A Ginger Bloke With His Guitar

  I sat in the upper tier of the Allianz Parque last night, observing a fellow Brit bring the house down. There he was, with messy ginger hair and a baggy t-shirt, strumming a guitar as 50,000 Brazilians hung onto his every word. To be fair, he actually looked like a generic speck to me, considering the position of my seat, but I assume he's still ginger and still plays a guitar. I never really expected to write a 'review' of a music concert, and this isn't really that, but the experience was pretty thought-provoking and warranted a bit of blog space.

  In terms of me, I was not really in any fit state to go to a gig. Saturday night involved a heavy electronic night that resulted in me walking through the door at 9am on Sunday morning. I gave a very meek 'bom dia' to my housemate as he was cooking his breakfast and retreated into my cave. I slept until about 3pm and woke up feeling more fragile than Victor Moses' reputation after the cup final*. I only had a bit of time before I needed to leave, and the thought of listening to a bunch of songs about love for two hours nearly pushed the nausea over the edge.

  It was the first concert I'd ever been to on my own. I always considered that a bit of a sad thing to do, but an article on Buzzfeed said it's in their '12 Things Everyone Should Do Alone At Least Once' list. That was all the evidence I needed that it probably was sad, but I wasn't missing out on Ed Sheeran because of this so screw my social precautions. Saying that, the dark bags under my eyes and slightly paler skin tone I was wearing made it all look more tragic than it already was. I would say it put me out of the general audience demographic, but the possession of male genitalia and being northwards of 20 years old already did that job.

The Lone Wolf

  The year abroad is one of the most complex life experiences that someone in their early twenties could go through. Packing a bag and heading into the world at a time of your life when your biggest decisions are what colour VK to get on a Friday night and what pizza topping you will order to cure the resulting hangover. Whether heading to the other side of the world or hopping to the other-side of the Channel, the adventure and it's respective challenges are the same. You have a new language, a new environment, new people to meet and new parts of your own personality that you have to get to know.

  There's many layers to the whole thing that people on their year abroad go through, and 95% of it isn't what people post on Instagram (or what people write in blogs). It's going down to the shops for some bread, sitting in a group of natives joking around and adapting to life in a new country with all of the routinely quirks that it brings. Some of it is great, some of it is less great, but all in all you know for sure that when you leave your respective English airport you're diving into the deep end.

Grab your goggles. 

  Personally, one of the biggest parts of this year has been the independence. When I went to Argentina there was no familiar faces waiting on the other side, and Brazil has been the same. I've been lucky to meet some great people along the way, but I've embarked on this experience as a lone wolf. It's never the thing you preempt when worrying about stuff pre-year abroad - that's reserved for Visas, accommodation and what the word for 3G internet is - but I would say it's definitely been the biggest challenge for me so far.

Gringo Survival Guide

  Once more, I write this blog in a state of unholy fragility. I've spent the whole day lying around like a mess, in and out of consciousness and feeling like the world is, finally, coming to an end. When you go to a BBQ at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon, there is often little evidence to precede such a hangover but, alas, it's happened again. I suspect this may be karma for spending my Friday night laughing at Tottenham Hotspur for a similar sentiment; whatever lessons that past failures have engrained in you, sometimes it's just destined to happen again.

'Bald-head pecking' levels of friendship
can be achieved HERE

  What I want to write about today is life as a solo 'gringo' in a foreign country and city. When I arrived in Brazil - after my two friends had left - I knew nobody. The same can be said about Argentina. I was a young English bloke with no pre-determined platform, just trying to make some mates and have a good time. It's been 300 days since I arrived in Buenos Aires back in July, at which point I was without family, friends and belongings (Air Canada ladies and gentlemen...), but I feel like I've done okay. Many new friends have been made from all corners of the globe and of all social groups and ages.

  Along the way though, I think it's fair to say that I've had to take myself out of my comfort zone. I've had to do some weird stuff, and expand my personality out to lengths that it previously hasn't required or experienced. Before this vague description starts to create mis-leading images in your heads, I'm going to go through a few things that I've been through to give a a taste of life as a gringo in a foreign land.