Love Charlie and the Gadabouts: Fuemos al asado a noche.

(our awesome casa)

OK so I'm having a battle with my computer and the internet here. I was ready this morning to update but uploading pictures seems to be brain surgery. It takes forever then I have class for three hours and don't have time to fix it and here I'm at my days end and the post has yet to be finished. Its fine for now though I will just continue on with todays happenings. Luckily there are no pictures to upload for today (yet) and I can just write and leave the other pictures from last night to load. I would prefer to update in the morning here so that by the time you rise it will be a new post for a new day, but no such luck. I could just post without the pictures but then you might be bored. It was an eventful monday. I got up and attempted to post (obviously to no avail since here I am) but right after lab and spanish was lunch and a short break until our Latin America class at 3. Today however was no ordinary day in the life of Latin American learning for today we had a Candombe workshop. Candombe is a dance with African roots that is specific to Uruguay. Regardless of how silly we all looked, we had fun... and we all looked silly I'm sure. Right after class I went with Kara and Stefanie L and Shelly and Nathan Sanders to the mega YMCA. We were on a mission to find the rock climbing room. We found it, full of elementary schoolers. It was intimidating at first to walk into a room of u-15ers that are showing you up but we figured out (thanks to the instructor Pablo, who speaks English) that from 6-7 was the class for them and ours would start at 7. It was slow but eventually we went through the harness, belaying etc etc and started climbing. After a bit Pablo said it was time for crunches so we unharnessed and joined the group of guys (who had been monkeying around the walls (and around us) without harnesses) on the floor for a killer workout. It was lots of fun and another opportunity to make some friends. By the end there was the satisfactory feeling of having accomplished something and even better the feeling of belonging because Pablo gave the whole group a speech about how we are a team and we will be learning Spanish and climbing from them but we will be teaching them English and other things (I haven't thought of anything else I could teach them yet) as well. Now I'm going to try to find some leftovers... that is if our pirana housemates haven't devoured it all.
(end of new post)

FUEMOS AL ASADO A NOCHE! BARBEQUE TIME!

Nathan, Wimon and the chefs

(post from earlier.)
Buen dia. Hope the day finds you well. Last night we had a Uruguayan asado (bar-be-q) on the roof of our house and the adjoining church. I can't speak for everyone but I can speak for myself (and I'm going to speak for Kara) when I say that it was a fenomenal night. We gathered on the fourth floor patio and past the time by taking pictures & enjoying the company and the view. A few members of the church and Nestor the man who runs the church and lives on the third floor and his family grilled the meat with the help of the boys of the youth group. Eventually the meal was ready and we gathered one level lower at the tables prepared for us. After dinner we took the elevator up to the roof of the entire building for a bilingual devotional. It was finally dark but the clouds reflected the lights of the city enough to illuminate the faces across the circle and with the first much needed breeze we had felt all day we sang and listened as a group made mostly of teenage boys and their little sister sang, slightly off key, but without concern for anything but the words. Kara and I concurred as we sat there that in our time here we have been no happier than the times that we have spent with this group. I'll say this with the risk of sounding inappropriate but we are both in love with those teenaged boys. (we would be in love with the teenaged girls too if there were any. OK?) With the exception of Martin the oldest boy's girlfriend Andrea these boys are the only teens from the church, at least that we've been with.

anyway, it was fun. thats about it. Next weekend they invited us all to walk the rambla and watch a movie with them. I'm sure it will be fun. We utilize and learn our spanish best with them as well.

Mathias is my sweet little friend. After he burned his hand Rosalinda designated me his "nagger" because he apparently requires extra nagging. It might've had something to do with the way he followed me around and constantly ran his mouth in Spanish that was way too fast... even after I (repeatedly) said "MATHIAS. mas dispacio, PORFAVOR."