played in it and we were curious how it would be to see him not playing 'Harry Potter'. It was a typical romance film, but I liked it and can really recommend it to the people who like those kind of movies. After we ate dinner (at about 12:00am) Laura and I started getting ready for the night. At about 02:30am we were ready to go out but we had to wait, because her friends from her school hadn't arrived in Arroyito yet. At 03:00 am we left the house by taxi and drove to a nightclub. There we met Lauras friends and later also my host sister and many people from my school. In the club there was also one girl from Italy, she's doing an exchange, too and lives in the same village as Laura. 

The whole night was fun, even though I am not the biggest fan of Spanish music, but I'm getting used to it and I can already sing along a few of the songs.

The club closed at 6 am and we've been outside at about 6:30 because we talked to some people and had to get our jackets. Finally outside we got a burger and then walked home. Since we've been home really late we didn't do a lot on Sunday and in the afternoon we had to bring Laura back home.

I really enjoyed the weekend, and appreciate it so much that my host family made this possible for us!

I didn't think I would say that but it was also nice to talk German again.

I hope this wasn't the last weekend here with Laura.

Cara

♥♥♥

día del estudiante

Argentinians are really lazy and don't like going to school (okay, that's not uncommon) and because of that they have a day for everything. The 'día del estudiante' (day of the pupils) is one of them. On the actual day we didn't have school and at the end of the week, on Friday, we celebrated this wonderful day with the school:)

All students met in the schools gym, where we basically just sat around and talked. Some also brought 'mate'. After about half an hour we all went to the little park next to our school, where we played really funny games. 

All the time they played music and the students danced and the pupils of the 6th grade (which is the grade who is about to graduate) celebrated themselves.

Later there was even a live band and we got lunch and ice cream from the school. I brought my camera and my classmates took a lot of photos, and it's such a fun memory to look at them already.

I was so happy that day and I loved spending it with all of my classmates.

In the afternoon, after we were allowed to leave, many of us met at a river near the school. We talked a lot and had a fun time there:)

When I came home in the evening my face was red like a tomato because I had a sunburn and my neck looked the same, maybe even worse.

The 'día del estudiante' was definitely a highlight of the time I already spend here and I'm looking forward to all the other strange days Argentina has to offer.

Cara

♥♥♥