Yerba mate

So yesterday was my first adventure with getting (sort of) lost in South America.

In the morning we all took taxis to this big, open-air market that sold every kind of random thing—all sorts of fresh fruit, clothes and souvenirs—and then had the rest of the day to do whatever we wanted. I went with Lawson, Ashley (my roommate and Alpha Kai sister), and Sam (her boyfriend) to the market and from there we were planning on going to one of the nice beaches here in Montevideo. At the market Lawson and I got split up from Sam and Ashley for a minute but figured that we would find each other soon enough. Wrong. After an hour and a half of looking, we still couldn’t find them (since none of us have our cell phones here), so we finally decided to go to the beach on our own with hopes of meeting up with them there eventually. We had a map of the city and there seemed to be a bus line that would take us directly to the beach. Lucky for me, Lawson’s Spanish is a lot better than mine so after walking for close to an hour and talking to a couple of shop owners, we managed to find the bus stop. I was convinced that it would take us to the beach, but he wanted to make sure so he asked a man sitting next to us. The people at the bus stop looked a little confused and pointed down the street—sure enough, the beach was about three blocks down and you could see it clearly from where we were sitting. I'm so glad we didn't get on that bus! That’s one really wonderful thing about Montevideo…all of the people here are so helpful and friendly. The key phrase is Estoy aprendiendo español (I am learning Spanish) and if you say it they’re more than willing to help you with anything. So we had a short conversation with them and I got to use some of my limited Spanish. Somos de los Estados Unidos and muchas gracias! When we finally got to the beach we ran into some of our friends and spent a few hours swimming and getting tans in the middle of January! It was so wonderful. It was in the upper 90’s and the beach was full of people and things to see. Getting home was another adventure in itself but I don't want to make this blog too long already!

Today we went to church in the morning. Casa ACU's building is connected to a church here called Iglesia de Cristo , both of which used to be an old coffee factory. The building is absolutely beautiful--parts of it are made of Italian marble and there is a clock tower on top that was a gift from the Queen of England. We got a tour of our home yesterday from Ernesto, the pastor of Iglesia de Cristo and even got to go on the roof for a beautiful view of Montevideo! It's a very small congregation but the church members here are so kind. A few of them can speak a little bit of English, so it was fun practicing Spanish with them and just getting to know them. They gave us a pizza lunch and we got to meet the youth there, whom we'll get a lot of chances to do things with. The language barrier makes for some really fun times. When I introduced myself to people today, some of them said, "Oh, Morgan...like Morgan Freeman!" or "Like Captain Morgan?" Close enough.

After lunch we went to the ferria, which is an enormous event that happens here every Sunday. Hundreds and hundreds of vendors come and set up shop in the streets and sell absolutely everything you could imagine. And I mean everything--there was an owl for sale, right in the same cage as a bunch of green parrots, which was right next to a box full of puppies. There were also bootleg copies of movies that aren't even out on DVD yet, rows of antiques, a table full of beautiful old keys, and city blocks full of fresh fruit. I bought a mate gourd and a bombilla, both of which are used in a big part of Uruguayan culture, yerba mate. I'll have to tell you more about mate later though, because it's one in the morning and our first day of class is tomorrow and I should probably get some sleep. I love and miss you all tons!

Some of the fresh fruit that was for sale today at the ferria. I wish I could put the smell of those peaches in this blog because it was so delicious!