Argentina

Don't Cry For Me Argentina

2008-01-04T10:36:00.001-08:00

Well here we are, we've arrived to the final chapter. Six months ago I would have said this date was a long way away. Little did I know how fast it would go. People had told me it would go fast, almost as many times as I'd told myself but you never really take it seriously. I've pretty much taken the philosophy of fitting as much in as I can and making sure I get all the definite to-do's done.

I've got my suitcase packed almost as full as the remaining 48 hours of my time in Mendoza. I have said good-bye to all the people I won't get a chance to see again. I've organised my last two weeks so that I spend a couple of days after my end of school trip hanging out with my brother at another beach then taking a bus to Buenos Aires to catch my plane on the 8th.

These last few weeks were pretty much as I expected, hanging out with friends and going to the pools. I've done all my shopping and tried not to waste too much money. I have done some cool things though. One day last week I went white-water rafting with two other exchange students from the US. I was expecting a pretty lame little float down a hill for some reason. I was wrong. It was awesome, especially when one of the girls fell in and instead of helping her I just kept paddling. A solid hour and a half on the water with action all the way. We got back to the base which is about two hours out of Mendoza with a delicious asado waiting for us. We spent the rest of the day hanging out on the side of the river. I had wanted to go rafting for a long time and that day has just made me want to go more. I'll definitely be organising a white water rafting trip for when I get back. Anyone interested? Grandma?

I want to do a quick over run of some of the awesome memories I'm taking back with me. Definite highlights include the month spent travelling with my family then going North with my Kiwi companions. Days like the Rugby Sevens tournament and the 'baptism' ceremony at my school. I went to a Pumas game, local soccer game and even got to see Argentina vs. Chile in soccer which was a must do. I went to several concerts with my brother and with friends. Weekends away with the rugby boys and being hosted by another family during a basketball tournament a few hours south of Mendoza. I'm taking back with me a suitcase full of souvenirs and gifts but more importantly a year full of amazing memories and experiences that I'll have with me forever.

A lot of things have happened this year in my life that have nothing to do with Argentina. First of all my Grandpa died in my first few months which made being away from family that much harder. But it's also been a great year for my list of cousins. My Auntie Emma had a little girl Sabine earlier this year and the whole family has moved to England for a few years. Stink timing on their part. Also my Auntie Kea adopted a gorgeous little boy named Amanaki who I'll be meeting in a few weeks.

This blog has actually taken me a while to write. It's now about two hours before I leave and I've had all my goodbye's. I spent this morning with Lilly and her family. We just chatted and ate leftovers from the Christmas dinner. I actually found it really hard saying good-bye to her. She's been one of my best friends during this year and I feel quite privileged to have had such a close relationship with such an amazing person. I'm going to miss her the most out of everyone I think.

I'm finding it to say good-bye to all the people I had such close relationships with. In the last 24 hours the feeling I got on the morning of the 16th of February 2007, knowing in a matter of hours I would be leaving NZ, has resurfaced and is constantly reminding me of my limited time left here in Argentina. I want to thank everyone that has followed this blog and sent me emails of support. I hope you all enjoyed reading the blog as much as I enjoyed writing it. I'll wrap it up by saying I can't wait to see you all when I get back and that everyone's invited to an asado at my house. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Thanks again, love to all
Harry

P.S. I've left out my end of year trip with my class over New Years which was probably the best week of the whole year so that I'll have something to talk about when I get back.

Watch Out for the Homemade Red Wine

2007-12-09T08:19:00.000-08:00

How's it everyone,
It's midday Saturday and I'm sitting outside in the sun writing what is most likely the second to last blog of this journey. The truth is it has been indescribable. Although I've done my best to keep you guys up to date with all the major events and kept you wanting more, there's so much I've left out because no blog could ever do this year justice. But I'll do all the soppy stuff in the last blog and use this one to make you all just a little bit more envious.

In the last blog I mentioned that I was going to an AFS camp for a few days. It was pretty much what I expected. A lot of people joined together against their will when they would rather be enjoying their last few weeks with their friends. But the AFS volunteers were really cool and it was fun hanging out in the pool which is where we spent most of our time. The theme of the weekend was to reflect on the year and think ahead about what it's going to be like once we get back to our home countries. At various points in the weekend we would split into groups and the volunteers, who were mostly all returned AFSers, tried to explain that it can be just as hard settling back in to your home country as it was arriving in your new country and that it does take a while to readjust. It was pretty interesting.

I made friends with this girl from America who is also in Mendoza and even goes to my school. Before that weekend I didn't really know her but had just kind of seen her round and said hello. Neither of us had been too keen to hang out with other foreigners. We ended up getting to know each other quite well and it turns out she lives about 10 minutes drive from where I lived in America. Isn't that a coincidence? So we spent the whole bus ride to the camp, most of the camp and the bus ride back to Mendoza chatting. It was quite funny talking about Argentines and how we both found the same things weird and had had similar experiences. On the last night they had hired a band to come and play. The band was from Argentina but sang in English and did heaps of covers of Beatles songs and other classics like Stand By Me for example. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. I was quite surprised when the first song they played was Don't Dream It's Over. I didn't realise it was such a well known song. Afterwards I was expecting a bit of Dave Dobbyn but it never came. All in all it was an alright weekend.

The week I got back to Mendoza was the first week of the holidays and so started the party season. Each school puts on a big party for the kids that are leaving. They go all out. It's the equivalent of the ball in NZ and prom in the states. That Tuesday I went to one and it was awesome. It starts at about 1 in the morning and you don't usually get home until about 7 in the morning. These parties are said to be the best in Mendoza. The next night there was the same type of party but of a much smaller school in my dad's event hall. A friend from rugby and I were security and ticket sales. It was fun because as soon as the people stopped arriving we went upstairs to my good friends the chefs and pigged-out. That was another late night.

The next day I went with the rugby boys to a city on the East Coast called Mar Del Plata or in English 'Sea Of Silver.' It was a 17 hour bus ride which was an experience in itself. Along with all of our team came the kids from the division below which meant they were all about 15. As is rugby tradition here they all got off the bus with ridiculous haircuts and big red slap marks across their backs. As is not tradition but seems to happen anyways was them getting carried away and cutting everyone else's hair. They looked for the tiniest excuse. They cut my hair because I'm leaving in one month, luckily I saved my eyebrows, others weren’t so lucky.

Anyways we eventually got to the hotel. On Saturday we played a game and were losing in the second half until I scored a beauty of a try. By far the most important of my 6 month, 6 try career. We ended up winning by two tries. Afterwards they invited me to play with the division above us who were playing against a division above them. I got put in for the last 20 minutes. It was pretty intense. They were all 19 and 20 with a lot more strength. We played really well and ended up losing by 10 points. It was a pretty great day, I was still pretty stoked about my try. What a great way to finish my rugby career in Argentina. That night we went clubbing. We got back to the hotel and without sleeping went straight to the beach. We spent all Sunday at the beach where I was reminded how much I love it and how I'd missed everything about it this past year. I got quite badly sunburnt along with the rest of the boys which made the trip back to Mendoza much calmer. But that didn't stop a few of the younger guys from losing their eyebrows. In 3 weeks I head back to Mar Del Plata for my End of School trip.

Last Thursday night was my school ball. I can honestly say it was one of if not the best parties I've ever been to. I'll start from the beginning. My class all met up outside of school. All the girls were looking more gorgeous than ever and I was in my flash suit that I brought from New Zealand and my Hush Puppies. We climbed onto the back of this truck and jumped, shouted and chanted our way to the party hall. Each 3rd year class goes together in their own means of transport, usually its someone’s uncles truck or sometimes they rent a fire truck. We arrived to the party hall and all the parents were waiting outside. We spent about an hour waiting outside taking photos and eating all the delicious entrées. I discovered a liking for red wine and took full advantage of the open bar. At about 11.30 we entered the hall. I walked in with two stunning classmates. Beforehand we practiced a little routine which basically just involved me twirling them round then them kissing me on the cheek. It turned out perfectly. Then we sat down and had a pretty satisfying dinner but I was keen for the party to start. At about 1.30 the tables were cleared and pushed to the sides and back of the hall along with the parents. The hundreds of kids from other schools flowed into the hall and the party got under way. It seemed like everyone from Mendoza was there. I spent the night dancing, talking to random girls that recognised me as the NZ guy and also spent a while talking with some of the parents of my classmates. I even danced the Waltz, without actually knowing how, with the mother of one of my friends. The party winded down at about 6.30 and we all caught a taxi into town to have breakfast. We spent a while chatting about the party then headed home. At 9 o’clock I was crashed out at home.

Ok I was just finishing writing this blog when Bubu called me and asked me if I wanted to go to an asado out in the country and experience a classic Argentine pastime. I’d been hoping to get the chance to go to one of these get togethers. I was really keen, so Bubu’s older brother raced round and picked me up then we went and got Bubu and headed out to the area of Mendoza where all the vineyards and farms are. It was scorching hot. We drove along this really long dusty driveway in the middle of nowhere. Eventually we arrived at this gorgeous country house. It had lots of space and there were vineyards as far as the eye could see in every direction. I could just imagine my grandmas and other women in my family being in heaven in this house. Bubu’s brother introduced me to all the guys. Most of them were old fellas, friends of Bubu’s Dad. Bubu and I were the youngest by about 50 years but these guys were really cool. We sat down and had this incredible chicken dish. I’m pretty sure I ate a whole chicken. There were also potatoes and salad. I washed it all down with some homemade red wine which was more like red whisky. It was incredibly strong. This group of about 15 guys get together every so often to eat and play the guitar. They are all fanatics of a type of Folklore music from Mendoza called Tonada. We spent the afternoon eating ridiculous amounts, talking, singing and getting quite drunk of this potent wine under the shade of grape vines growing above us. Quite the scene.

At one point Bubu and I jumped into the pool of water that’s used to irrigate the vineyards. The water was gorgeously fresh as it comes straight from under the ground. It’s drinkable if you get it from the hose that feeds into the pool. I wouldn’t drink the pool water after a few old guys, Bubu, me and several frogs had all been swimming around in it though. We had a really great time and I really enjoyed listening to all the songs. Every now and then they would dedicate one to me and when they finished I’d have to pay them by giving them a glass of wine. The wine was so strong it stained your teeth. We all finished with really purple mouths. I felt really lucky to have been given this opportunity because it’s quite a special thing for these guys and they were quite emotional and obviously felt really strongly about this tradition. It was an experience a lot of Argentian kids wouldn’t be familiar with let alone an exchange student. That day will definitely stay with me as another fond memory of Argentina.

So that’s what I’ve been up to. Apart from that I’ve been emailing regularly with my Dad in NZ trying to get myself sorted out for UNI next year. Looks like I’ll be doing a Bachelor of Arts but not sure at what University yet. For my last three weeks in Mendoza I actually don’t have much planned. I’ve got some presents and souvenirs to buy and I‘d quite like to get some cooking lessons in from Lilly. I’ll basically just be going to the gym and hanging out with my friends. We’ll probably get to the pool a few times as well. Hope everyone’s well. Until next time, Chau.

I wish I was sitting exams........

2007-11-22T13:07:00.002-08:00

Hi all,
I've had another few weeks of awesome experiences since my last blog. Never ceases to amaze me how they keep coming. I'm not complaining though.

The weather is changing rapidly and I'm having trouble sleeping at night because of the heat. I have an air-conditioner in my room but I can't find the remote so I can't turn it on. The upside is every couple of nights we have this huge thunderstorm which makes the NZ ones look like little showers. Last night we had one with heaps of hail the size of marbles and incredible wind. My favourite part is the smell right before the storm hits and the sound of the thunder.

The rugby field where I have training is an open desert area between the city and the mountains. The other day I was arriving to training and it was obvious that it was about to pour down. We started to train anyways hoping it would just be a shower. At one point I stopped to look at the mountains and couldn't see them. The air was perfectly clear for about 500 metres then suddenly a white wall. It looked computer animated but as it came towards us we began to hear it. Everyone grabbed their bags and ran for shelter, except me. Just before the rain and hail came there were incredible winds It was awesome. I loved it until the wind carried this cactus and it smashed into me leaving my legs full of prickles. Pretty unlucky but it was well worth staying outside.
.
Rugby, rugby, rugby. Deciding to play rugby in Argentina was one of the best decisions I have made while being here. I love it more with every game. Apart from travelling it's one of the highlights of the year. A couple of weeks ago I scored another two tries in one game albeit the other team were significantly weaker. I was still pretty happy with myself. That happiness was crushed the following weekend when we lost at home for the first time in three years. The loss was a double-blow because it ruined our chances of finishing first in our league which was hard for a lot of the guys.

Last week I read in the newspaper that a team from Australia was touring South America and were coming here to play against a team compiled of the best players in Mendoza. A few mates from rugby and I decided to go and watch the game. Turns out it was the Australian Armed Forces rugby team with players from the Army, Navy and Air Force. It was a brutal game which just added to the awesomeness of it. My mates and I sat behind the Australian reserves and I started chatting to them. They were pretty cool up until they lost then they turned into real wankers especially when I asked for a giveaway for the boys. Bloody Aussies.

Last Saturday was the annual Rugby Sevens Tournament for my age group. We put a team together mostly consisting of the backs as they're more suited for Sevens games. Being the try-scoring lock that I am developing into I was chosen to play in the 'A' team which was a surprise. We played 7 games in one day. Anyone who's played a game of Sevens or has even watched a game knows that it's extremely fast paced and tiring. We won our first four games. I scored a nice little try in the fourth which was a added bonus. By the fifth game fatigue started to kick in and the legs stopped following orders as well. We one the that game by one try and made it into the semis. I don't know whether it was the fact that we were playing the team that beat us in the finals last year or the motivational speech from the coach or the fact that we had lost that heart wrencher the weekend before but we managed to thrash the other team in the semis 45-7. At this point the muscles started cramping up and fatigue was at an all time high especially as the scorching sun had been relentlessly draining energy all day. The final was against the team that won the season in the 15 man code so there was motivation. We were on a roll and ended up thoroughly beating them in a gruelling 20 minute match. As the final whistle blew our supporters ran on to the field and with the last ounce of energy we did a lap of the field, shouting and jumping. They presented us with the cup and we all took turns kissing it. It was one of the best moments of the whole year and a day I'll never forget. I don't think I had ever been so physically tired in my life, I slept all the next day. So that's the rugby part of my life but I do other stuff too.

Skip back in time a bit. As I said in my last blog, I left Liam, Basil and Yvonne in Buenos Aires and came back to Mendoza while they went to Uruguay. On their way from Buenos Aires to Chile they stopped in Mendoza a few nights. The plan was that my family here would meet them and we would all go out to lunch. We all met up one afternoon thinking we'd go and find some restaurant to eat at when my dad said that he had organised for us to go and eat in his party salon. He organised for a few of the staff to come and work. We ate an asado and spent a few hours chatting. Liam, my brother who speaks English and I were translators for the parents. It was a big success. No doubt my parents in NZ will want to know about my Argy parents from Basil and Yvonne's perspectives. I met up with them for a few more lovely dinners before they left for a few days in the mountains before flying out from Chile.

A couple of Sundays ago I had a really relaxing day with my mate Bubu and his family. Bubu's brother picked me up and we went and bought heaps of meat for the asado. We also stopped at a gift store and he bought me a pair of Gaucho pants which are really cool. Bubu and his brothers are like my Argentine culture advisors and are always telling me special Argentine customs, typical foods and classic Argentine clothing items. We arrived at Bubu's house to see Bubu's brothers 25 day old baby girl. It had been a long time since I'd seen a baby so small. I spent the afternoon with Bubu, his mum who is really lovely, Bubu's two older brother's, their wives and two young daughters. We watched movies, ate and played with the little kids. If there is one person I think will make it to New Zealand one day it's Bubu. I'm pretty sure he'll make the trip some time in the next few years. Really awesome family and will definitely spend some more time with them before I go.

I haven't talked about school in a while. Last week was the official last week of classes and now everyone's sitting exams., well except me of course. Haha. On Friday the school organised a party to say good-bye to all the students who were leaving. It was fun, there was dancing, music, food and people throwing water bombs. At one point in the night a few guys called me up to the stage and we danced in front of the whole school. (A friend filmed it but she only caught the last little segment and missed the best part and it also doesn't have sound) It was really funny and all the girls went crazy. Don't be fooled, I haven't learnt to dance really well I've just learnt to not care that I dance really badly. Everyone was on a really good buzz until they showed a slideshow of photos of all the kids that were leaving and everyone got all emotional. I feel pretty used to those big good-byes I've had quite a lot of practice in my life.

So now that school has finished I'm on holiday from my year-off. It's a great place to be. Tonight I'm heading off on a 13 hour bus ride to meet up with the rest of the AFS students in Argentina that are leaving in January. Its called the End-Of-Stay trip. It's just a few days hanging out doing activities. No doubt there will be a talent show. After I get back from this AFS trip I am in Mendoza a few days then I head off on another trip. I'll tell you al about it when I get back. Happy 6th Birthday to my cuzzy Manu for the 17th. Smell ya later. Harry

Plane ticket to Argentina - $2000
Learning Spanish - 6 months
AFS trip - $150

knowing everyone is stressing out about exams while your sitting in hot pools halfway around the world - PRICELESS

Riding The Travel Wave

2007-11-01T20:23:00.000-07:00

Hey,
Ready for another update? Probably not because I've been so good keeping you updated recently. I'm pretty keen to get all the blogs about my trips out of the way and this will be the last. At least until next month.

One of my best mates since I was a little kid, Liam, has also been on an exchange programme in Argentina this year. We had always talked about meeting up and travelling together but for one reason or another it hadn't worked out. The opportunity came when his parents from New Zealand, who I also know really well, decided to take advantage of the fact that their son was in Argentina, and they came and visited. I squeezed my way into their travel plans hoping to ride their wave and be able to check a few things off my "Argentina to see/do" list. We had an awesome eight days making our way through the famous Iguazu waterfalls in the north down to the really cool, funky Buenos Aires.

So I get off the 26 hour bus ride from Mendoza to Corrientes to see Liam, Basil, Yvonne and Liam's host dad Jorge waiting for me. We spent a few minutes checking who was taller out of Liam and I. It's still pretty even. We then went back to this holiday house that was owned by a family friend of Liam's host family where I met his two host brothers, host sister and host mum. They were all really cool and we spent a couple of hours chatting and hanging out. The next day Liam and I got up and went for a swim in the river out the back of the house. The river was called the Parana river. I didn't sop to think whether it might be named after the fish that live in it. But nothing happened so sweet as. We got some pretty funny looks from the locals, the water was supposedly too cold for swimming but was warm by NZ standards. Afterwards we went into town and walked around, most things were closed because it was a public holiday but we went to a really nice cafe and ordered without really knowing what we were going to get. It's always a bit of a gamble whether a ham and cheese sandwich means two slices of fake white bread without crusts and really processed ham and cheese or a fresh croissant with big slices of ham and melted cheese. Win some, you lose some.

We then made our way down to the riverside which was, like many Argentine rivers and lakes, surrounded by rubbish without a rubbish bin in sight. There were a few people fishing and one of them caught a fish, saw us watching him, put his cigarette in the fish's mouth and held it up for all of us to see, much to the amusement of all his mates. We met up with the host family at a restaurant and had lunch to say our good-byes to Liam's host family before we took a bus to our next stop off. Argentines are generally very unpunctual people, the only thing that consistently stays to a schedule are the buses. This makes for very hectic departures, all just adds to the fun and excitement of it.

We arrived to this little town called San Ignacio at about 10 pm. It's known for being the home of a famous Argentine writer named Horacio Quiroga but more importantly the site of the Jesuit Missions. W e dropped our bags off at the hotel and went in search of something to eat. We found this typical little family restaurant and got our selves a table outside under a makeshift roof, which we found out worked really well, because it started to piss down. We ordered the typical meals, mainly a slab of meat and a salad but had a really enjoyable few hours chatting and laughing while the rain poured down on the street. In a short break in the rain we dashed back to the hotel and crashed for the night.

We spent a large part of the next day wondering around The missions which were really interesting but Basil, Liam and I were itching to get to the slightly more exciting waterfalls waiting just a few hours away. Us boys made a last minute attempt to see Horacio Quiroga's house which turned out to be a lot further away than all the signs and information people (who you'd think would be right about that kind of stuff) had told us. Anyways we got there and had to turn around again and run back to the bus stop to catch the bus to Puerto Iguazu.

After a long, hot bus ride we found our hotel and settled in. It was a cool little hotel, nice and big. Great place to set up base for the next few days. We got up early the next morning and caught a bus to the much-awaited waterfalls. Certainly lived up to expectations. We passed the day walking around seeing these larger than life cascades from all the different angles. We managed to fit all the different pathways in but the definite highlight for me was this boat trip we went on. About 20 of us climbed into this speed boat and the driver took us around the waterfalls doing cool little spins and turns. He even took us directly under one of the waterfalls which I was so not expecting. What a buzz. There was a man taking video with a special water-proof camera and because we were right at the front most of the video is of us. We ended up buying the DVD which has a bout 20 minutes of us on the boat and an hour of some guy that hardly speaks English talking about the waterfalls. It's pretty cool though. After an action packed day we went to this restaurant where in an attempt to convince us to eat there the waiter said that if we didn't like the food we didn't have to pay. Turned out to be really nice but again the same standard dishes.
The waterfalls mark the border between Argentina and Brazil. There is a lot of debate about which side is better. We decided to see both sides so on the second day we took a bus to the city of Foz Do Iguazu in Brazil. We just winged it by going to Brazil. After a strange sort experience at the customs station we got off the beaten tourist track and ended up going to the city instead of the Brazilian side of the waterfalls in search of an ATM. I loved Brazil straight away, but it made me realise how quickly I'd forgotten how hard it is not being able to speak the language. Eventually we got money out of an ATM and asked some random policeman how we get to falls. He ended up accompanying us to the bus stop, then he even got on the bus to make sure we were alright. Good luck getting that in Argentina. The Brazilian side was amazing as well. There were a lot more little animals running around an lots of signs in Portuguese, Spanish and something that resembled English. Another really cool day hanging around these awesome natural wonders and we headed back to the hotel.

That night we stumbled upon this really funky little restaurant and as soon as we entered we got really good vibes from the place. We sat down and Liam and I shared a pizza and this delicious stir fry which was a really nice change. As the night went on the stereo kept spitting out these great covers of famous rock and reggae songs. Bob Marley and Rolling Stones covers done in a jazz style by this woman with an amazing voice who in my imagination is really gorgeous. After dinner I asked the waiter if we could buy the CD and at first they said no so I offered to go back to the hotel and bring my laptop so I could copy the CD instead. They were still reluctant for some reason but eventually they came round to the idea. So Liam and I raced back to the hotel and brought the laptop back just in time for desert. Turned out to be a great success, we got the gorgeous lady music, had a chat with the waiters and before leaving singed our names in chalk on the walls.

Yvonne and Basil had brought with them a bag of NZ memorabilia from my Dad to give away as presents. Along with the presents he also sent 8 episodes of Outrageous Fortune that he'd been taping. We got back to the hotel and Liam and I decided to watch an episode of Outrageous Fortune which I was dying to see after everyone had been telling me how juicy this season is. We stayed up until 4 watching episode after episode as we couldn't stop. It was addictive and I kept waiting for the episode where Aurora would somehow come back from the dead. It was pretty tragic. What a great show.

The next day we had a lazy morning and at midday we caught a plane to Buenos Aires. Most people I had talked to had given me a bad impression of BA, dirty, dangerous but most of all just too many people. I LOVED IT. What an awesome big city. Full of culture and action. We dropped our bags at the hotel and without any destination in mind Liam and I set off walking. We had been walking for a while when we realised that the Pumas were playing against France. So we quickly found a bar and ordered a drink. There were quite a few people in the bar and as the game got more and more intense the bar grew noisier and noisier. Liam and I were by far the noisiest and rowdiest. Wasn't that a great game? Maybe it was the setting and the excitement of being in BA but I really enjoyed it. Especially when Chabal got the shit knocked out of him. Personally, that was my favourite part. We left the bar exhausted from all that cheering and made our way back to the hotel with a few stop offs at music and book stores.

Later on we went to a place called San Telmo which is a funky little neighbourhood full of lots of little stores with stoned hippies selling hand-made necklaces. We ate a pretty average meal but the cool vibes of the place made it not such a big deal. By the end of the night I was getting quite tired of constantly being hassled by beggars asking for euros and dollars every five seconds. It's pretty relentless a lot of the time. It was a cool little place all the same.

We spent the next day looking around shopping malls, each one of us bought some cool clothes and came away pretty pleased. I bought some pretty flash shoes and a pair of good jeans which I was in need of. Liam bought a really cool leather jacket and had a hard time finding shoes his size. It was funny seeing the reactions on the faces of the hundreds of shop keepers when he asked for size 47 shoes. It was kind of like "no sorry, we don't stock that size but try the circus." But eventually he did find some that looked really good and they weren't even big shiny Ronald McDonald red ones.

That night we did one of the must-dos of Buenos Aires and went to a live Tango show. It was much better than I expected. We sat down and had a good meal and watched these men swirl these gorgeous women around and do cool twisty things with their legs. I was pretty impressed. I could easily watch a lot more shows and I still don't think my eyes would be able to keep up with their legs.

We went back to the hotel and watched a few more outrageous episodes of Outrageous Fortune and crashed. The next day was Mothers Day and we went from market to market wandering around looking for hidden treasures. With the help of Yvonne and her trusty Lonely Planet guide book we found this really big market where we spent hours looking and wondering if you can get this is New Zealand and if so for how much. My best buy was a shot glass that had written on it, Buenos Fucking Aires. I don't know why but I thought it was real cool and it only cost like 4 pesos or something. After we'd finished with the market and Yvonne got conned into paying 30 pesos for a glass of cordial, (not to worry, happens to the best of us) we made our way over to the rich people cemetery which had heaps of dead people. Some were famous, but mostly it just rich people that wanted to be dead next to famous people. I think that makes sense.

After the dead people we took a taxi back to the hotel, squeezed a quick episode of OF in and headed to the big bus station where I had taken that first bus to Mendoza nine months before. As I sat on the bus I thought about the holiday I'd just been on and what a cool month I'd had. I still feel like there's so much left in Buenos Aires to explore and will definitely be going back there one day. But it was a fantastic few days at the end of an unforgettable trip. A trip full of exciting adventures, great food, Outrageous Fortune but most importantly the company, Liam, Basil and Yvonne. We had lots of interesting conversations and it was great hanging out with some Kiwis especially ones that I feel so close to. I had an awesome time with you guys, I cant thank you enough. Unforgettable. Until next time.
Harry

Second Stop San Martin De Los Andes

2007-10-28T08:46:00.000-07:00

Hey,
I have a spare moment and I'm still quite far behind on the blog front so I'll tell you about San Martin De Los Andes and if I have time, about my trip to the north.

We left Bariloche on a Saturday at about midday. It was a 3 hour car ride through this really beautiful terrain but I was quite preoccupied by the All Blacks game that I was missing. The All Blacks game against a little country called France. You might know or have heard of the game I'm talking about. We arrived at the hotel just in time for the replay and I had taken every precaution not to hear the result of the game. I spent the next 80 minutes slouching further and further into my chair. I was pretty messed up after the game and the next few days had a dark cloud over them. Our hotel was in this little town surrounded by stunning scenery of mountains and lakes. The hotel was awesome, it had an indoor and an outdoor pool, ping-pong, foosbal but most importantly a huge barbecue which helped ease away the pain of the World Cup loss.

We spent the next few days hanging out around the town visiting places. We made friends with another family their and often had big shared meals with them. It was a very relaxing holiday which made a good change to the intense one we had just had. The hotel organised activities and one day pretty much every who was staying there all drove to this picnic area by the side of the lake and ate asado and played 'tejo.' Tejo is an Argentine game which involves throwing a disc and having two teams throw other discs and the winner is the person who throws the disc the closest to the original. It's simple but entertaining. My dad and I won both games. We spent the rest of the afternoon drinking mate and talking with the other families from the hotel.

Every Tuesday they have a big Asado for all the hotel guests. There were about 40 of us. After we had all eaten huge quantities of meat and maybe a quarter of a tomato we divided into two teams for a very competitive Karaoke match. It was karaoke with a twist. Each team has a captain and when a song is played the team has to signal to the captain as soon as they recognise the song and the captain shakes this little shaker thing. If they get the song title and artist right they have to go to the front and sing the song as best as they can to double their points. I was elected captain of my team even though I was least likely to know any of the songs because they were all in Spanish. My team won in the end but not after a highly competitive display of poor singing abilities by both teams.

Over the four days we also had some pretty competitive tournaments of ping pong, foosball and a game which we sought of invented as we went along. It was like rugby in a pool but you have to throw the ball into the goal. As you can tell, Argentines are highly competitive people, every little thing will be turned into a competition. I really like it.

So apart from being gutted about the All Blacks loss, I had this awesome week relaxing, drinking mate, eating nice food and just hanging out in the sun. On Thursday at midday we started the 13 hour drive back to Mendoza. We arrived later than expected on Friday morning but I got up for school at 7 anyways because I wanted to say Hi and Bye to all my friends at school before I went to the North the next day. But that is another blog. I was on a really good buzz knowing that I was only halfway through this awesome month of travelling and that I still had another two weeks to go. Doesn't get any better than this!!!

More pics

2007-10-22T08:19:00.000-07:00

October-Travel Month, First Stop Bariloche

2007-10-20T16:55:00.000-07:00

How's it going everyone?
Right now I'm 17 hours into a 26 hour bus ride from Mendoza to a town called Corrientes in the North where I'm going to meet up with Liam and his family. Surprisingly the trip's not all that bad. The long distance buses here are really well made and comfortable which makes the long journeys in Argentina bearable and even pleasant. I'm constantly astonished in my travels in Argentina by the incomprehensible amount of open space, seemingly never ending then all of a sudden you find a town in the middle of nowhere. The last time I was on a bus like this was between Buenos Aires and Mendoza on my third day in Argentina. Almost exactly 8 months ago. Feels like a long time, especially with all the things I've done since then.

I said that this blog was going to be about the holiday I just got back from with my family in Bariloche. Instead of blabbing on about how great it was I'll give you details. My family and I left Mendoza on a Friday afternoon and drove south until about 1am when we stopped in a town called Neuquen. We stayed the night in a hotel and got back on the road in the morning after a quick look around the city. Wasn't much too look at and we were pretty keen to get to Bariloche. With a few stop offs along the way to take pictures of the incredible scenery we eventually arrived at our hotel which would be our base for the next week. It was on the main street about 3 blocks away from a huge lake called the Nahuel Huapi. (which at one point I actually jumped into, just to add to my repertoire of cold places I've jumped into) Bariloche is a town of just under 100000 but its population swells a lot with the ski season and its also the number one destination for the end of High School trips. Its full of young people and has a reputation for a nightlife unlike any other.

The week we spent in Bariloche was action packed. We went skiing for two days which was a great experience. I never really liked skiing, I never built up confidence with it and it frustrated me that I had to learn from scratch every time I went. This time though I really enjoyed it. Something had changed and it wasn't nearly as difficult as I remembered. My family were all reasonably capable skiers especially my brothers. They all went straight to the difficult tracks. I didn't really like the idea of skiing alone so I followed them to the top of the mountain. Haha. And of course I fell as soon as I got up for the first 100 metres. I got to the point where I could stay standing up until I had to turn. My brother got tired of waiting so he just told me to go straight down the mountain and see what happens. I took his advice. Now that I think about it, it was probably dangerous because of my inability to stop. I probably pissed quite few people off but I did get to the bottom and in the end faster than a lot of people. The thing about going that fast and not knowing how to stop is the falls are really dramatic. By the end of the day I was skiing well enough that I could manage to get down the difficult tracks without falling. I was pretty proud of myself until I caught the chairlift to the top with this 6 year old girl and watched as she raced off down the mountain. What ever, I bet she skis everyday. I felt like shouting out to her, "Yea well I'm taller!!!"

The rest of the days when we didn't go skiing we would drive around and visit certain places around Bariloche. One day we went to a town called El Bolson and visited its famous market. I bought some things that I'll never use and came away satisfied. We walked up this hill to see a rock where from the side you can see the profile of a face (pic). It's called "the head of the Indian." I don't know what makes it an Indian face, looks like every other one to me. One day we went to a town on the other side of the lake called Villa La Angostura. We did a short little walk up a hill and discovered some amazing views that stretched out as far as the eye could see. It was absolutely breathtaking and the photos can't really do it justice. We climbed down and sat by the side of the lake and ate chicken and mayonnaise sandwiches. I thought that was a New Zealand food. Turns out its delicious in Argentina too. There was a touristy couple there eating lunch as well so I went over and introduced myself. He was a bloody Aussie! Travelling around Argentina with his Venezuelan girlfriend. I thought to myself, Shit, this guys got it right, even if he is an Aussie. We had a quick chat about who's rugby team was better, (little did we know what was going to happen a week later) then went our separate ways.

The days were great and we did everything from visit a Swiss colony and eat a thing quite similar to a Hangi to visit the most expensive hotel and pretend we were going to stay there so we could look around. I was taking photos the whole trip, with my readers in mind, and ended up with over 150 photos. The daytime drives doubled as a great opportunity to get over the night before. My 19 year old brother and I had an awesome time going to all the bars and clubs and a few unsuccessful goes at the casino which was a first for me but I was just happy to get in. Some nights we would do all three things. There's nothing like walking out of the club at 7.30-8.00 in the morning and seeing the sun rising up over the mountains and the lake. All in all I felt like we really made the most of the week, we did all the best things but at the end of the week we were exhausted.

A continual highlight of the trip was the food, which as you all know is an important part of my general happiness. We ate at all the highly recommended spots where we ate the best Asados, pastas and things called Melanesas. Melanesas are thin slabs of meat with a crumbed coating. Delicious. Bariloche is also a town famous for its top quality chocolate so we ate a fair bit of it and it was as good as they say.

I've decided that's enough writing so I'll leave the second half of the trip to the south for the next blog in a few days. The second part of the trip was 5 days in a smaller town called San Martin De Los Andes and a very different type of holiday. I'll let the pics do the rest of the talking for Bariloche. 7 hours left on this bus. Bring 'em on. Take care everyone. Harry.

P.S. In one week I will have travelled from Bariloche to Corrientes. Go get a map and check how far that is.

Guess what....

2007-10-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

IM BACK!!!!
Hey everyone, just when you were about to give up on 'the blog' I've just had the best few weeks so far. But because I have been doing so much stuff I've got a lot of catching up to do, I'm going to break it all into two blogs. This one will be about the pre-holiday things and the second one will be about the awesome holiday I've just had. Ok so let's rewind about 5 weeks...

The last blog I mentioned that I've started playing rugby. That's going really well. So well in fact that the other day I scored two tries. Two tries in one game. I was pretty happy with myself. The other team was useless, but still, what kind of lock scores two tries? We now know the answer is a Harry lock. The next weekend we one a game against the team that's in first place which was a great win. So rugby is going really well, at the end of the season it's quite likely we'll go to a tournament which would be awesome.

Last month was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. My family had a big party with lots of family friends. I always like the parties my parents have because there's always really nice food and a lot of it. One night I went with my family to the synagogue to another big party. We ate and afterwards everyone got up and danced. It sounds really lame but I had a good time. Ten days after the Jewish New Years they celebrate Yom Kippur which involves fasting. I didn't take part because I had a rugby game in the morning. Can you imagine me fasting? What a horrible thought.

I think I might have said this before but Argentines are big fans of commemoration days. For example, Student Day, Kindergarten Teacher Day, School Teacher Day, Friend Day. You name it and it's probably celebrated here. September 21st was the first day of Spring which is a big deal here and also coincides with Friend's Day. My class went to the countryside and hungout all day eating and playing sports. But I chose, instead, to go with my mates from rugby. Every year there is a huge party in this well-known camping ground. Practically the whole of Mendoza went. Everyone pitches tents, although no one actually sleeps. There were two football fields of young people having a great time and a raised stage where there were DJ's and massive speakers. There were TV cameras and people eating Asado. It's said to be one of the best parties of the year. It certainly lived up to expectations. We arrived at about 5pm and the party got going at 6pm and went on until about 8 in the morning. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced. The only downside was that it was incredibly cold and my legs didn't fit in the tent. I attempted to go to sleep at about 8am but after about 30 minutes I gave up. At midday it realy heated up and we spent the day hanging out and playing with the rugby ball. I had an awesome 24 hours even though the temperature was freezing.

The week before I went on holiday we received a visit from a man who my parents met on their vacation in Cuba earlier in the year. He was and still is a very well-known Cuban writer. He worked for and knew Che Guevara. So the whole night we all sat around the table listening to him tell stories. He was a pretty incredible man. I had to try my hardest just to keep up with the conversation because I know very little about Guevara and the Revolution. Although I'm sure I missed a lot of what he said you could tell he was very intelligent and had an infinite number of stories, some he could tell and some a bit more confidential.

The night before we went on holiday there was a party at my Dad's salon. It was a get together of all the newspaper agencies in Argentina. I put on my suit and helped out. At a calm point in the party my dad and I grabbed some of the meals meant for the guests and had a feed in the back room. The food was incredibly delicious and I ate more than my fair share. No one seemed to mind that I wasn't working. Must have been the suit.

That's what I had been up to before I went away. Tomorrow I'll try to put the next one up, with heaps of photos from my trip to the south of Argentina, which I just got back from the day before yesterday. The thing is tonight I'm taking a 26 hour bus ride to the north of Argentina to meet up with my fellow Kiwi mate Liam and his family. We're going to do some travelling and will visit one of the most spectacular sights in Argentina. As you can tell I'm under a lot of pressure right now and my life is pretty hectic, going from one incredible holiday to another. HAHA I'll try to maintain the quality and improve the consistency but I'm sure you'll forgive me for not making the blog my number one priority. Check again in a few days.
Later

P.S. in the rugby pic, for those of you who don't remember what I look like, I'm bottom row, third from the right.

My Third Family and My Bald Head

2007-08-28T20:20:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
You've all probably been wondering if I have been abducted by a group of Argentine super-models. Unfortunately no but I have been doing heaps of cool things. There have been some pretty big changes in the last month. I'm bald, I've given up Basketball for Rugby, I have become a minor celebrity in a small town south of Mendoza and I have my departure and arrival dates in New Zealand.

My hair went from the longest it had ever been to the shortest. (except for when I was born) Argentines love their 'initiations.' About a month ago the rugby team had an away game in a town called San Juan which is about 3 hours North-East. It was going to be my first game/trip. We arrived at the field ready to play only to find there had been an error in the timetabling and there was no time slot for us to play in. So we got back on the bus and headed home. On the way we stopped at a petrol station and all the boys pitched in to buy a pair of scissors. It was the first trip for two of us so we got down on our knees and they ruthlessly snapped away out our hair, each player taking their turn by grapping a tuft of hair and letting the scissors fly. Afterwards my hair actually hurt. haha. They left a little bit of hair at the front and sides just to make me look more ridiculous. After they got tired of us two they got carried away and in the end ended up cutting almost everyone's hair. Somewhere along the desert highway between Mendoza and San Juan there are huge quantities of hair.

Once I arrived back home my family were pretty shocked at the new style, I looked like a rat that had to have parts of its fur shaved off. (do rats have fur?) Anyways, the next night I went to get my hair cut. I just wondered around until I found one. I walked in and there were 3 guys, all above 55. I was a bit worried they were going to give me a grandpa haircut but decided that my hair couldn't get any worse. It was the best hair-cut I have ever had. Not because I ended up with really gorgeous hair, all he did was shave it all off. It was great because the three guys were all very funny, mostly toilet jokes and stuff but it's so much funnier when it comes from old people. You got the impression that the guys spent a lot of time there. Not because there was a lot of hair to be cut but because it was a great place to get away from their wives. One of them even showed me a picture of him when he was young having sex with some girlfriend of his. Classic. He was obviously very proud of the photo. Old characters like that are surprisingly common here in Argentina.

So far I've played two Rugby games, I came on in the second half in both of them. What a rush. I'm quite proud to say that I made the first tackle after the kick and it was a bruiser. My height is a big help in the line-outs and overall I'm having a blast with Rugby. I get on with all the guys really well too. It's funny because in New Zealand all my friends play Rugby and I come to Argentina and once again I have befriended the Rugby boys. I had a bit of a dilemma last week because I was getting a hard time from both my rugby and basketball teams because I only went to half the trainings. I only went to half because both sports train on the same nights. I decided that I had to choose. In the end I chose rugby. The main reason being I get on with the rugby boys better. It was a hard choice because basketball has been my passion since I was living in The States. I'm pretty sure I'll just play rugby while I'm in Argentina, not keep going when I get back.

A few weeks ago I went to one of my classmates 18th birthday party, like all 18th's in Argentina, his family rented out hall and made a huge deal out of it. It was cool, A few guys from my class and I went to the special dinner beforehand because we're VIPs. Afterwards there was a big dance and heaps more people came. I was looking pretty flash with a real shirt with real buttons. Something I'm still getting use to. During the week, a few days before the party we all met up in my mates house and cut the hair the birthday boy's hair. I think I know the reason why long hair is so popular here. It's because to have long hair is quite an accomplishment. You have to be pretty clever to somehow avoid someone chopping your hair off. Or maybe it means that it's been a while since you tried something new which involved an initiation.

Not last week but the week before, I spent 6 days in a little town called General Alvear about 4 hours south of Mendoza at an inter-school tournament. There were about 15 High Schools altogether. Most of them were from around the Mendoza area but there was a school from Uruguay and sometimes schools from Chile go. Once a school from Germany came. Haha. The tournament consisted of Basketball, Handball, Soccer and Volleyball. My school took both a boys basketball team (in which I played) and a girls, a girls volleyball team and a boys soccer team. We played 1 or 2 games per day and when we weren't playing we were supporting our other teams. I can tell you, there is no crowd like an Argentine crowd. And they are proud of that. There is a common joke here. How can you tell which is the English guy in the crowd at a soccer game? He's the one sitting down quietly. English guy refers to all non-South Americans.

But back to General Alvear, what really amazed me about the whole tournament is that all these kids that come to play in the tournament have to sleep and eat somewhere. What happens is that families that live in the town basically take on a kid or two for the week. That's a huge thing for a small town to have so many families take on kids. It was an amazing reflection of what a great hospitable little town it was. I got extremely lucky with my family ( I think I'm onto my third family now in my lifetime- Shit I'm really ploughing through them) My Mum was one of the organisers of the whole thing and I had two brothers that played volleyball. So the whole family was pretty involved in the whole thing. I also had a younger sister. I got on really well with all of them. They fed me well and pretty much spoiled me. They also hosted 3 other boys as well as me so the house was packed of sweaty, smelly teenagers.

I became really well known in the small town of General Alvear. There were several reasons, one was because I was an exchange student which is pretty rare, another because of my height and the fact that I could dunk the ball, but most importantly because I have a cute face. Everywhere I went, from random people from Uruguay to an old couple that like to watch basketball to an ex-basketball player who played for the Argentine women's team, would come and introduce themselves to me and we'd chat for a bit. I met heaps and heaps of people and when I went out to clubs and bars at night everyone would ask me how I was, even people I'd never met. I even got VIP treatment at the clubs, they let me and my mates in ahead of the huge lines waiting outside because I was Harry. Personally I think that's where the cute face part comes in. Lucky I didn't let all of it get to my head or anything.

Another interesting thing about the week was the schedule. We would get up at 8am to either play or watch one of our other teams play. We would be at the soccer field or basketball/volley court all day then come home at 9pm at night, eat, and go out to a club or some bar at about 11pm. We would stay out until 4 or 5am in the morning, come back and sleep until we had to get up at 8 and do it all again. It was intense, talk about making the best of your time. I think the lack of sleep may have been a big reason why we didn't do as well as we had hoped. We didn't make the finals but wasn't too important, the games were only a small part of the whole experience. The team from Uruguay for instance, came all that way, played their first game and got thrashed, so from then on they decided they would stay out all night drinking and not worry too much about the games. When I left for the trip I didn't know anyone of the players from any of the teams from our school and now I know all of them. It was a great week, one I'll never forget.

In Argentina the important birthday for boys is 18 and for girls it's 15. My parents own a party hall with a kitchen and store rooms and everything which they rent out for parties. They held a 15th birthday party there and us 'kids' were waiters. My brother and I were barman. It was fun preparing and mixing all the drinks. I got to see how it all goes. There was a lot of food and dancing. By the end of it there was a lot of drunk dancing. Speaking of food, I've been eating some cool things. I ate a pizza but instead of bread as the base it was a big slab of meat. What a great idea. Only in Argentina!!! I also had pork cooked asado style for the first time. The only way I can explain is like a slab of bacon but 10 times more tasty. If I hadn't tasted it for myself I wouldn't have believed something could be so delicious.
\
Remember how MTV came to my school and filmed an episode. If your interested you can see a little clip of it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGMCuJ0Vl-g Or search in youtube for "Rally MTV en el CUC" You can see me in the top right corner a fair bit, haha. What a famous guy EEAAAHH. On another note I've just finished reading 'In Patagonia' by Bruce Chatwin. The story is about a man and his travels in Patagonia, the southern most part of Argentina, with lots of little side stories. It was in English but it was related to travel and South America so I let myself read it. Don't know what ill read now, I'll go back to books in Spanish I think.

AFS has bought my return ticket to NZ. I leave Buenos Aires on the 8th of January and arrive in Auckland at 5.00 in the morning on January 10th. Yes that means the 9th of Jan, my birthday. will be spent on the plane. Or another way to look at it is that due to the difference in time zones my b-day doesn't really exist. Either way you look at it it's less likely that people will cut my hair on the plane so I guess that's alright. I hope my group of welcome homers at the airport will be as impressive as my going away group were. I doubt it though at 5 in the morning.

As a lot of you know my best mate James is off to Mexico for a year and he leaves this Friday. I wish you the best of luck bro. Hope you have an awesome time. Can't wait until you come back and we can speak Spanish without anyone understanding.

Well that's about all the news I have, I will tell you that I finally have some travel plans which I am getting more and more excited about. And sorry about the lack of photos, I haven't had my camera lately. Slack I know but I promise to have some for next time. Adios amigos.

P.S. the pic is taken just after they had finished with the masterpiece. I got it all shaved off afterwards. It only stayed like this for a day. The cute face was overpowered in this photo.

VIVA ARGENTINA BUT GO THE ALL BLACKS

2007-07-25T09:53:00.000-07:00

OK how great are the All Blacks? I can't get enough of those boys. I'm still pretty rapped by the Tri-Nations/Bledisloe result. Now we just have to wait another 43 days until the first World Cup game. I'll be waiting.

I got a funny response from my last blog. Within 12 hours of posting it I had received emails from both my Grandmas. What a lucky guy I am to have such loving Grandmas. My best and most loyal followers.

Anyways, back to Argentina, the other day I was walking out of one of my Spanish lessons at the institute and an English teacher stopped me and asked me if I would mind coming to her class and talking about New Zealand for a few minutes. I entered the class and what do I find? About a dozen 18-19 yr old girls. I thought I must be dreaming, it seems a bit odd that there were no boys, but hey, better for me. So for the next hour and a half we talked in English. They were surprisingly fluent. I got asked all the usual questions, Do you like asado? Which girl do you like the most in this class? Quite upfront the Argentines, no subject is off limits and the spicier questions are the most common.

There are about seven of us in the lessons I go to. Six foreigners working in the wine industry and trying to learn a little Spanish on the way, and me. A fellow kiwi has started coming to the lessons at the institute. He's a pretty cool guy, we always talk about the All Blacks games before class which is fun, no one else is that interested. Everyone else in the class is a lot older than me, but its all good because I'm one of the most fluent in the class. They call me Pendejo, which actually means orphan, but they're just saying that I'm young, The first time they called me it I went home and asked my brother what it meant, When he told me I felt like going back and telling him to get lost because not only do I have parents, I have two sets, so I'm more like the opposite of pendejo. But if there just saying I'm young then that's ok.

The other day it snowed for the second time since I've been here, but this time we got a pretty hearty 10 cm. It melted by mid-afternoon. but was a fun morning while it lasted, reminded me of living in Washington DC and how everything looks different covered in white. Its still bloody cold here most of the time. We have a pretty grunty heater in the middle of the house which does a good job of keeping us warm. Argentina has been playing in a futbol tournament the last couple of weeks, called Copa de Las Americas. Friends and family come over when Argentina plays and we watch the games, they make for great nights. Argentina destroyed all the teams to make it to the final, they looked invincible. They played against a Brasil team without it's two best scorers, in the final and to the heartbreak of many Argentines lost 3-0. But on a better note The Argentine under-20 team won the World Cup on the weekend.

In the last week of school before the holidays, my class got the whole week off to organise a play to celebrate the 9 of June, Argentine Independence. All week we worked on it and on Friday we performed. I didn't have a very big part, Policeman kinda thing, pretty lame, but the show itself turned out great and everyone said that it had been the best one ever. Personally I think it was because of the high quality policeman. The red cape im wearing in the photo means I am the Police. That night there was a big party in my school to celebrate the midway point in the school year. There was a stage where students could get up and sing so me and a few mates got up on stage and sang some song in Spanish. It was hilarious. I knew some of the words so when the lyrics I knew were coming they would pass me the microphone and the crowd would go wild. Afterwards a group of us went into town and ate pizza. It was a fun as night. I stayed at Bubu's house that night and we spent all the next day playing video games and watching movies, for lunch we ate asado. What better way to start the holidays?

The first Monday of the holidays was 9 of July, Independence day, but this day had even more significance for my dad, it represented 25 years of every Friday night getting together and playing Truco, a popular card game, with his friends. Every Friday night for 25 years is a pretty amazing achievement. To celebrate they threw a party at the salon that my dad owns. It was a pretty amazing event. All the players were given trophies and certificates. As you can see in the photo it got quite emotional during the speeches but afterwards they brought out the karaoke and the mood lightened up. For old 'fellahs' they threw a pretty good party.

The next morning I went with my brother and his girlfriend to Villavivencio. It's a place in the mountains about an hours drive north-west. There is a bottled water company nearby with the same name which supplies to all the restaurants and shops in Argentina and I'm pretty sure it was in The States too. We stopped on the side of the road surrounded by snow and ate sandwiches. It kind of sounds like I'm the annoying foreign boy ruining my brothers romantic date, but it wasn't like that, they had already gone once a couple of days before. I had forgotten how cold snow is but I quickly remembered after a few snowballs. This photo is not the greatest but it turned out well enough considering usually self taken photos make you look retarded. As you can see I've put on a bit of face-weight. Is that a word? I don't think so. My parents and Lilly love the fact that I'm more meaty now and apparently more coloured.

Last Wednesday I met up with Bubu and a few girls he knew from school in town and we went to the Zoo. I know I know, I'm reaching new levels of coolness. It was pretty sad to see all the animals in tiny little cages actually made me feel a bit yuck. It also made me realize what a great zoo Auckland Zoo is. It was fun seeing all the different animals though I gotta admit, and also seeing some that we don't have in NZ. They didn't have any Kiwis though, bit of a bummer. Afterwards we went back to one of the girls house and hung out. We played Pictionary, in Spanish even. OK I'm just gonna come out and say it, I am the man at Pictionary. Thats basically all we did that afternoon.

The next day I went with my rugby team to Potrerillos. That is the place in the mountains that I went to with my family a few blogs ago. (blogs are now a measurement of time haha) About 15 of us rented two cabins for 3 days. It was the highlight of my holidays. Not much sleep, a lot of eating, fighting, drinking and more fighting. You can probably imagine there wasn't much deep conversation or meaningful discussions or anything like that. You wouldn't want to do it for a longer period of time because you couldn't drink the water and we didn't have any pots to boil it first, so it was either headache from dehydration or feeling queezy because you drank bad water. I remembered that famous tramp I did with my dad and a group of close mates when we were kids. We ran out of water on the first day so for the remaining 3 or 4 days we drank mosquito ridden water. I figured if I could survive that then I can drink a bit of mountain water so I chose to just drink the water but ended up feeling a bit queezy for a couple of days. Apart from the water problem it was a great few days with some great memories. The photo is of a pretty rugged asado that we made. It didn't turn out thatwell because we didn't have enough wood and were hungry so we cooked it really fast.

I know that I keep saying this, but everything is going great and still feeling like I'm living the life. I am still learning how to live in a big family with brothers and sisters though which is taking some time to get use to. And I do have run-ins with my parents sometimes but no more than I would be having if I was at home. Hey Happy Birthday to my cuzzy-bro Hugo-man, hope its the best b-day yet. I think thats it from me. Until the next blog. Harry

Brains, Stomache..... What next????

2007-06-25T18:48:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,
me again. Before I start, Happy Birthday Mum (the NZ one) for the 13th of June. We talked via Skype on her birthday and I gotta admit, I felt a quick moment of homesickness. But now on to what you came for...

One afternoon a couple of weeks back one of my friends from rugby asked me to come to his school and talk about New Zealand with his English class. The school is a quite a poor one, very different from the one that I go to. We drank Coke and ate tortitas ( like hard pikelets). Coke is extremely popular here, the common after-school activity is to go and drink Coke. The teacher is going to New Zealand in a few weeks so she was very interested to hear about NZ, the students were more interested in what I thought of Argentina. Which girl in their school I liked the best. If I liked Asado and so on. People heard that I went to the English class and now everyone is asking me to come to and do the same. I have always been quite shy of public speaking, but on my way home from the English class I realised that I hadn't been nervous at all and that I'd just spoken confidently to a group of people that I didn't know. Also a lot of the time I was speaking in another language. I felt pretty pleased with myself afterwards.

Last Sunday was Father's day and we had some family friends around and an extra big Asado. Us kids all chipped in and bought Jaime a flash pair of Sunglasses. Later that day he and Silvia flew to Cuba for a 10 day holiday. I was feeling pretty hungry and Lily doesn't work on Sundays so I went with Bubu to an all-you-can-eat restaurant. It was an experience. I ate 5 harry-size servings including everything from cow stomache (which was surprisingly good) to more Asado. They were different sections for different types of food. My Uncle Adam has always been my eating idol and I can honestly say that he would have been impressed. We were eating until 1 o'clock in the morning. After the restaurant we were going to go to this party but once we stood up we realised that we were barely going to make it to the taxi out front without bursting at the seems. In the end I just went home and slept.

On Monday night I had basketball training but when I arrived the gym was locked so I went with my coach to a basketball game between two of the best teams in Mendoza, open-age. It was the second game of a best-of-three finals. The place was packed and the atmosphere was similar to that of a futbol match. The game was delayed an hour because we had to wait for the police to arrive before it could begin. I think the reason they were late was more a display of power than of Mendoza traffic. One of the teams was notorious for being rowdy and disorderly. But once it started it was great up until the second to last minute when someone from the crowd threw a glass bottle onto the court and it smashed. The game was called off and the whole thing finished on a really sour note. A classic and not too rare example of when the Argentine sporting passion is taken too far and the whole occasion is ruined.

On the other hand, on Wednesday night I witnessed a more common example of when Argentine sporting passion makes for a bloody great night. Bubu invited me to go with him to his brothers house to eat Asado and watch the best Futbol team from Argentina, Boca, play against the best team from Brasil. Just to give you an idea of how big this game was, more than 100,000,000 people around the world watched the game. It was a real boys night with lots of Bubu's brother's friends. We ate a lot and drank even more. Argentina won and to celebrate we drove to the house of one of their friends who was a fan of the rival team of Boca and wrote things in white paint on his house. Haha. He must be a pretty light-hearted guy. Not too worried about material things, like his house. I got home at 3 in the morning and had to get up for school a few hours later.

On Saturday I woke up early, I couldn't sleep. I was far too excited about the All Blacks first Tri Nations game. I sat down in our La-Z-boy with the house to myself and let my emotions run wild. I didn't think it was possible but the Haka is even more moving when your halfway across the world in a country where they pronounce Haka 'kaka'. Gotta love the Haka. They had me a bit worried for the first 60 minutes but the victory was extra sweet because my brother spent a year in South Africa on an exchange and he had been saying how the All Blacks were overrated. We have a $20 bet that NZ will win the World Cup. Money in the bank.

That night I went with my brother to that concert of my favourite band. I think I talked a bit about them in the last blog. The band is called Las Pastillas Del Abuelo. Translates to 'my grandfather's pills.' Anyways, it was at this amazing club, the biggest in South America, I think. It was like a stadium but there were so many people you could barely move. It was great, I'm loving the live music scene here. I met up with some friends from school and had a really good night/morning.

I'm now reading a book called Cuentas de la Selva (Stories of the Rainforest) by Horacio Quiroga. The Gabriel Garcia Marquez book was too hard. This book has lots of short stories and it's much easier reading. Dad has sent me In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin so I'll start reading that soon. I have been pretty slack with the photos but I've put one of the ones that I forgot to add to the last blog. (CUC = Colegio Universitario Central, I'm the long one in the U) The other one I still don't have. Basketball is going well, we win the majority so that's good, we played a really hard game the other night against a great team and just lost in the last few minutes. I've also started the Spanish lessons at the institute. They're pretty laid back too. No gorgeous teacher though. But they are good and the institute offers many activities which I plan to take advantage of. OK, Thats All Folks.
Chau

P.S. please leave some comments, I wanna check that when I write 'hey everyone' at the beginning of my blog I'm not just talking to mum and dad. Just leave a comment saying 'I read it.' Just for this blog then I'll trust you all for a few more months.

As Easy as Stealing Chocolate From a Foreigner

2007-06-10T18:25:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,
First of all I want to apologise for leaving you all so long without a dose of Argentina to keep you satisfied. I have been busy doing lots of things that I can write about in the blog for you guys, my fans. haha.

OK. The Saturday night after my last blog I went to a concert with my brother. The band was called La Vela Puerca. They're a rock group from Uruguay. I have been listening to their music since I first got here and I really like it. I bought a cool t-shirt at the concert for $10 which I was pretty happy about. We also ate Churri-pan which is like a huge hotdog, dripping with fat and filled with rubbish, delicious. The guy selling them asked if I played basketball, my brother said yes and he has just started rugby as well, the guy looked at me and put an extra sausage in my hotdog. Maybe he felt he should try and make me gain weight. Anyways the sausage was extra delicious and the concert was a lot of fun, very sweaty and crowded but really fun.

The next morning I reached a major milestone in my life. I prepared and cooked my first asado, more or less by myself. And I gotta say it was not lacking in the taste department, I was quite proud, even my Dad said it was well done and he's famous for his high quality asado. That afternoon I went into town and met up with my AFS councillor for the first time, we drank coffee and talked about how everything is going and what my options are for travel. It really got me excited. So I started planning a trip to the south of Argentina. I'm finding it hard because AFS has a lot of rules about travel and freedom is quite restricted for safety reasons. But I have winter holidays in 3 weeks so hopefully ill be able to go somewhere then. We'll see what happens.

Three Friday nights ago I went to this party with some friends from school. It was a party between 3 different schools in the area and there was a lot of dancing and gorgeous girls. It was heaps of fun, especially because I knew so many people there, people from my basketball team, rugby team and school. I felt pretty connected for a foreigner. I didn't get home until 6 in the morning. I slept for two hours because at 9 I went to watch my team play rugby. It was a great game and we won against a really good team. The photo is of me with my mates, Guliano and Alexander. Our home fields are in the middle of nowhere and there's not a building more than one story high for miles. The only things that aren't flat are the Andes Mountains covered in snow, not too far away.

Speaking of snow, the other morning when I walked out the door to go to school at 7.30 everything was covered in a light sprinkling of snow, no more than 1-2 mm, it was all gone by 8 but was nice while it lasted. Its bloody cold here now most of the time. Every year the 3rd year students design and pay someone to make special sweatshirts unique to each class. The sweatshirts have your name, year and class. We received our sweatshirts the other week, and all gathered in the courtyard which is where the picture is taken. Colegio Universidad de Cuyo is the name of my school, or CUC. I also bought the school t-shirt, its pretty plain but I thought it would be a good thing to have. Those kind of mass produced, themed clothing are popular because they are easy and comply with the dress code.

A couple of months ago my NZ parents sent me a package with a DVD of the airport and my new baby cousin. I also asked them to put in some NZ chocolate just for a bit of a taste of home. Last week the package finally arrived and there was one chocolate bar inside. I just thought they had been a bit stingy with the chocolate but later I was talking to my dad on Skype and he asked me how I liked all the chocolate. Turns out somewhere between Auckland and Mendoza there is someone that opens parcels and steals chocolate bars, 12 to be exact. I felt very de-chocolated, not a nice feeling. But anyways the DVD arrived fine, so I sat down and watched the DVD while eating my Moro bar. It was a nice little NZ moment.

On Wednesday night I went with Bubu to The Harlem Globetrotters. For those non-basketballers, the Globetrotters are a basketball team from America that travel from city to city playing games, its like basketball but with lots of tricks and skits. They have another team that travel with them who play half-hearted and are the victims of all the tricks. It was good fun, especially because these 2 meter tall black guys were talking Spanish with heavy American accents, made my Spanish look half decent.

Last Friday night, I went to the birthday party of one of the girls in my class. There was about 20 of us and about 15 of her family. The Dad made Churri-pan and we bought empanadas. The picture with me and the churri-pan was like something out of one of my dreams. Everyone was in one room and there was lots of dancing and talking. I spent a lot of time talking with the Dad, the whole family were really nice and funny. They were very impressed by how much I ate. They invited me to go to soccer games with them and to go see this band that's coming to Mendoza in a few weeks. I had a great night, lots of funny photos, but not on my camera, i'll try get them for next time.

That was another night of about 3 hours sleep because at 8 I had to get up. I went with the rugby team to see The Pumas (Argentine national rugby team) play Italy in Mendoza. The game itself was a bit boring, slow paced. Maybe I am spoiled by the All Blacks, who knows. It was still cool though, very funny with all the rugby boys. That night we all went to one of the boy's house. But first some of us went to the supermarket and bought the food. One whole trolley full of chicken, one full of vegetables and another one half with wine and half with bread. We cooked everything together in massive pots, more like cauldrons, outside over an open fire. There was so much food it took 4 hours and we didn't end up eating dinner until 2 in the morning. But the food, when it was finally ready was delicious. I ate a lot even for me.

I got up this morning after another night with minimal hours of sleep to get ready to go to a Futbol game between the local team, Tomba and a team from Rosario. The Sunday Futbol game is quite the ritual for many families. I went with one of my friends from school and some of her family and cousins. We drove to the game in a big pick-up truck, and we sat in the back waving the Tomba flag, the pictures not that good but you get the idea. We passed parades of huge trucks packed, and then some, with people all in blue, singing and shouting. The stadium was the same one I went to the day before, for the rugby game, but it had completely transformed. We had seats in the "popular" section which are the cheapest and the most rowdy. It was bursting and pulsating with people. Waves of blue doing the Mexican Wave, it was out of this world, the atmosphere was unlike any game I'd ever been to. The final score was one-one, which was a bit disappointing but I got to see a goal for the home side which is something not to be missed. The place exploded. I tried to take pictures, i got some, but the people I was with told me not to, too dangerous. I can't wait to go to the next one all the same.

So that's what I've been up to. I really feel like I'm living the life, Futbol games, great parties, great food, no homework/tests, as much sport as one boy can handle. So basically, I'm pretty happy these days. Now I have to go catch up on some much needed sleep. Chau everybody. H

Gotta keep the immune system strong

2007-05-17T10:47:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,
So much has happened since the last update, I've started playing rugby, I've been filmed by MTV and I've had the whole school beat me and throw things at me. Great aye!! And I ate cow brains. mmmmm tasty.

Ill make you wait for the explanations. The Saturday before last was my Dad's birthday so on Friday night he had about 15 friends round for dinner and then a game of Truco. Truco is a card game that he plays every Friday night with his mates. Then Saturday night was pretty much the same but with a new group of 15 friends. A lot of food, wine and laughs. The picture is of me and my Mum and Dad. How cool am I with my AFS t-shirt on?? All my others were dirty, honest.

The next Wednesday was my Brother's birthday. So that afternoon we went out for lunch at a nice restaurant. I came home that night after playing two basketball games (won them both) ready for my bed but instead my oldest brother and I went to the bar where my other brother was having his birthday party with his friends. It was cool but we didn't get home until 2, and I had school at 8.

I've finished Harry Potter and I am now reading a book my Spanish tutor gave me called, Noticia de un Secuestro by Gabriel García Márquez. It translates to Notice of a Kidnapping. Its much more advanced and I'm finding it quite hard. But I just feel so smart when I'm reading it. I told you that every morning we gather in the courtyard and raise the flag while singing the National Anthem. It was starting to become quite unpleasant as the weather was deteriorating, especially when most people were still waking up at 8. So now on the really cold days we just skip it. Patriotism is not an everyday necessity. One not so cold day last week, my friend and I volunteered to raise the flag. I felt so privileged and accepted. haha. How many people does it take to raise a flag? Just one, so I just stood there with a big grin and tried to remember not to put my hands in my pockets. It's very disrespectful to the moment. I told one of my friends to take a photo but I don't think that's allowed. That same day we had an earthquake drill. I think there quite common here.

Last Saturday I went to an Asado at my basketball club, It was delicious as always, but this time there was more than big juicy steaks on the grill, they had bought cow brains or 'Seso' in Spanish. I had the usual Harry-size serving of it. It was OK but I prefer old fashioned meat to be honest. It was creamy and unique tasting, not bad but I couldn't eat too much of it. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera. It looked just like brains do on the movies.

In Argentina, when a girl turns 15 its a BIG deal and similar when a boy turns 18 but on a lesser scale. On Saturday night my friends went to one of the girls from school's 15th. I didn't know her and I couldn't get on the list. They happen every weekend so no biggie. Instead I went out with my brother to some bars around Mendoza. They were more like houses with lots of people smoking and drinking. It was a lot of fun, one 'bar' had walls covered in newspaper clippings about everything from The Beatles to Soccer. And in one particularly full corridor, with music blasting and at 1 in the morning I saw a man just sitting in a chair next to a lamp reading. It was a very funny site. It would have been a great pic. I often find myself thinking, "O that's going straight to the blog."

I've become quite good friends with some of the boys at my gym, and they had been telling me for a while that I should go and play rugby with them. So last weekend I went with Bubu and watched one of their games. It was cool, we watched the game and ate some really delicious empanadas. After seeing them win I decided to go along to one of the trainings and learn how to play. It was a lot of fun but I realised that I have no idea how to play rugby, I was surprised to discover that its changed somewhat since I played for Ponsonby under 8's. I've been to three trainings but I won't start playing games until I can unlock the inner rugby talent in me.

Last Monday, MTV (Music Television) came to my school to film a sort of game-show with bands from Venezuela, Chile and Brasil. The setting was in a classroom and the band members were students who had to answer questions about the history of Rock-N-Roll and about 30 students from my school, including me, were the other students in the class. It took all day and we didn't do much except applaud when they told us to. But it was cool with all the cameras and they brought in models dressed in school uniforms (even though my school doesn't have a uniform). The show will go to air in June sometime and will screen throughout South America. I should be visible in a few shots so I will be able to add that to my few TV appearances.

But even more exciting than MTV coming to my school was the yearly 'baptism', as they call it, of the first year students, on Wednesday. I had heard a lot about it and was somewhat shocked to see little 15 year olds being tied to the flag pole while the principal watched and laughed. Classic stuff. The baptism consists of dressing up as Native Americans and making your way through a course while the rest of the school throws a mixture of mud, rotten meat, paint, eggs, leaves, and a few other things I found out afterwards that are amazingly disgusting and can't quite believe were allowed. The clothes I wore will never be the same. There was about 200 first year students and a little French girl and me. Being the brave guy that I am I went first. Afterwards there was an all out mud fight (if you can call it mud) which lasted about 30 mins. It was definitely not for those with weak stomachs, people running round shoving rotten meat in peoples faces. It probably sounds like hell to a lot of the people that read this, but everyone was having a really good time and I think only a few people spewed up. haha. It was an experience that's for sure.

The pics... The one with me after the Baptism and my mates Bubu and Renzo. On my left is Bubu and on my right is Renzo. Again I'm the only one smiling. I don't know if there grumpy because there so close to me or because it was suppose to be a tough-guy photo.

So yea, I've had a pretty great week. Realised late last night that I've been here for exactly 3 months now. It was a strange feeling to think that I'm already a quarter of the way through the year. Times gone so fast, but I've also done heaps. Everyone said that the first few months are by far the hardest, and although its been hard I'm having a blast and can't wait to see what comes my way in the next few months. Anyways I'm off to basketball training, o yeah, we won another 2 basketball games last night. because we're winners. later gaters.

I want to seem interesting

2007-05-03T16:56:00.000-07:00

Hey loyal followers,
long time no update. Ill start with the weather, its now very cold here in the mornings and doesn't heat up until about 11. Things are going really well for me, I've been real busy. The downside is that my sleep is at a minimum. I reluctantly gave up my siesta because I started my Spanish lessons. The reluctance quickly vanished when I saw that my one-on-one Spanish teacher was a gorgeous 19 year old. So now Spanish lessons are one of the highlights of my day, plus there's the learning aspect which is good too. I have lessons 3 times a week and she's teaching me proper Spanish which is quite different from spoken Spanish. It's unbelievably complicated so ill change the subject.

Last Saturday night I went to my first AFS meeting in Argentina. It was the kind of "meeting" where 5 kids from different countries come together and speak Spanish and eat Argentine food. It was alright, I'm glad that there not too often though. The 4 other AFS students had been here for 8 months and were all speaking fluently which was cool. The girl who's house we were at showed us pics of her year. She had gone on some cool trips with other AFS students. It got me thinking about what I would like to do and what trips I could plan.

My parents own another house in Mendoza which they're renovating and plan to sell. On Sunday morning, being the giver and the handyman that I am, I went and worked on the house for a few hours. Afterwards went home and ate one of the best Asados I've eaten so far. I missed my siesta again because I went and met some friends in Parque San Martin, you know, the big park I've talked about in previous blogs. We sat around talking and eating. After a few hours they left and my friend and I walked around town. We went to the markets and he kept asking how much things cost, things that he would never buy. I asked him why and he said "because I want to seem interesting." He's a very funny guy. I had McDonalds for the first time in Argentina, its exactly the same, same taste. That means different things to different people but I thought some of you might be interested. My friend, his name's Mauro but people call him Bubu, I don't know why, told me about a little argentine custom. If someone gives you a knife as a present you have to give them a coin. He made it sound like if you don't have a coin you still get the knife but in a painful way.

Tuesday was Dia Del Trabajador, or Labour Day, so on Monday afternoon my brother and I drove down to San Rafael which is the closest city to the resort I went to in my second week in Argentina. My other brother came down later that night on the bus. My Grandfather and my Mum's brother live there. We went because my brother was going to buy another car but it didn't end up happening. My grandfather owns a shop that sells clothes and shoes and soccer balls, as do all the shops here. I bought a pair of nice shoes to go out in, and 2 pairs of socks and a jumper for $40 NZ. Amazingly cheap.

I went out clubbing with my brother that night which was really fun. I started talking to this girl and we had been talking for about a minute before she realised that I wasn't from Argentina. That's my record so far, my Spanish must be improving or maybe it was just because the music was loud. Tuesday my brothers and I spent the day at my Uncle's house with his two kids. It was cool but I was some what disappointed when I realised we weren't having Asado. We drove back that night and stopped and bought hamburgers from a stall on the side of the road. I'm a true believer that the best food comes from the most unlikely places, like the side of the road in a really poor village.

The pics are of my brother when we were driving down to San Rafael, looking pretty snazzy. The other is of me looking way to happy for the moment and some girls at Parque San Martin. The other night my school organised a party called "Fiesta De Harry" with big posters with my name all around the school. It was actually called Harry because it was something to do with Harry Potter but most people thought it was for me. I didn't even go because I was in San Rafael but apparently it wasn't that good anyways. It was cool having my name on the walls though. By the way, I only have 70 pages left of Harry Potter. I'm cool aye? O and ill try get some pics of me "learning" with my Spanish tutor some time, I know you're all curious. By the next blog I might have been on National TV. Until then Chau locos.

P.S. Happy birthday to my Dad for May 4th. He just turned 26. My Argentine Dad's birthday is May 5th which is a bit spooky.

Harry Postre Y La Torta De Chocolate

2007-04-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

Hey all,
the title came from a girl at school and I thought it had a nice ring to it. Maybe J.K. Rowling could name her 7th book after me. Ive had a pretty cool week. Weve had minimal actual days of learning stuff, (the other kids learning and me reading H.P.) Ill try and explain why, but I dont really know. From what I understand the teachers have been on strike for the last 3 weeks so we only have school about 3 days a week and of those 3 days about half the lessons are canceled because the teachers dont show up. So its been pretty cruizy. Also, last week was "election week." Again I dont really know what for but as far as I understand its to elect the group of students that organise the parties and activities for the rest of the year. Its organised and run completely by students. So all week there were concerts and feeds put on by the different parties. Everyone got really into it. Thursday was the last day so there was an all day fiesta and everyone was wearing the colors of their party. Afterwards a group of us went back to this girls house and hung out. I think next week everythings back to normal.

On Wednesday night I got the opportunity to do something that I really wanted to do while I was here but I didnt think i'd get the chance. I went to a Futbol game between Chile and Argentina with my family and some family friends. They hadnt played in Mendoza in 9 years so I was really lucky. Somehow my Dad got tickets the night of the game. It was an amazing experience. The final score was 0-0 but the crowd was still incredible. The stadium was an ocean of blue and white except for a tiny splash of Chile red in one corner. Theres no way I would wear anything black if New Zealand was playing, I value my life over patriotism anyday. The Chile supporters were surrounded by police with shields and left the stadium before the rest of us were allowed out. It was a great night and I felt really lucky to have witnessed such a big part of Argentine culture. Hopefuly ill go to more games.

On tuesday night I played another basketball game, it was against the best team in the league and we managed to stay with them but they went ahead at the end and won. I played another game straight afterwards with the top team. We won that game pretty easily. We were winning by a lot the whole game so I got to play the second half. I scored 8 points. Flash aye? By the end of the night I could barely move I was so tired. When I got home my Mum's sisters and her cousin were round for dinner. So I had the chance to show off my Spanish, I'm pretty pleased with the progress im making. Im going to take this opportunity to apologise before hand, or maybe its already begun, but as Im speaking more and more Spanish im finding English is getting harder and harder. Its only a matter of time before this blog is affected and eventually I might just have to post pictures instead. Until then ill try and use "big boy words."

On Friday night I went out to dinner with my brother, his girlfriend and another couple from Israel. The Israeli girl spoke a bit of english and spanish and the guy spoke some english. So 2 fluent spanish speakers, 2 fluent hebrew speakers and one fluent english speaker. It was intense. The language changed every 30 seconds. It made me realise how much progress ive made because listening to them speak hebrew was the same as listening to Spanish when I arrived.

On Saturday morning Lilly and I made gnocchis again, im getting the hang of it. Ive started helping her with the housework in my spare time, cuz you know, thats just the kind of guy I am. Im a giver. Haha. I also dont really like having someone make my bed and do everything for me, I feel like an egg. Thats Lilly in the pic making gnocchis, shes the best, ill try take her back to NZ with me. The other pic is of me with some mates from school. How cool is my t-shirt? Its Harry with an "I" because apparently im a Latino now. Sweet as. The girls at school told me to let my hair grow, like the other boys in the picture. Im thinking about it, its a big step for me. Ive had the same haircut all my life. I didnt get a very good pic of the Soccer game but you kinda get the idea. OK thats it, until next time. Chau

World famous in Argentina

2007-04-14T09:02:00.000-07:00

Hows it going everyone?
Im gonna start off with some sad news. Last sunday night (Argentina time) I found out that my Grandfather, or "Stinky" as I called him, had passed away on Monday morning (NZ time). He was a big supporter of me being in Argentina and I think a part of him wished he could go instead. Haha.

I spent last Sunday with my family and some of their friends at our house in the mountains. Its about one hours drive west, right into the heart of the Andes. On the way there we drove past vineyard after vineyard. They stretched on for miles. We got there and my brother and I went for a walk to the top of a nearby hill and then to this river. The river was cold even by New Zealand standards, because it had come straight down from the mountains. As we walked I would say something in English then try translate it to Spanish and my brother would correct it. Im quite the multi-tasking male. Walking and learning. When we got back the Asado was ready so for the rest of the afternoon we sat around talking, (me mostly listening)eating and drinking Mate. Mate is the national drink, its like herbal tea. Its quite bitter and supposedly it relaxes you and reduces hunger. I learnt the proper etiquette for drinking mate from my Lonely Planet guide. Bloody useful the old Lonely Planet guide.

The basketball games have finally started. The first one was on Tuesday, I played alright but we lost by three points. On Thursday we played again and it was probably one of the best games ive ever played. I was on fire. It was a home game so the crowd was going wild. They shouted out things in English like "very good Harry" and "beautiful." I played the whole game except for the last 3 minutes when I got my 5th foul and had to sit down. We were up by about 2 or 3 the whole game but ended up losing by 9 after I went off. Shux. I came home and bragged to my NZ Dad on skype about how good I was. Even though we lost I was on such a high. Id been feeling a bit down that week, finding it a bit hard to stay motivated with Spanish but after that game I was back to my normal self. Ill try and get someone to take pictures of one of my games for a future blog or for the NZ newspaper, either one.

On Friday night I went out with my oldest brother to one of his friends birthday parties. It was fun. We played table tennis, ate Asado and drank Mendoza wine. Im more of a beer man but it was pretty nice. Everyone was real friendly and all night long I was questioned about everything from Soccer teams, music, religion, politics and women. You can imagine how hard it was talking about politics with my limited vocabulary and my even more limited knowledge of Argentine politics. On the other hand the subject of Argentine women was relatively easy. They even sang Happy Birthday for the guy in English so I could Sing-a-long. We didn't leave until about 5 in the morning which is pretty normal here.

Today is Saturday and ive just finished eating lunch. We had Gnocchis with meat sauce. Gnocchis are like little pastas. I helped Lilly make them. Im going to try and learn how to make some classic Argentine meals, starting with this one. Hopefully ill come back and be able to reproduce some of Lillys magic. This week im starting some Spanish lessons to try and speed the process up a bit and also fill in the only empty spots in my schedule. It should be pretty fun because the language center im studying at have lots of activities that are free if you are studying there. For example on Fridays they have tango lessons and an asado. On Wednesdays they go to places around Mendoza like museums and touristy stuff which would be pretty fun. So yea thats what I have coming up in the next few weeks. Enjoy the pics. Smell Ya Later Gaters.

My best wishes go out to Pat and the rest of our family. Sorry I couldn't be at the funeral.

"YOU LIKE KISS FLOOR?"

2007-04-04T08:49:00.000-07:00

Hola everyone,
Ready for another Argentina update? Tuesday was a teachers only day so I got a ride into town with my mum to buy some clothes for school. As I was getting out of the car these three girls from my class were walking past, they came and said hello. My mum told them I wanted to buy clothes so they said they would help me. Likely excuse to hang out with me. haha. I spent the afternoon going from shop to shop asking for the biggest clothes they had. It was relly hard to find clothes big enough for me, never mind that I usually wear baggy clothes. I got very funny looks from the shopkeepers as if to say "you don't even speak Spanish! How did you manage to hang out with these 3 girls?" Who I gotta admit were very good looking. I got some good clothes in the end. Later that night at dinner my mum told the rest of the family about the three girls and they were all very impressed, especially my dad who said "Haha Harry Potre". Ive earned another nickname, my dad calls me "diente de leche" which literally translates to teeth of milk but it means that I eat anything and everything. Instead of sleeping and doing nothing in school ive started reading Harry Potter but in Spanish. Pretty flash aye? not really though because it took me 2 hours to read/translate/understand 4 pages with the help of a little electronic translator I call "mi amigo" much to my parents amusement. But hopefully by the time I come back to New Zealand I will be able to say ive read the first chapter of the first Harry Potter book in Spanish. Choice. The next night I was feeling particularly aggresive because my basketball practise had been cancelled. My brother made some comment about my spanish so I wipped him with a towel. We ended up having a full-on wrestling match. It was very funny. At one point I was laughing so hard that I let my guard down and he pinned me on the floor. "you like kiss floor?" he kept saying, which made me laugh even more. I'll admit that I did lose that one. Argentina 1 - New Zealand 0. He is 21 though and hes not small. On Saturday night I went to a girl from school's party. It was cool but very different from NZ parties. There was a lot of dancing. I got the breakdown in dance moves from the girls which normally would have been very embarassing except they were gorgeous and it was ok because whenever I did something right everyone would say "MUY BIEN HARRY!!" and clap. It was very funny. The next morning my parents, my sister and I drove to Cordoba. Cordoba is the second largest city in Argentina and has a huge student population. My oldest brother was already there because his girlfriend lives there and my other brother was in Buenos Aires. On the way there we stopped at Villa General Belgrano. Its a little touristy town with a strong German influence. It even celebrates its own Oktoberfest. There was a whole building devoted to cakes and chocolate. I almost lost my wallet there but some guy found it and recognised me from the face on my licence. That was lucky. In Cordoba we stayed in a hotel surrounded by bars and nightclubs right in the middle of town. The next day we drove half an our out to a town called Villa Carlos Paz. The photos with the stream are from there. We had lunch with some people that were friends of my parents and you won't guess what we had for lunch. After the asado we played a game of 2 on 2 rugby in the backyard. Me and the son of the people whos house it was, who was 7 years old versus my brother and another little 7 year old. I dont think any of them knew the rules because they kept blatantly throwing it forward. It was more like a game of who could run into eachother the hardest. I did New Zealand proud. My brother needed to ice his leg afterwards. Argentina 1 - New Zealand 1. My family is Jewish and Monday was the first day of Passover so being the religious guy that I am I went with my family to the Cinagogue and then to the house of my brothers girlfriend for a special dinner. I was pretty oblivious to what was going on most of the time but the food was nice so I was happy. The next morning we drove back to Mendoza. On the way we stopped at a place that sells these things called alfajores which are two cookies with a caramel-like sauce called dulce de leche in the middle. Really popular here. My dad got the women that worked there to take a picture with me and her next to this elephant statue. You don't get to see that because its not a very good pic, the statue is the only thing that looks decent. The drive back had some pretty amazing scenery. Unbelievably huge landscapes that stretch as far as the eye can see in every direction. It was something you don't really get in New Zealand because its too small. It's the school holidays now but only for a week. Im looking forward to a well deserved rest haha, all that Harry Potter really takes a toll. Ive got something pretty cool lined up next week, should make for a good blog update. until then... chau

So do you like Asado???

2007-03-25T08:45:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,
Im in a really good mood right now because I just finished eating our sunday asado (barbecue for those less loyal readers that dont memorise every word of this blog). But anyways this one isnt going to just be about meat. I'll try and write this chronologically. My brother had to go in to work in the lingerie shop last saturday evening so I took the opportnity to explore the downtown. I spent the evening walking around by myself buying all the food from the stands on the side of the road. It was really fun, everyone was in a rush to go somewhere but I was just strolling along eating this ham sandwich thing, roasted peanuts and empanadas. It was very entertaining to watch the cars manouver around the pedestrians that all seemed oblivious to where the sidewalk finished and the road started. Driving is very different here, they drive on the other side of the road and most of the streets are one-way. People use horns like indicators, pedestrian crossings are seen as finish lines, the bigger car has right of way and traffic lights are for losers. I found out this week that there are two AFS students at my school, one girl from France and the other from America. Both are in their 7th month here and when I told them I had been here for a month and hadn't had any contact with AFS they both said awww sorry you have had to do it alone. But I told them I was fine. They said that the language does come and communicating gets much easier. They could both speak spanish fluently which was a good sign. For English class I wrote a speech on Edmund Hillary and I spent last week translating it into spanish and tomorrow ill read it to the class. Thats about as much work as I have done in 2 weeks of school. Sometimes my teachers try and tell me theres a math quiz the next day or something like that but I just pretend I dont understand. Its quite useful not speaking spanish sometimes. Everyone here is really proud of the Argentine food. They always ask me "so do you like asado?" and then lean forward with a big smile knowing that im gonna say "yes its the best meat in the world." The other day at the tuck shop at school the guy asked me if I liked empanadas, which is mince wrapped in pastry. I said they were very good so he gave me two for free. Were good friends now. But there are downsides to being from another country, that afternoon before basketball practice I wanted a muesli bar to eat beforehand so I opened the cupboard and took this thing that looked like a chocolate bar. Before practice I open it up and realise that its a candle. I was quite embarassed so I quickly chucked it back in my bag. On friday my school had a small concert to welcome the new first year kids at the school. Everyone gathered in the courtyard and danced to Cumbiar music. Im the worst dancer in the world but I still had a good time because everyone wants to dance with the foreign boy. Hopefully I'll come back with some moves. Cumbiar music is like spanish rap mixed with techno its really popular here, I dont really like it but it was still fun. I was a bit grumpy though because it was during the time we usually have psycology and I was all ready for my nap. Lastnight I went with my dad and my oldest brother to a concert in a suburb called Godoy Cruz. It was the 31 year anniversary of Argentina's military forces deposing of President Isabel Perón and starting the National Reorganization Process. Im not quite sure what that means because I got it off www.Wikipedia.com but it was a big deal and there was a lot of emotion in the air. There was about 2000 people and Victor Heregia, a famous Argentine singer sang. It was quite moving. I didnt take any pictures because no one else was and there were a few people around who looked like they were waiting for some skinny white guy to bring out his camera. My dads always trying to find people that speak English so I can talk to them. The blonde haired, blue eyed people stick out here so it's not too hard. He got me a seat next to this English guy whos over here for 6 months with his girlfriend traveling around South America. Afterwards my dad dropped me at one of my friends from schools house, he was having a party with people from school. It was cool, we hung out on the top of his apartment which had a good view over Mendoza, as Mendoza is very flat. I stayed the night there and then a few of us bused back in the morning. The pics are of our asado, every house has one. First they start a fire then they take the hot coals and put them under a metal rack, the meat goes on top and cooks very slowly. The product is this amazing taste sensation. Thats all from me im gonna go have a siesta all that eating is very tiring. ciao

It is cool to be massive!

2007-03-16T12:04:00.000-07:00

hola,
OK so my news this week is on Tuesday i finally started school. I got up at 7 and my brother dropped my sister and I off. school starts at 8 but before class everyone gathers in the courtyard (300 people and slowly raise the argentine flag while singing some song, might be the national anthem. school is split into 3 different courses that loosely tranlate to comunications, natural sciences and human sciences. i chose natural sciences because the principal pointed to the class id be in and i saw a few girls in there so i chose that one. natural sciences turns out to mean chemistry, physics, english, maths, psycology, history and biology. there is a lot of overlap between the different courses. the principal walked me in to the class and i introduced myself, she gave me a seat next to this gorgeous girl and straight away i knew i was gonna have a good day. she spoke a bit of english so we talked the whole lesson and then the bell went for break. everyone was really friendly and amazed that i had to duck to get through the doorway. everyone wanted to talk to me and ask me what i thought of the argentine women. id say they were beautiful then they would blush. It might be an argentinian thing or maybe south america but conversations are really in your face and loud. so those ten minute breaks are quite intense. The lessons consist of the teacher coming in, talking for an hour, then walking out, so i dont understand much. I get a bit bored in class so i look around at all the girls and pretend im stretching my neck. they all pay me heaps of attention and write me notes. haha. i fell asleep in psycology and then the principal and my parents walked in. they just laughed. i played the old "cute foreign boy" trick and it worked like a charm. i wasnt sure if i was going to stay in that class or go to another course so after lunch one time i came back to a big HARRY STAY WITH US written on the blackboard. shux. my school doesnt have a uniform but you have to wear black blue or white. Im with the same class all day and ive got a group of friends that i really like so the last few days have been really fun. My spanish has picked up a lot since ive started school so soon im gona ask them not to speak english to me at all. (i say that but who knows). school finihses at a different time each day sometimes at 1.30 sometimes at 4.30 so its not the 4 hour day i thought but its not too bad. i can always just have a nap in psycology. My parents own 4 lingerie shops around mendoza and the other day i went in with my brother to drop something off. I enjoyed that. haha. My parents have been talking about the whole family going on a trip to Chile in a few weeks which would be awesome. ill keep u posted on that. Ive started training with the big boys at my basketball club. im playing under 18's and also training with the open-age team, which is quite a big step up and they play at a very high level. ill play in the games, although ill get very few minutes but its still really good experience. thats been pretty exciting. ive introduced a classic new zealand fashion statement around the basketball club, socks n jandals, people had never seen anything like it. its only a matter of time before everyones doing it. My parents own a 2 level building in downtown mendoza, the bottom levle is rented out and the top is used to throw parties. On sunday night my dad threw a baby shower for a family friend. My brothers, my sister and i helped in the kitchen and got first dibs on the delicious food that the chefs were preparing. usually when youre the "helpers" you get the leftovers but not when youre fathers the host. There was pizza, a lot of really nice things that i dont know the name of and most importanty meat. good times. i think thats about it. im too lazy to take some pics ill have some next week though. ciao

I have a baby cousin

2007-03-08T07:17:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,
a lot of the people that read this will already know this but early on march 8th my auntie Emma gave birth to a baby girl named Sabine. The baby picture is of her, obviously. I had to show some love. Well back to me. I havnt done anything quite as exciting as being born or having a baby but I've been pretty busy. On sunday some family friends came round and I went with Jaime (my dad) to get some food. He told me we were going to get chicken (in spanish and i understood.) We stopped on the side of the road and there was this stall with must have been about 50 people outisde. There were hundreds of chickens slowly cooking on 4 masssive asados. My fathers quite the sweet talker so i think we skipped ahead in the line because he told them I was his son from new zealand and I hadnt had chicken like this before. All i know is he said harry and nueva zealanda then everyone looked at me. haha. That was a nice lunch. That weekend there was a big wine festival in Mendoza, and Sunday night was the last night. The whole family went to this concert/ finale in San Martin Park. The same park i drank fernet with my brother in. There were about 20000 people packed into this half stadium, i cant remember what there called. It was an amazing show with heaps of dancing and fireworks and singing. At the end this famous Argentine singer did his thing and all the women in the crowd got all emotional. My brother told me in very broken english that this guy is the Argentine John Lennon. I think thats what he said. It was a pretty fun night. The picture doesnt really do it justice but we were quite far away. Other than that night ive basically just been studying spanish in the day then gym and basketball at night. Ive started a pretty rigorous training regime to reverse the effects of a new zealand summer of bacon + eggs everyday. I go to the gym almost every night at about 11 and often have very funny conversations in spanglish with people. all the conversations follow quite a similar path. They start with me being from new zealand and then go on to the all blacks and finishes with them asking me why jonah lomu is so big, but before i can answer they say because of too many steroids. and then the subject changes. I know i said i was starting school on monday but it got postponed, not too sure why, but theres a reasonably good chance that ill start 2mro. Im not too fussed ive gotten preti good at just "winging it" from lack of understanding whats going on. Lastnight i had a video chat with my new zealand dad and he talked with my argentine dad while my brother translated. It was really funny because neither of the dads were wearing shirts. must be part of the afs criteria, dads must have similar dress sense. if anyone wants to talk to me they can download skype. (www.skype.com) Its free calling between computers and its really easy. I also have video chat setup which is pretty cool. But yea give me an email and we can sus it out. I think thats about it. next week ill try and put a pic of me with the lily the housekeeper on and maybe one of apollo the dog. enjoy the pics...

P.S.
Now i've had a few comments saying I better be careful about how much of this blog i dedicate to the argentine women. I just want to make it clear to all the kiwi females that read this, although the women here are gorgeous, im comparing them to those of the rest of the world and on t.v. It would be unfair to compare them to the high new zealand standards. There. is that enough backtracking?

Valle Grande

2007-02-27T18:27:00.000-08:00

Hola chicos,
I finally got some pictures. But first ill fill you in on what ive been doing the last 5 days. On friday night I went with joel (the 19yr old brotha) to an asado (bbq) with 6 of his cousins. It was a male only night. I didnt understand much but whenever you get meat like that at an asado you cant help but have a good time. I dont really know how to explain what the meat tastes like and i cant explain why its so good, youre just gona have to take my word for it. Then on saturday we had another asado at home and some family friends from Chile came. The picture of me with the steak is from then. I am eating unbelievable amounts of meat. On saturday night I went with Eric (the 21 yr old brotha) to a mexican restaurant on the main street. Then we got a bottle of Fernet (a type of wine) and went to san martin park and parkd the car on the side of the road, turned the music up loud and sat on the grass talking spanglish. San Martin park was filled with people doing the same thing as us. It was really fun. Sunday was my mums birthday so we got up early and drove 3 hours south to San Rafael where sylvia grew up and where her brother and father live. Its an amazing drive because the whole way youre driving parallel to the andes mountains which are incredible. We ate lunch at italian restaurant. then we drove for another hour to a really cool resort/hotel where the family come a few times a year. A place called Valle Grande right next to the rio atuel and surrounded by huge cliffs. I went on a walk with my dad who speaks less english than i do spanish. But we managed to point at things and say them. it was hilarious. we stayed at the resort for 3 days and 2 nights. I got the nickname harry potre. (potre is spanish for dessert) haha i dont think its got anything to do with me being sweet but ppl think its rely funny. it came from harry potter which is how they recognise my name. we were gona go rafting on the last morning but i got sick the night before with a stomache bug so we just hung out. Were goin back in march so no biggy. My spanish is coming along well, i think. im understanding more and more. I cant believe how gorgeous the argentine woman are its unbelievbable. I start school next monday which wil b exciting. hope i dont get bullied. maybe its not cool to be massive over here. Anyways thats all from the kiwi in argy. Haha. hope you like the pics. theres more if you want them. Peace out homies

email addreses

2007-02-23T07:45:00.000-08:00

hey this is just a quick one to tell everyone to leave me their email addresses so i can reply to comments and stuff like that because it doesnt show me ur email addresses even if you leave a comment, just your name. thanks. pics r on the way.

htwyford@gmail.com

kiwi in argy

Settling In

2007-02-20T13:11:00.000-08:00

hola everyone,
Good news, my suitcase finally arrived and amazingly everything was still in it. It was good to see all my stuff and it was a big relief that i didnt have to buy a whole new wardrobe. MY spanish is coming along nicely and im starting to understand people but only when they talk slowly, replying with more than 2 or 3 words is yet to come. I have my appetite back to my parents approval. The main thing im doing in the daytime is trying to learn spanish, by watching tv, reading the dictionary, translating newspapers, talking to the family or the maid. cant believe i have a maid. She does evrything. I was just kidding when i said id have a maid. I havnt listened to soul music since the plane because it would only make me homesick. Im also trying not to think about the airport, that was the best sendoff i could have asked for. Ive signed up to the gym and the guys designing a program specifically designed for basketball. Im going 2 start playin competitively soon. trainings and games 5 times a week. Should be good. Tonight were gong to la plaza. Its hard getting use to the schedule. ill get my camera charged and try 2 add some pics next blog. I dont want 2 be to touristy though. hasta luego.

Culture Shock

2007-02-18T12:16:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone. What an amazing 3 days its been. My suitase was lost at the airport, im absolutely shattered from lack of sleep and im not eating properly but im having the time of my life. Lastnight i took a 12 hour bus ride from buenos aires to Mendoza. My family met me at the bus station and we came home and had a bbq or "asado." The food is so nice here. Meat only. It feels like years since the airport. The flight over was good except the tv was broken and some guy was drunk a few seats over and was disturbing the whole plane. So no1 got much sleep. The orientation was in an abandoned school which i found out later doubled as a mental institution. there were 146 afs kids from iceland, united states, thailand, australia, germany and some others. Theres 5 other kiwi boys and there all pretty cool and we get on well. The first night the councillors organised a talent show. Us kiwis did a haka and it was the most popular act. It was pretty average by new zealand standards but everyone was very imressed. The next day we took a tour of buenos aires. I was shocked by some of the poorer areas and the living conditions. One of the councillors took me and 3 other boys away from the main group and we went inside this amazing cathedral. We also went to a little suburb called LA BOCA near a famous stadium where maradona played. Men and women were doing the tango on the side of the street. The buenos aired bus station was somethign else. About 50 of us were busing to our cities last night so we were all waiting around at teh station and we were surrounded by men waiting for a chance to steal our bags. We were like cattle being stalked by a cheetah or something. But the councillors were very strret wise and looked after us very well. MY family is really cool. I couldnt have asked for a better setup. The two sons speak english very well. The sister and mother arent as good but understand a little bit. The father doesnt speak at all but hes a cool dude and gives me heaps of meat. There all really firendly. Hopefully the airport will find my suitcase because i have no clean clothes. Other than that everythings going really well. Im going to take spanish lessons. I want to learn as fast as possible. Well thats enough for today. Ill write again in a few days. adios

feb 16

2007-02-15T14:00:00.001-08:00

Todays my last day in New Zealand and we're leaving for the airport in 3 hours. Last night I had a bbq to say goodbye to everyone. There are 18 other kiwis going to Argentina on the same flight as me. It's a 12 hour flight to Buenos Aires and when I get there I have a 10 day orientation then I get to meet my family. The city I'm staying in is called Mendoza. It has a population of 100000 and is a big wine producing area at the base of the Andes Mountains. thanks for reading. I'm gonna try and update this regularly. post a comment or email directly at htwyford@gmail.com