Madryn and Gil

Hello everyone! Long time no see! The last several weeks have been super busy, and I am so excited to share my adventures with you all. The main adventure being - I had a visitor! Gil flew in to meet me after my enrichment program in Buenos Aires. We spent one night there before heading to Puerto Madryn for a week.

To put him on the spot, this was the first time he had ever left the country, so this was a big trip for him! He also doesn't speak much Spanish, but, to be fair, I spoke some Spanish and still was a bit lost when I first got here. However, this meant there was a lot to balance here - the stress and anxiety of traveling somewhere new, the stress and anxiety of leaving the country for the first time, and the stress and anxiety of being somewhere you can't communicate.

Because Gil was visiting during what was also my break from school, I made the executive decision that the most obvious thing for us to do was travel around Argentina. Now did I think about the fact that I would be traveling with someone who doesn't speak the language and who has never traveled outside of the U.S. before? Definitely not. I just made the plans.

This is what the month of July looked like for me (and Gil who arrived on the 17th).

I decided that the best plan of action would be to take him to Puerto Madryn before traveling around parts of Argentina because I'm most comfortable there and because I know people who speak English and can chat with him.

In the end, this plan worked out, and everything went fine. However, during the week when we were actually experiencing it, things seemed a bit more chaotic. On full day 1 of Madryn, Gil was sick. Although none of his symptoms really quite aligned with COVID, it was, naturally, impossible not to panic and think...COVID in this day in age. While this probably would not have been the end of the world, it would have been majorly inconvenient. I spent the vast majority of day 1 panicking and running around buying anything he may need if we were actually sick.

However, after a couple of negative COVID tests, confirmation that his symptoms weren't really COVID symptoms (even though nowadays what feels like anything can be a COVID symptom), and a good night's sleep, we decided it was pretty unlikely that he had COVID.

Yay negative COVID tests!

That meant we could venture out into the rain...it literally rained every single day we were in Puerto Madryn...and see Yani and eat pizza on what happened to be Friend's Day!

We laughed through the night as Gil, who is a major mumbler tried talking to Yani over the loud Spotify ads playing over the speakers while Yani was a champ and tried to decipher Gil's mumbled English words. It was quite an experience for all of us as they worked to understand each other, and I, somehow knew what they were both trying to say, made sure everyone understood each other.

For me, it was a lot of fun to introduce Gil to Yani and be like - Look! This is someone I hang out with a lot! However, I hadn't realized beforehand how interesting it would be to have Gil meet and interact with everyone I interact with in English rather than Spanish.

Outside of the institute/outside of classes, I interact with everyone in Spanish. The only time I speak in English with someone is if they ask to practice, if I'm having a rough day and chat with Sol in English, or if I don't know a word in Spanish, so I say it in English before continuing in Spanish. I do this because, selfishly, I want to practice and improve my Spanish. I also do this because I am in someone else's country, so I want to speak the language that everyone else is most comfortable speaking. Also, I want to get to know everyone truly, and I feel like the best way to do that is to speak with them in their first language.

With that in mind, I actually found it a bit of a bummer that Gil doesn't speak Spanish simply because he couldn't get to know my people here the way I know them. Having spoken to everyone I interact with frequently here in both English and Spanish, I've been able to note the differences in personalities. It's really interesting actually because I think it's a function of English not being their first language (and I'm sure it's the same with me and my Spanish), the ways in which they use English (mainly in classrooms), and the nuances of English. When I say nuances I mean I think in English we kind of beat around the bush and talk in circles before getting to the point when, in comparison, in Spanish commands/imperatives are much more common, and it's pretty normal to just spit out what you want. While these may be cultural differences, from my experiences, they also exist in languages. That means that Gil met the English-speaking versions of Yani, Sol, Claudio, and Sonia rather than the versions of them that I know better, which was a bit weird and a bit of a bummer.

I digress.

Gil and I ate some pizza and chatted and drank some mate with Yani during the week he was here. By drinking mate I mean Yani and I had mate, and Gil had about one sip before declaring it was not for him.

We also got to see some whales before I got sick with what I'm pretty sure was what Gil had.

Sol and Claudio picked us up, and we headed to El Doradillo, which is a beach here where you can see the whales right off the coast. It's wild because they get SO CLOSE to the beach. It doesn't seem real. Luckily, this was the one day it stopped raining in the afternoon, resulting in the most perfect afternoon. This was the first time I went to this beach and got to see sooo many whales! We were so lucky. The whales were everywhere peaking out and saying hello. We even saw an albino whale! Maybe they just wanted to say hello to Gil.

Here, I was probably saying something snarky to Sol.

Sol and Claudio stood behind us waiting and waiting for the perfect touristy picture of a whale peaking out in front of us. There dedication was steadfast. They did not stop trying until they got the perfect picture.

Here I am making sure Sol was getting all the cool whale pictures:

They were just so close!

These videos were courtesy of Claudio:

A couple of days after witnessing the magnificence of the whales, I got sick. Thankfully, it was pretty similar to what Gil had because had it been anything serious, I probably would've had to ask someone to pick some things up for us because even after a week in Argentina, Gil was still not quite ready to go to a store and pick things up by himself. I don't blame him though. I came here with Spanish knowledge and was still nervous about that...

But after a day of feeling icky, I felt fine and was able to drag Gil to the school I work at so that he could briefly meet Sonia who did her best Argentine mom impression but not really impression because she is a mom from Argentina. Gil left our short meeting saying, "Wow - she must really like you." lol...While that may be true, that was also just normal Sonia (everyone say hi to Sonia - she's been asking me to write these blog posts all week!).

Sonia like Sol and Yani and everyone else I know here who we didn't get to hang with (mostly because they are all very good students and were studying hard for exams) are huggers and give besos and are slightly touchier than we, mainly Gil, are used to. While they are all used to me reciprocating, they didn't want to scare Gil, so they all took it easy with him. I truly don't think I've seen so many people give handshakes here until this week with Gil in Madryn. It had to be some sort of record. It made me giggle, but it was also really really sweet and thoughtful. Gil came here to meet them in their country in their home. Gil could've just prepared himself for the hugs and besos and what not and been a little uncomfy. Although he kind of did, my friends (for lack of a better word) altered the way they often interact with people just so he would feel more comfortable. It was super cute and sweet.

After a nice, chill, rainy week in Puerto Madryn, it was time to head out into the unknown to explore a bit of Argentina! I'll be making separate posts about each of our stops, since they were all so unique and fun in their own ways...stay tuned for...Mendoza!