Shall we recap the last week of this Uruguayan adventure? I think so!
I have had two more days with the kids at the school since I last wrote and so far everything is going really well. We are only there for an hour and in my opinion that is not nearly enough time! Each day we have to do something semi-small because of the time restriction, but slowly but surely wins the race. We started with the alphabet by making giant bubble letters, letting the kids color them in, and then they wrote an English word that started with their letter, and drew a picture of their word. Now we have the alphabet with all of the English words hanging in their classroom, they also sing the Alphabet Song with us before every class. As a review/ introduction to something new this week we broke the (approximately 30 kids) into four groups. Two groups were playing memory with the alphabet, the other two were working on parts of the body. For memory we had a letter and a picture to go with it; the trick was they had to know how to say what the picture was in English. I was working with one of those groups and of course I went through the process with them helping them out with names, but they were having a blast and getting really into it! It was cute to see some of the words they came up with and their pronunciation- absolutely adorable. My favorite example was A. The matching picture, as you can probably guess, was an apple and each time they flipped it over they would immediately yell "manzana" which is correct in Spanish. When I would ask how to say it in English they would think for a few seconds and then someone would get super excited and say "ah-play." Got me every time. I love the learning process :)
The weather here, for the most part, has been steadily getting better. I have spent a lot more time walking; I walk home from school a lot now instead of taking the bus and it is about a 40 minute walk. I haven't gotten sick of it yet though because about 25 minutes is down the main street and every time I am walking I seem to see/ find something different. The other day I decided to stop into one of the bakeries or "confiteria" to buy myself a snack. I know one thing I am going to miss is the abundance of fresh baked goods- their pastries and such here are delicious. Kelsey, Ali, and I also spent one evening walking around a little- they bought some Espejitos and I settled from some ice cream. That was only the 5th time I have eaten ice cream since I got here, less than once a week! Uruguay just might be breaking my ice cream addiction.. but then again.. maybe not..
On Thursday last week I decided I would make dinner for the family. I couldn't seem to come up with a very "typical" American meal- that isn't burgers and fries- so I just decided to make something semi easy that I like a lot: Stir Fry! It felt awesome to cook again, except when I took on the project I didn't realize I would be cooking for the entire family (grandma, grandpa, and cousin included!). I didn't mind at all of course, I love baking and cooking. I spent a good four hours in the kitchen between the main dish and dessert I had a lot to get done. I made the dessert first which was Snickerdoodle cookies, I figured since the first round went over so well I would try something new. Then I started on the Stir Fry- all of the veggies and meat were fresh so my host mom helped me get everything all cut up and started. Then I was off and running- I had to cook everything in two parts because I didn't have a pot big enough for all of it at once. In the end it turned out to be a great meal every one really liked the food, but more importantly they devoured the cookies once again. Lu, Caro, and Juan said they prefer the ones with Chocolate, but every one else seemed to prefer the "cinnamon cookies." I have started thinking about what I want to make next time- suggestions welcome! I love cooking/ baking- something about food that just brings people together to enjoy a meal, especially one that I took the time to cook, just puts a smile on my face. |
| Didn't take long for them to disappear! |
On Saturday, it was very windy with a few rain showers, but we braved the weather and spent some time walking around one of the Ferias that I have mentioned previously. Then a few of us spent sometime down by the sea-ocean-river, whatever you want to call it. I enjoyed the little bit of "fresh" air like always. Saturday night we made our way to another friends apartment, it was essentially the same with the exception that we weren't celebrating. Aurore (from France) has her own apartment close to the school with an awesome view of the city! Kelsey and I left pretty early to have a Bachelorette night- she is currently working on getting me hooked on the show haha What we ended up doing was about a 1/2 hour workout, eating some food, and watching 1 episode of the Bachelorette. I would say it was a night well spent!
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| The drink Ali bought! |
Now- onto what the title of the Blog is referencing. The national Barman Competition was here in Montevideo the past few days and a few of us went to check it out. Now you may be wondering how we heard about it and what prompted us to go? Well Kelsey's cousin is currently training to be a professional Barman and he competed in the Amateur round. I supposed I should spell out what a Barman Competition involves- I sure didn't know before I went. Part of the competition is just making drink, with a certain time restriction. For the professional level they have a certain amount of
time to make the garnish for their drink out of fruits, vegetables, etc Then they have to actually make the drinks afterward. One or two of the drinks go to the judges and they auction off the others to the audience. Ali ended getting two drinks and an Encyclopedia of Cocktails- in her words "You only live once!" We all got shared/ tried the drink and it was absolutely amazing. It was a kiwi-apple-mint type cocktail and of course it was very well made. The second part of the competition, the real reason we all went, was for Flare.Flare is the part of the competition where the competitors are not only making a drink, but juggling the cups and bottles in the process. This blew my mind! The first three to go were good, but the 4th guy was the 5x world champion. He is from Uruguay and I have never seen anything like the show he put on! It was flawless- one of my friends has a video of the entire routine. I am going to try to get it and put it up because it is nearly impossible to describe. It was amazing!
It is an all weekend event. I can't wait to be a part of something that makes such a difference in people's lives!
Un Beso
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