On our way to Argentina! :)

Just wanted to let you all know that we are on our way to Argentina, so I probably won't be able to write much for a while. I'll post when I can.

Also, I just discovered that my settings were probably making it so you couldn't write a comment on here without an account...so I've changed it, and feel free to comment away! (it's nice to know who's out there reading... :)

Please keep us in your prayers, for safe travels, esp, and for a beautiful two weeks together in Argentina. Also, that I can find a place to volunteer for a while in Argentina...I'm hoping to spend the month of November there, serving in some way and immersed in Spanish. Thanks, ya'll!

Piriapolis...there IS life outside the city! :)

To hear people who live in cities talk, you'd think that nothing else exists, that the countryside is a barren wasteland with no people in it, and nothing to do...EVER ;-P Being in a foreign country, I was almost starting to believe them, even though I happen to know better, being one of those "nobodies" who don't even live in a town, and yet somehow survive living in the desolate countryside :D After three weeks in Montevideo (read: in any city, anywhere) I was about ready to shrivel up into...I don't know what! And I was starting to think that maybe I didn't much care for Uruguay...But then we left the city and...OH!!! It's BEAUTIFUL out here!!!!

We're staying in a small coastal town, Piriapolis, which is gloriously quiet at this time of year (though in the summer it is apparently PACKED). There's a long stretch of beach, the obligatory rambla, little shops, cute homes, gloriously green pastures, and...what I never expected to see in Uruguay...mountains! OK, make that "tall, rocky, tree-cloaked hills." :D It somehow reminds me of a cross between Ireland, Austria, and small-town Virginia. I don't have too many photos yet, so I'll have to post more later, but here are a few...


The beach and rambla...and some luvin' :)
(n.b. one of the very useful facts I learned in Spanish class..."Te amo" is only used (at least here) for romantic love..."Te quiero" would be for everyone else. Not that I go around telling random people that I love them, but what if I wanted to?? I wouldn't want to say it wrong, would I?!? From which you can probably guess that the message on the beach wasn't from me... :)


The view from our front porch :)


The condo where we're staying - we have one side, and the owners live in the other half. They are a really nice young couple, Victoria and Claudio, with two little girls who my youngest sister has promptly become friends with. There's nothing like Spanish-speaking friends to inspire you to learn the language :)

Another very good thing about being here - I feel so much less shy when I'm not in the city! I find myself actually talking with random people (and they talk and smile back), which has been really fun. Everyone here is really nice about ragged attempts to speak the language. I'm guessing they don't get too many people coming here to learn Spanish, b/c whenever I explain why we're here, or even just say "¡No hablo español muy bien!" people smile and are really friendly [unlike some countries, to remain unnamed here, where attempts at speaking their very tricky language most often meet with a cold stare and no attempt at comprehension :-P Picture me, in that country, trying to communicate where we're going next...Lisieux: "Lisoo...Leesoh...Laysyou...Lisoh.......Leeseeuuu" Blank stares...arrggg! :] But people are really nice here...and I haven't felt any of the slight tension that I've felt in other countries when people realized I was American.

This morning we awakened to the almost-night-like dusk of a lowering tormenta, and have been treated throughout the day to downpouring rain and a fabulous lightning show. SO FUN!!! (can you tell I'm a pathetic, rain-deprived Californian? :) Once the rain lets up, we hope to make some excursions into the (beautifully, lusciously green :) countryside.

For now, I need to go...I'm sitting in an internet cafe, and my time is almost up.

Love to you all...¡Te quiero! :)

¡Hasta Luego!

Today was our last day of Spanish class :( I'm very glad to be heading out of this (MUCH bigger than I'm used to!) city, and finally getting to see the countryside. But I'll miss the teachers - I really liked them A LOT! And I felt like I learned a TON in three weeks of classes! It will be good, though, to get to just use everything we've learned, without needing to make space in our (already overcrowded) brains for something new every day. Here's a photo of all the teachers and students at our school. The teachers are in the front - the two lovely ladies on the left are Virginia and Laeticia, and the smiley gentlemen on the right are Juan and Daniel. ¡Los maestros en esta escuela son muy amables!



So we're leaving Montevideo tomorrow to head to a small beach town, Piriapolis. Entonces, this may be my last post for a while (we won't have internet access in the house there).

¡Chau! (for now)

Around the Town...

Alright, are you ready? Here's a bit of a tour of Montevideo...well, the small portion of the city that's within a 20 block radius of here (i.e. seeable on foot :)

I have to be honest that the city is actually more run-down than it looks in the photos. It must have been incredibly gorgeous in it's prime (in the 1940s), when the buildings were new and there was money to keep the streets swept and the sidewalks repaired. So many of the buildings here are amazing inside and out - marble stairs, wood floors, granite countertops, high ceilings, crown moulding, stained glass windows, decorative carved stone on the fronts of houses....Amazing!! But also aging and in need of repair.

So, in no particular order...


The house across the street - if you click on the photo, you can see the beautiful carvings...




PINK!!


This is an auto-repair shop!!


A Castle?? On an apartment building??!


Some sort of cool archer-on-horseback etching...


The churches here are GORGEOUS!!


In the local park, Parque Rodo...

A Spanish Love Song (sort of... :)

This is so, SO funny!!! (especially for those of us who know what this feels like :) I showed it to the teachers and other students here, and they were laughing hysterically :-D

The One Semester of Spanish Love Song
(on YouTube)

It's a parade!! :)

So last Saturday, we went in search of a musical event, and found a huge parade instead :) I think it was a celebration of the beginning of Spring or something, but mainly it just seemed like a chance for a bunch of dancers, drummers, and performers to show their stuff and have some fun. From what I've heard, there are two styles of music particular to Uruguay: Murga (think barbershop quartet quadrupled, in Spanish, plus fantastical costumes and maybe a few drums) and Candombe (originating from Africa...a ton of drummers drumming away in unison, walking through the streets). We were expecting the first and got the second and then some :)


Candombe


Lot's of guys waving huge flags...


...and wildly-attired dancers





It was a lovely day for a parade :) This is one of the many beautiful (though run-down) buildings to be seen in Montevideo

First Impressions

View from one part of the Rambla in Montevideo

So I promised some first impressions of Montevideo. Having been here a week and a half, I'm past the point of first impressions, but the very first day here, there were two things I noticed most. First, the preponderance of mullets (indescribably unattractive 80's hairdoes, popular with a surprising number of teen guys AND girls here). They are either way ahead of the fashions in California (where we have been drifting 80's-ward for several years) or way behind the fashions everywhere else. The tight, tapered-to-the-ankle pants, vests, ill-fitting clothes, etc. are definitely a thing here as well. But for some reason, mainly near the coast! Seriously, the farther away you get from the Rambla (the miles-long walkway along the coastline of Montevideo), the fewer crazy 80's does you see...interesting...I guess the coolest teens hang out down there :D

The second thing I noticed that first day was the staring...in the US, as soon as someone notices that you are looking at them, you glance away and pretend you weren't, right? :) Well, there's definitely a cultural difference here. There doesn't seem to be any particular time limit on staring here, which can definitely feel a bit uncomfortable at first to a timid American...such as:
Cluster of teenage guys lounging on the corner sipping mate and watching you...You wonder, "Why are they all watching me for so long? I'm not that pretty! Maybe they want to snatch my purse...maybe they're planning to mug me...maybe...!" OR
Group of girls staring intently at you...You think "Do I look weird? Maybe they can tell I'm American. Maybe they hate Americans! Maybe I have some spinach in my teeth...or my hair is all messed up...or I'm wearing my clothes inside out...Why are they still looking at me?!!" At which point your helpful American friend who has lived here for a while says..."I think that the national sport here in Uruguay is sitting on the Rambla staring at people. Just stare back if you want to!" It's kind of fun, actually! :D Didn't you always wish you could just stare at people for as long as you wanted, without feeling embarassed if they noticed?? Well, come on down to Uruguay! :D (but watch out for the dog poop on the sidewalks :-O

Having been here longer, I'm coming to know the place and the people better than all that, but that will have to be the subject for another post...tengo clases en la mañana!

¡Buenas noches!




Some lovely ladies on la playa...

It's me...and I'm in Uruguay!! :D

I tried to post a bunch of photos, and this is all I could manage...it's about the ugliest part of the beach, but you'll just have to be content with it for now :D (blasted computer! :)

Uruguay...or Italia?? :)

Well, it's been quite a few days since my last post - ¡Lo siento! We have been madly studying Spanish this past week at a small language school here in Montevideo. (It's called La Herradura, and I would definitely recommend it if anyone else has a hankering to study Spanish in Uruguay :D ) I am loving it so far, and I feel like I've improved so much just in 4 days of study (and immersion!) At the moment I'm feeling a bit frustrated because even though I can understand most of what the teachers say in class, and can participate in a two hour conversation (in class) about politics, education, or whatever, for some reason, whenever I try to have a conversation with an Uruguayan outside of class, my mind draws a total blank. I feel like a three year old again! :-P Fortunately, people are nice, and will patiently repeat themselves VERY SLOWLY if necessary. I think it has something to do with needing to listen, understand, and formulate an answer all at the same time. Yeah, how silly is it that I can understand a homily at Mass better than someone who's inviting me to go to the fair with her this weekend?!

But I do think this will get better...I just need to practice, practice, practice...and learn more vocabulary...and learn more verb forms...and practice some more...and...watch lots of movies and TV en Español :D

However (even though it's rather cold and damp right now - it is still winter after all!) I really am loving the tiny corner of Uruguay that I've experienced so far. In many ways it reminds me of Roma...beautiful old buildings (think marble and tile floors, high ceilings, carved stone flowers on the fronts of buildings, occasional stained glass windows, etc.) but obviously in need of repairs...faded elegance, you might say. From what I've gathered, Uruguay (and Argentina) had quite an economic boom back in the 30s and 40s, but in the past few decades, they had a succession of dictators (in the 70s and 80s), some better times, and then an economic crash five years ago. So people are definitely not wealthy...but they strike me as very...I don't know what the word is....dignified...respectable...I don't know. I like the Uruguayan people very much so far!

One thing that feels a bit surreal is that almost everyone here looks...not hispanic...but Italian! Dark hair, dark eyes, fair skin (although there are definitely people with light hair and blue eyes here, or of African descent)...and they even speak Spanish with an Italian accent :) Buen dEEa...como estAAH? I can't really recreate it in writing...but it's very musical...it sounds almost like poetry. Definitely the best of both worlds...to learn the most useful second language, but with the accent of my favorite language (which is sadly not very useful outside Italia).

I'm being called to dinner, so I'm going to stop here so I can at least have posted this much...I'll try to write more when I can.

¡Chau! (That's Ciao, en Español :)

Estamos Aqui!!!

We've arrived!!!! Finally!! Thanks to our first flight being cancelled at the last minute (at 2 am!), we ended up spending the night in Los Angeles (paid for by the airline, thankfully :) Then - along with everyone else on the plane - we missing our connecting flight out of Panama and spent the next night at a hotel in Panama (also paid for by the airline). By this point our group was bonding, and we had some really nice conversations with a young couple going to Ecuador to teach the children of missionaries, and another young couple originally from Colombia with a very sweet baby.

The high point in the trip was the half hour bus ride from the airport in Panama City to the hotel, along with a bunch of other people from our flight. We suddenly realized that WE WERE IN ANOTHER COUNTRY :) :) and had a fabulous time (along with the missionary couple). Christopher and Elli had their heads out the window like happy puppies :D















The next day was long, stuck in the hotel waiting for our evening flight - we didn't find out until just before we left that Panama uses US money(!) so we could have had lunch and maybe even done something... But we did have a lovely rooftop pool and view, so we passed the day pleasantly enough.




I think the entrance of the Panama Canal is off in the distance somewhere - there were a ton of boats heading that way.


Ahhh....a lovely green field...Oh wait...






















That afternoon, we managed to get to the airport even though the airline forgot to pick us up like they promised to :-P and we had to hire cabs. I was glad, though, because the taxi driver, Freddie, was great, and we talked away for twenty minutes or so - IN SPANISH!!! :). I was shocked and delighted to discover I could actually have a conversation in Spanish - I had no idea my brain had retained so much!!! So I'm feeling a lot less timid about communicating now, which is very good.

We finally arrived in Uruguay this morning around 4 am, and were greeted by some friends of friends who hustled us and our many bags off to the home of our friends to get some badly needed sleep.

Speaking of which, I need to go to bed soon...So maybe I'll save my first impressions of Uruguay for a post tomorrow...

Coming up...Mullets and Staring... :D

Just to get started...

My dear family and friends...Welcome to my blog!

With any luck (and enough Internet access :) you'll be getting a glimpse into my adventures as I travel with my family for the next three and a half months in South America! There are still two days to go until we leave, so we're busy in the midst of packing and goodbyes...I'm trying not to think too much about where we're headed, or I might find myself incapacitated by excitement! :D I'll be honest I'm a teensy bit nervous, too...For the travel and the language and new people, yes, but mainly just the delightful unknown. It's a bit like hopping on a sled at the top of a hill at night, and taking off. Amazing, but you have no idea what's coming :) Not that I haven't travelled and lived abroad before...or maybe it's because I have, I know how life-changing these next 14 weeks will be.

To see where we'll be starting, here's a link to the website for La Herradura Spanish Language School, in Montevideo, the capital city of Uruguay. We plan to spend the first four weeks there, becoming significantly more conversant in Spanish than we are now! :) My mom and I are the only ones in the family who have formally studied Spanish before (though several of my sisters have years of Latin under their belt, which should help...) I am so excited to FINALLY really learn Spanish! Two years of classes in college is most definitely not enough (at least if you don't have a chance to actually use it!) Especially living in California, there are so many people around me who only or mainly speak Spanish, and it makes me so sad not being able to really communicate with them...so this is my chance :)

I'm really looking forward to spending this time with my family (although it could be tricky having us all in such close quarters for so long - hopefully it will all be peaceful!) AND, to get to experience another culture, language, continent, hemisphere...South America sounds like such an incredible place!!! I am so SO thankful that I get to have this amazing adventure!! Please keep us in your prayers as we travel and study and juggle the needs of eight different people who will be WAY outside their comfort zone! :-]

Love to you all!
Genevieve