chickaroca is NOT a word.

Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to blog from a third world country (global south to be politically correct) with the problems I've been having trying to update this post. Its possible that my lack of time and my 4 hour breaks between attempts might have something to do with it but the fact of the matter is that I just realized my shoulder is peeling. I haven't been to the beach in a week... mas o menos. What's up with that?
Really though, I have been working on this blog since this morning. It's mostly the uploading pictures and the fact that I don't have huge chunks of time to dedicate to blogging. In fact I don't even have time to dedicate to sleeping, which in my book could lead to serious problems. Pero, maybe it's OK that we haven't written in a while because if Kara and I posted everyday you might get behind on your reading and then you try to catch up and miss something new and then get overwhelmed and maybe crying happens... that would be a travesty. SO, Menos mal la conexción del red es muy terrible! Thank you internet for being so, so very dumb so that all the readers (I just know that there's innumerable passionate, dedicated followers of Lista Para Asombrar) can fear not.

Today specifically, I had an hour Spanish lab until fui español para 3 horas immediately followed by lunch... the fun doesn't stop there though because not long after we took our 25 minute hike to the required Gaucho Museum and returned two hours later... I had just enough time to set some pictures to loading before Andrea (not pictured yet) showed up and Martin, Diego, Mathias, Emmanuel y Natalia were not far behind. Martin, Diego and Mathias are brothers and the chicita wearing red in the photos below,Mikaela, is their hermanita (little sister.) Andrea is Martins novia (girlfriend) and Emmanuel and Natalia are not related to anyone, but no less important. They all go to the Iglesia de Cristo attached to the house that we now attend and we are pretty much in love with them. A no brainer right? Its pretty simple really. That is basically the group that took us to the futbol game last week (which I never put pictures from. whooops. I still can, feedback is welcome) and the group that was at the asado (barbeque) we had Sunday night. We are pretty much in love with them. Did I already say that? For the asado we climbed to the third floor courtyard of our house/church (where we are in the photos) and hung out until it was time to eat. After we ate we took the elevator to the roof of the building and had a devotional in the dark with a view of the lights Montevideo. Top that.

You can't so don't try. If you must try, go ahead but I will just come back with something even better that we have done in the past week and then poke you in the eye for trying when I told you not to. Its lose-lose for you. There are so many things that I could ramble on about like the AMAZING time a group of us have been having with our new friends at the rock climbing room at the gimnasio, or Candombe lessons we took while you were trying to scrape the ice off of your car's window, or the parade to celebrate the beginning of Carneval tomorrow night, but you remember when I said I didn't have a lot of spare time to spend blogging because I'm too busy even to sleep? Well I'm about to make time. Dormiré.
abrazos y CHAO.
jess



Check out those manly men and their big knife thing. Here we have Nathan Sanders, Wimon Walker and two of our three hermanos (from left) Martin y Mathias.


Mathias is the sweetest 15 year old I've ever met. Besides helping cook and prepare the meal, he pulls out the chair that he picked for you, refuses to let you serve yourself or sweep after dinner, he follows you around incessantly speaking Spanish at an ungodly speed, and he always lets you win at thumb wars (...unless he really loses. CAUSE I'M SUCH A BEAST.)
Mathias is also the biggest suck up of all time. I personally am flattered, but 5 years his senior. I would however recommend him to a sweet girl who hopes to study abroad in the future. He can also dance to out-dated 80's techno.


Look at this. Are they cute or ARE THEY CUTE. I mean JUST COOMEE ONN. OH, oh my, oh. goodness. Wimon is wearing a "World's Greatest Dad" tee. I had a world's greatest dad shirt once... until my dad took it back. RUDE.


How beautiful did Stephanie look? eStephani, the presence of carne makes you glooow. and el viento en tu pelo es muy bonita.


like when you're rocking the patio...

This is Kara. You may know her cause she's the other girl on the blog. You may not have recognized her though, because that scary looking thing in the purple is her.


Stephanie is not a local. She came with us to Uruguay. Needless to say, sometimes if we're in a big group we make her stand at the bus stop while we hide behind the sign so that the bus driver will stop for us, and sometimes people try to speak Portuguese to her. Stephanie doesn't speak Portuguese.


Mikaela (the little sister) loves Zanessa. Prec.


Sarah has a way of passing on a smile. Her laugh is pretty contagious... keep on smiling Sarah, you just keep right on.

more pictures later... if I don't feed my computer to a llama. Good thing I don't have a llama.