{"id":3595,"date":"2018-05-01T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-09-12T14:52:35","modified_gmt":"2020-09-12T18:52:35","slug":"so-your-character-is-from-argentina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victoriagracehowell.com\/staging\/6258\/so-your-character-is-from-argentina\/","title":{"rendered":"So Your Character is From Argentina … Featuring Sofia Leguiza @ A Book. A Thought. & Consuelo @ Paper-Eyed Girl"},"content":{"rendered":"


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<\/span> It’s time for this week’s So Your Character is … Post! This is a weekly segment where I interview lovely volunteers from around the world to give you a firsthand account of being a citizen of their respective country or having a disability. I’m hoping to encourage international diversity, break stereotypes, and give writers a crash course on how to write a character from these different places on our planet. If you haven’t checked out last week’s  So Your Character is from Hungary … be sure to hop on over there and give it a read!<\/span><\/span>
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<\/span> Disclaimer: The content below may be culturally shocking to some. Each of these posts is as uncensored as possible to preserve the authenticity of the cultures of each of the interviewees.<\/span><\/span>
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<\/span>Hi everyone! First, I want to thank Victoria for the opportunity to be part of this great <\/span>project. My name is Sofia Leguiza and I’m from Argentina. I’m 23 years old, I’m a cosmetology student, and a passionate reader, in fact, I have a book blog, which I started a year ago and I consider it my baby, it really makes me very happy and I’ve met wonderful people thanks to it. I live more specifically in the city of Colon, in the province of Entre Rios, a not a very big place, but highly touristy and with very beautiful beaches.<\/span><\/span>
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<\/span> My name is Consuelo. I\u2019m Argentine from birth but I\u2019ve also lived in Spain for half my life. I feel like this helped me to see the beauty in everyday life and notice how special Argentina can be. I\u2019m proud of my country and I\u2019d love to see more of it in mainstream media.<\/span>
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<\/span> What do you feel is unique to your country? Landmarks? Celebrations?<\/b><\/span>
\nSofia: <\/b>I’ll name only some of the thousands of festivities and celebrations that are held annually in my country. I’ll summarize those that I think stand out more and are more popular. We have several annual celebrations. Carnivals, two of the most important are held in Corrientes and Entre Rios, These events are super popular and a lot of people travel from different parts of the country to attend.<\/span>
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<\/span> We also have The National Beer Festival – Oktoberfest Argentina, and it is held annually during two weekends in Villa General Belgrano, Province of C\u00f3rdoba. The party starts at noon and lasts until late at night. The public enjoys the show, being able to taste different varieties of beer and traditional foods.<\/span>
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<\/span> And to finish, one of my favorites, Parana Costume Party, it’s undoubtedly one of the biggest events of the year. Not only do thousands of people come from different provinces of the country to attend to this party, but also many people from outside the country as well. It’s really massive.<\/span>
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<\/span> Consuelo: <\/b>My country is unique in the sense that we are very passionate about everything we do. We invented tango, which is a sensual dance with sad lyrics of how we miss home, and it\u2019s bad***. We are ride or die with our football teams and will fight anyone who disses the national team (though we do it often enough). If you\u2019ve met an Argentinian then you know, we put ourselves in everything we do. <\/span>
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<\/span> I can\u2019t think of a specific celebration since the country is huge but we are big on patriotic dates and we cook special meals for the occasions.<\/span>
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\nAs for landmarks, we have one of the most beautiful and diverse environments in the world and just to name a couple we have the Iguaz\u00fa Waterfalls and the Perito Moreno Glacier.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nTell me about your country’s environment. What are some of your favorite places?<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n

Sofia: <\/b>We have a warm\/humid climate here. I think that little by little the climate is starting to be more tropical. I feel that in our country we’re lucky to have many beautiful landscapes. We can jump from one landscape in different types of green to one totally white by snow and that is wonderful. Some of the most beautiful places are:<\/span>
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And of course, our beaches: <\/span>
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<\/span> Consuelo:<\/b> Honestly, one of the best things in Argentina is that we have EVERY climate possible. The shape of the country encompasses as many climates as possible, from north to south. On the north, we have the jungle while n the south we are almost to Antarctica (we also have a piece of Antarctica but that\u2019s a bit harder to get to). From east to west we have the Andes with all the mountain climates you can imagine (and a few volcanoes) with plains in the middle and then beaches all the way down. As you travel you see all the different kinds of scenery there is, you have plains but also all the different plain and you have mountains with eternal snow and deep forests and deserts and jungles.<\/span>
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<\/span> Tell me about your country’s food. What are some of your favorite dishes?<\/span><\/b><\/span>
\nSofia: <\/b>In Argentina, we’re very well known for our meat, mainly for the “Asado” which is when you cook many different types of meat on the grill. That’s what basically it is.<\/span>
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<\/span> The Empanadas are a well know dish here. Another that is also very traditional and tends to be filled with different fillings depending on the province (meat, chicken, vegetables.), so there are many varieties.<\/span>
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<\/span> And <\/span>finally, I can’t stop mentioning “Dulce de Leche.” This is for those who don’t know what it is. It’s like a very sweet product made of milk. I know it’s very vague but I wouldn’t know how to explain exactly what it is. It looks similar to the famous <\/span>Nutella but doesn’t taste the same. If you’ve never tried it, it’s very difficult to explain. It’s used mostly for stuffing cakes and making <\/span>alfajores or any type of desserts.<\/span><\/span>
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<\/span> Consuelo: <\/b>There are two foods that every Argentinian loves: Empanadas and Dulce de leche. The empanadas are savory and can have any kind of filling according to your tastes, the most common ones are beef or ham and cheese. Dulce de leche is more known around the world and it\u2019s super sweet and thick.<\/span>
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<\/span> Tell me about any different speech patterns in your country. Slang? Idioms? Words for things such as \u201cbiscuits\u201d instead of \u201ccookies\u201d?<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span>
\nSofia: <\/b>This is a difficult one.  Here the main language and the only one is Spanish, so as I know that most of you speak English I wouldn’t know how to explain the different types of expressions. Even so, I believe that we have a lot of words for the same things, a lot of verbs, and a lot of adjectives and if there isn’t a word we invented it lol. I’m ashamed to say that in my country people curse a lot, not in a vulgar way or anything, but there are words that are bad words but are used every day as if they were common. It’s so weird to explain. We’re good people, guys lol.<\/span>
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