Colonia - The Overview

Ah people what can I say? Lovely lovely lovely.

The contrast between Buenos Aires and Colonia is remarkable. The first is a bustling city full of go-getters, the second is a small town where even the cats have time to stop and smell the flowers. I didn't realise how stressed I was until the tranquility started seeping into my bones. L and I spent the best part of two days wandering around a town (about the size of the Newington Estate), taking photos and doing nothing else. Here are some tasters.

The main street General Flores during rush hour...



The second favourite means of transport....

busy, busy, busy....
The worse thing about the holiday (apart from having to come back) was getting up at 5:45am in order to catch the ferry but even that was worth it when they swapped the ferry boat for a hydrofoil and the three hour journey was reduced to one.

Coming up in future posts - the historical sights; the cars; the sea/river front (in no particular order). Keep watching this space.

I'm Off

Yes my lovelies, I'm actually going on holiday!

OK, it is only for two days and it is only a short journey but it is ANOTHER country. I'm going across the water (the River Plate) to Uruguay.

More details and photos when I return.

Boletines

Oh woe is me, tis the worst time of year to be a teacher (actually the second worse but no need to meet trouble half way). I am in the middle (ish) of writing student reports, known here as Boletines. I have to do them for all my students, adolescents and adults alike.

Remember how you felt at school when you got your end of year (or god-forbid end of term) report? How you looked at the marks you'd been given and the comments written about you? And how it never seemed to quite match your perception of what had happened in class? Of course, what you never thought about was the poor bloody teacher who had to write the bloody thing in the first place!

Now I can understand the reason for reports for adolescents. After all, their parents are paying for the classes but aren't in the classroom. Often the parents don't speak English so they don't really know what or how well their offspring are doing. Report cards are an efficient way of communicating this information and, with the ensuing parents' evening, following up any questions.

Reports for adults however.... yuk, yuk, yuk. I find it really uncomfortable having to write a report for someone of my age (or older), giving them grades on homework and participation. It can be helpful when highlighting skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking) but I think the other parts are a little demeaning. How do you tell an adult that they aren't participating sufficiently in class, knowing that they've come to your class (at 7:30 pm) having been up since 6am, worked a full-day with a family at home to look after? Thankfully, I've already spoken to any students that I've had concerns about. You also have to avoid using the report to highlight problems for the first time. It is amazing, however, just how having to write a report brings a student into focus. Additionally, I get to talk to them individually about the report and why I've given those grades which is useful for teasing out any worries.

So forgive me if I've been a little lax recently but the whole process makes my skin crawl and I've been avoiding doing it. Still I have a day's holiday tomorrow and that's what I'll be doing. Woe is me!

The World Cup

I'm in a bit of a dilemma. Who should I support in this forthcoming world cup of football thingy?

Should I support England, the country of my birth (and in my humble opinion, still the best in the world)?

Should I support Argentina, the country I reside in (and where the discount I get on my internet bill depends on how far they progress)?

Or should I support Brazil, the country I drew in the school sweepstake?

Decisions, decisions, descisions.

Pub Quiz

Remember the last time we went to a pub quiz? At St George's School? And how not impressed we were by how long it went on? And all the in-jokes to friends at the front? Well tonight my school did a pub quiz, six rounds including a 'guess the famous child' and it was done and dusted, prize presented in an hour! That's what I call efficient.

The school....

...in common with most other IH schools runs a social programme. In our case it's about once a week which in practice means once a month for me. Last month it was Cheese and Wine - could you think of a better combination for me? - alas the wine was red and I was suffering my runny tummy, so little was eaten or drunk. This month it was the pub quiz. There were three of us; me, N and U. Interestingly, although N is a giant of a man (even I have to look up at him) and U is a whirlwind of energy, guess who grabbed the students' attention when reading out her questions? Yep, little old me. Guess it must be my greater age - respect, that's what it is!

So (and I'll want your answers by email, just to prove you're reading this) here are the questions:

1. Which act has had the most number 1 hits in the UK?
a Elvis Presley
b The Beatles
c Micheal Jackson
d Madonna

2. Whitney Houston spent 14 weeks at the top of the US charts with "I Will Always Love You", but who wrote the song?

a Carly Simon
b Barbara Streisand
c Dolly Parton
d Olivia Newton-John

3. What was the first rap song to reach number 1 in the American charts?

a "U Can't Touch This" MC Hammer
b "Ice, Ice, Baby" Vanilla Ice
c "Walk This Way" Run DMZ
d "Rappers Delight" Sugar Hill Gang

4. How many number 1 hits did The Beatles have in America?

a five
b ten
c fifteen
d twenty

5. In which year did The Rolling Stones have their first UK number one?

a 1964
b 1966
c 1968
d 1970

You can, if you wish leave your answers in the comments (just click on the comments and fill in the box). Special sloppy hug from me as first prize!

Social Whirl

Well, well, well, aren't I the social butterfly? Not only did I go out for pizza on Saturday and ice-cream on Sunday but I followed that up with more pizza and beer to celebrate a colleague's birthday on Monday.

The school has a lovely tradition of celebrating everyone's birthday with cake, so bang goes proper food at teatime and in comes cake! Wonderful cake, want to stroke it cake, eat it and then have some more cake - all paid for by the school. The lovely thing is that if your birthday is during the holiday, you are given a fake one during term time (somewhat like the Queen).

The only downside to this tradition is that someone has to make the birthday card which means you are supposed to find out about the person and handcraft a card which reflects their personality, likes, dislikes etc. I've done my duty for the year (and poorly so unfortunately - well, you try making a birthday card for someone you've only spoken to a couple of times and know nothng about) and now I only have to worry about what will be done for me - but that's not until October so what the heck!

Weekend Fun

I finally got out of the flat this weekend. I've rather got into the habit of staying indoors and working/playing on the computer despite the fact that the weather is gorgeous and there's plenty to see and do. I had half planned to go to the Botanical Gardens on Sunday but certain telephonic appointments intervened (you know who you are). Instead I met up with L and a couple of her friends for ice-cream and a wander around the local craft market.

L's friends were really interesting. R's British and M's Australian. They travel between the UK and Australia every year taking the long way round and stopping off at various countries on the way so they've seen a fair bit of this old world.

As I said, he's Australian by birth and guess what his favourite film is? Uh-hu "The Shiralee". A film he knows off by heart and which, he says, makes him cry everytime he watches it. He has also taken it on holiday to show to friends so that they can appreciate it. He knows what my name means, he wondered if I knew what it meant, we both agreed that my mother must have HATED me - no, strike that - she must have hated being twenty-seven months pregnant with me, when she saw the film.

It turns out that he's a fan of the Bryan Brown mini-series (adapted into a two hour film) and didn't know that there was an earlier film version (1957 with Peter Finch in the title role). I took it as a compliment that he thought I was named after the later version (1988) made only twenty seven years after I was born.

We sat, talked and ate ice-cream at my favourite ice-cream shop. If you want they will deliver to your home.....




then we wandered around the market....




I didn't buy anything although I was tempted by these gorgeous artificial roses - I just don't know where I'd put them....




R pointed out the local peppercorn trees....



I'd never thought about where pepper comes from but, according to R, the white bobbly bits you can see in the centre of the photo will turn into pink flowers which can be picked. One picked you rub them between your hands, the pink covering disappears and, lo and behold, you have pepper corns! Ain't nature wonderful.

Finally they went off to San Telmo (the centre of Tango and another market, much bigger than the local one) and I came home to talk turkey with my folks.

Oh and I got sunburned!

Dinner at 11?

Just returned from a lovely evening out with some of my colleagues. We met at 10pm and wandered down to a local pizzeria. Sat and ate pizza, drank wine and talked shop. Lovely. We also talked politics and I realised just how little I really know, and how uninformed my opinions are. I like talking politics but I hate disagreeing with people (and I do try to avoid that 'if you'd been there when I was there' crap).

Sometimes I find myself defending positions I don't fully agree with, just because I don't fully agree with the other side. I try to find a balance when, often, there isn't a balance. One of the joys (and problems) of being a libran is that you can always see the other person's point of view - this often makes it difficult to maintain your own beliefs which in turn can lead people to believe that you don't hold firm opinions.

I do have firm opinions, it's just that I don't believe in forcing them down another's throat (just for the satisfaction of being acknowledged as right). Thankfully that didn't happen tonight and although we didn't agree on things (the war in Iraq, the reasons for binge drinking in the UK) we did have a healthy debate. It's been a long time since that happened and I really enjoyed it.

BTW the pizza was delicious, the Argentinean white wine was perfect and the brownie was just the desert we needed. Strolled home through the chilly night air. BsAs is still busy at 3am but it's time for me to sleep.

Quick Update

Sorry it's been a few days (although I don't know if anyone is reading this), I've been busy. My schedule here is interesting. I teach four days a week, which doesn't sound bad but it is 6 hours on Monday and Wednesday and 4.5 hours on Tuesday and Thursday. Don't forget that's just the face-to-face time with the students. On top of that I have to plan the lessons, mark homework and do admin. In addition I have 1.5 hours of standby on Tuesday and Thursday which is general work for the school. Finally on Friday I have meetings which should be about an hour but never are. All this means I don't get home before 9:30 at night and when I do, I'm not in the mood to do much.

Anyway, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

So what have I been doing since I last spoke to you? Well.... see above.

I've had some work done to the flat, so that I now have lighting in my bedroom. I have these spotlights which didn't work properly so I asked the school to convert the one in the living room into a single pendant light and this is the result....

pretty eh? I intend to search out the lampshade which will cover this horror - wish me luck.

And finally, my latest acquisition...

And it is bloody fantastic, the clothes come out almost dry and dry on the airer within a day. No name yet though. OK enough boring housework type stuff.

I've just checked the FA cup final result - bad luck Dad, I'm sure they deserved better. Interestingly, there hasn't been any mention of it here, despite this being a football mad country. Instead they have been caught up in the local Championship which was won by Boca Juniors. They have two Championships a year here. I don't know why but I guess it slakes the local thirst. It is almost impossible to avoid knowing about football and what with the world cup coming up, it's going to be nightmare-ish. The school is even giving us a training session on how to include the world cup in our lessons! Well I have a couple of teenage classes so maybe it'll come in useful.

More consumables

Remember Colin? Well he worked his little engine off on Monday.

Good news - I have lovely clean clothes.
Bad news - Colin doesn't spin and I had to wring everything out by hand.
Good news - I don't have that many clothes.
Bad news - the clothes dripped all over the kitchen floor causing a mini-flood.
Good news - it was aborbed by newspapers.
Bad news - it took three days for my clothes to dry.
Good news - today I bought a spinner.
Bad news - it cost 270 pesos.
Good news - it's being delivered tomorrow.

So overall, it's good news!

The spinner doesn't have a name yet, that will have to wait until it arrives and is mine. I've also bought one of the clothes airers to hang the wet washing on. I'm turning into a proper little housewife (HELP ME PLEASE). Mostly I feel I'm back in control.

Photos

Now I've learned how to add photos, I'd like to give you some flavour of my life here in BsAs so I've decided to set you a task: tell me what you want to see photos of and (weather and decency laws permitting) I'll oblige.

Just so that you know, there isn't much wildlife or jungle here in the city and the people don't look any different from you lot, so don't try to get clever on me (and if you want photos of the flat you'll have to wait until the cleaner has been).

In the meantime, here's one I took earlier...





Yep, it's THE balcony, you know which one... YES the one she waved from (I don't know, you go to all the trouble to take a photo and they have no idea what it's of; youngsters nowadays - no sense of history, in my day we'd have been grateful for the idea of a photo of a balcony where she waved....)

Not much news

Now that things have settled down a bit back there in the UK, I feel it is time to stir things up a bit so.... no I'm only joking. As the title says, I don't have much news. I managed to eat today without getting stomach cramps (now feeling like Stanley when he understands a command - my head is cocked to one side and my tail is wagging).

I met a friend (L) for afternoon tea today and caught up on the news. It seems that there are a couple more men attending the tango class so I might give it another go. L says that one of them is barrel chested and likes to hug his partner close - should be interesting.

There was a party last night to which I was invited but totally forgot about (how sad is that). Like all parties here it didn't really get going until midnight and people were still arriving when L left at 3am. I was still awake at that time but deep in the world of lesson planning and timetabling - it's a hard life being a teacher.

I've also discovered the Argentine equivalent of squash - in the UK they just remove some of the water for you to add back later, here they remove all of it and put the powder in a sachet. I am currently drinking mango squash and lovely it is too. No chemical taste to it - a new addition to the shopping basket.

Which reminds me - I went to a tea party at another teacher's house. Proper tea was had (English Breakfast tealeaves) with cakes and civilised conversation (female only you see, makes such a difference). I also discovered the secret to the milk. I've been buying the UHT because it comes in cartons whereas the fresh comes in (yes, you guessed it) bags ['bags' is big out here]. Turns out you can buy special 'ghost' jugs for the bags of milk - a handle and base that you put the bag in - and everything pours perfectly. I tell you, you learn something new every day.

We do things differently here

Buying bras. Underwear is sold here in a variety of places; dedicated stores, clothes shops, C&A, street stalls - nothing unusual I hear you say. Very true. However the fitting of bras is normally done in privacy, hopefully assisted by a trained assistant.

Not so much here.

As we are officially coming into winter here the locals have taken to wearing thick woolly jumpers. So, imagine you're wearing a thick woolly jumper, you decide to buy a bra, what would you do? Well, one enterprising woman decided that trying the bra on, over the jumper in the street would be the ideal solution. The mind boggles.

Traffic. BsAs is built on a grid system (like New York) and most of the smaller streets are one way. It's a system that seems to work well. Now, in Britain when you're stuck at the traffic lights you're likely to be approached by someone offering to clean your windscreen, in Italy you'll be approached by someone asking for money or trying to sell newspapers (in Egypt you never get stuck in traffic). Here you are entertained by men juggling - balls, indian clubs, etc - wearing clown's clothes and with painted faces, and they are very good.

Shopping. There are several large supermarket chains here; Disco, Coto, Norte. The price on the shelves depends on which part of the city you are in; thus the prices are higher in the richer areas and lower in the poorer areas (Tesco take note - people travel to the nearest cheap(er) area). I don't bother as I don't have a car and the really wealthy send their maids to do the shopping. The supermarkets are open from 8am to 10pm seven days a week.

Once in the supermarket, you have to avoid the shelf stackers. The problem is they seem to think you, wandering around (relatively) aimlessly and shopping, interfere with their stacking - customers really are a nuisance!

In addition, when you get to the checkout, the cashier packs for you. Niiiice, you think, until you realise they have the unfortunate habit of packing whichever three items come to hand together in a carrier bag and then starting a new one. Doesn't matter how you load the conveyor belt, you always end up with ham, apples and soap in one bag; bananas, cheese and washing up liquid in another, and bread, onions and eggs in a third.

Very annoying to have to carry five bags home when two would have done. I already have a huge carrier bag full of carrier bags. Luckily they recycle here so if I just chuck them all out someone will make a little money from them.

And finally, condiments... none of that bottle and squeezy jar malarky here (although they do exist). Here we have.....

..........sauce in a bag. Can life get any better than that?

It's Here!

Oooohhhh such excitement! My new baby has arrived!

Isn't he beautiful? (I've decided it's a he and I'm going to call him Colin).

Look how eager he is to work...


Little does he know how hard he will be working or how much I will love him.

Food

I thought you'd like to know about food here in Argentina:

Obviously top of the list is beef: plentiful and cheap, the supermarket shelves are groaning with it in all its various cuts. The beef is good here, tender and full of flavour. I have it at least four times a week. One of the best forms is as a Lomito which is basically a beef sandwich. Finely sliced beef topped with cheese (in my case) and mayonese sandwiched in some arabic flat bread [think BLT with beef]. In addition, there are the steaks, thick and juicy, just crying out to be eaten. For some reason fish isn't a popular option here although there are wet fish shops, equally chicken is relatively expensive and a little stringy.

Number two are medialunas: these are mini-croissants with a sweet coating, can be eaten at any time of the day (or night) and are especially scrumptious for breakfast. There are actually two types; the first is made with butter and is more sweet and the second is made with animal fat (lard I think) and is more nutty (but not especially savoury).

In at number three is ice-cream. With a large Italian immigrant population, ice-cream is a big favourite here. There are ice-cream shops on every corner and it is relatively cheap. At least once a week I have an ice-cream takeaway.

At number four: cheese. There isn't a lot of variety although the supermarket would lead you to believe otherwise. However, there is a wonderful melting cheese called Port Salut and mozzarella (done in a plait) along with several blue cheeses.

Finally at number five: vegetables. There is a wide range of veggies here that you wouldn't find in Britain such as squashes (pumpkins shaped like marrows), apple-shaped and sized courgettes, white aubergines, purple aubergines and stripy aubergines as well as the usual salad stuff, potatoes (sweet and normal), tomatoes and peppers. All high quality and tasty.

The Argentines have a very sweet tooth and add sugar to everything (you can buy ground coffee with sugar already added) and their favourite desert is Dulce de Leche. This is like sweet, soft toffee. It can be bought in jars to spread on whatever you want to. It is also part of the national biscuit (Alfajoras) and big in ice-cream flavours (the local shop does six different types). I find it too sweet but certain others (mum and dad) will love it.

So overall the food here is good and it's easy to live well. (Note to self - must join a gym)

Recent Health

Just thought I'd let you know that I haven't been very well over the weekend but I'm mostly recovered now. I had a bout of runny tummy (only it wasn't running). My stomach has been bloated and painful and I went to bed early last night with the shivers. Still, one and a half hours later I woke up feeling much better. Upside is I haven't really eaten for the last couple of days so my clothes are now feeling a little looser (thank god). I'm going to take it easy for the rest of the week then join a gym. I think I've found one that has classes I can go to. Now I know you're all thinking about how you can rush out here and take care of me but it's too late I'm afraid, the crisis is over and I'm on the path to recovery.

Despite the tummy I went to the cinema last night. I saw Inside Man, the new Spike Lee film with Denzel Washington and Clive Owen. Even with a bloated tummy I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'd recommend it to everyone. Tomorrow I hope to go washing machine shopping so keep your fingers crossed for me. As you can see, nothing holds me back!