Everything comes to an end

Last weekend I realised that now it is officially over. Now I am a returnee and the whole program has come to an end.

Friday the 14th I drove to a village called Rotenburg an der Fulder to attend a seminar organised by  Experiment e.V.

During the seminar we tried to answer the questions "Who am I?" "Where am I from?" and "Where do I want to go?".

Sadly we are not allowed to talk about the seminar itself.

It was so nice to see all the people from last years seminar again and getting to know new people.

We didn't really get much sleep, reason was that we had a lot of program and no time to talk about our experiences, that is why we had to do it during nighttime.

After the weekend I was really sad to see everyone leaving since we all live in different parts of Germany and I don't know when I will see them again, if I will see them again.

I loved getting to know so many facts about other countries I have never been to. Now I would love to go to South Africa, Japan or Ecuador and even China sounds like an interesting country to me now!

I already started planning my next journeys since my 'Fernweh' got really big again.

I wish I could tell you more about the seminar but as I already mentioned, I am not allowed to.
But there is something I can tell you, in January I will get my tattoo, it will be a reminder of my time in Argentina and I am really excited to finally getting it done. It will be a sketch of the Andes on my leg. You will definitely see a picture of it, when I finally have it!
Soon I will write about how it feels like to come back after being away from home an entire year. Also I am going to ask other exchange students about their experiences and try to explain those feelings as good as possible...
I am really glad I started writing my blog again, and I really want to improve my writing skills.
I am going to talk to you soon!
Cara
♥♥♥

By the way, it is so funny to see how we changed during the past year. The first picture was taken at our preparation seminar (which I also did a blog post on -> Preparation Seminar) and the second picture we took at last weeks seminar. I can't believe how I looked like just one year ago! Kinda embarrassing...

Back at it again

Hello everyone!

Finally I am back. It's been a while since the last time I've posted something on here. I just read a friends blog and I started to miss writing.

It's been almost three months since I left Argentina. It was really hard to say goodbye and I cried the entire flight back. After a long journey back to Hamburg, Germany, I felt extremely exhausted. Meeting my family was weird because it felt so normal. Sitting in the car with my parents and my little sister made me feel like I've never been away, especially not for an entire year! But not only being in the car felt normal, everything did/does!

Sleeping in my own bed, meeting my friends, going to school, watching German TV, eating my mums food etc. It's a sad but also a happy feeling - 'normal'.

Three months after being back I already feel the urge to leave 'normal' and try something new. I want to see 'different' again.

If I would go back to Argentina? - Yes definitely. I want to see all my friends and live Argentina's traditions once again but I could not live there forever, that's for sure. I need change and I don't thing the country could give me as much change as I needed. After I finish school I would love to go there again, but I also really want to see so many other countries. I can't wait to see more of this world.

I will try to keep this blog alive. In the future I am going to write about Argentina and about all the places I will travel to. It would be a shame to just stop this blog and I want to keep it alive.

I will write to you soon,

Cara

big apology

Hello everyone,

I think I owe you an apology. It's been a few months since I wrote on here. One reason why I haven't blogged in a while is that my notebook broke and I don't really enjoy writing on my cell phone. Another reason is, that I had some problems with where I live and especially with my partner organisation. I will definitely write a post about my organisation here in Argentina, but not before I am back in Germany because I don't want to get in trouble and I know that I am definitely not their favourite student. Furthermore did I need a lot of time to think about my life and my future the last couple of weeks, that I totally forgot about blogging, and since I have summer break there isn't a lot going on here. I don't think I will post a lot in the next couple of weeks, since I don't have a notebook anymore, but I promise that I will write about my exchange on here when I am back in Germany. I already have a few things in mind what I want to tell you.

Until the next post, 

Cara 

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
♥♥♥