14 de Julio

I think it’s safe to say that we are becoming quite accustomed to this town. Being Sabbath, we took it nice and chill. We had ourselves a nice breakfast and then headed to the lake. We spent a good 3 hours there, discussing the meaning of life and other such topics as natives continually came up to us, trying to take us on boat rides or sell us table mats. It was a perfect day to do some reconnecting that time and distance often inhibit us from doing. Things picked up around 7:00 as is expected on Saturday nights. Andrew and I had our first real go at shopping. I was honestly a little disappointed. As I went from vender to vender I noticed that all their goods looked strikingly similar; and all this time I thought I was going to buy a one of a kind original piece of some ones manual labor. Turns out, much of these goods are bought by the locals and resold to us for 3 times the price. However, there are some who sell authentic, traditional wars and I intend to buy from them. After shopping, we returned to the soccer court that we discovered the previous evening. We sat through 2 games, the last being a game of two guys teams. They were pretty good. They were really good actually. It was a lot of fun to watch people with such talent. After the game came an experience that I will never forget. Andrew and I went to Jack’s place, one of our favorite restaurants just because it is such a sad establishment and we feel sorry for it. Well this night there happened to be live music that was extremely loud. We ordered our food and began eating. After a short while, the owner came up to me and asked me something in Spanish. It was really loud and I only caught a couple words that I recognized. So I sat there for a few seconds after confidently answering, “Si.” After she walked away Andrew immediately asked, “Did you understand her?” I began to laugh hysterically as I shook my head “No.” Andrew’s eyes widened and he began to laugh as well. So there we were anxiously awaiting for whatever it was that I had just asked for. She came back and set two glasses filled with a mysterious looking liquid. Andrew looked at me while shaking his head in disbelief. “Nunca otra vez” (never again) he said before slowly putting the glass to his nose and then taking a small sip. “I don’t know” he said. So after I got done crying I took the glass to my nose and then took a sip. It was like a cross between spiced apple cider and grape juice. After the taste left my mouth, I looked at Andrew again and we began to laugh hysterically at my mistake that is so typical of someone who is not careful of their response when they have no idea what was said. Needless to say, I have learned my lesson for good. I would have felt worse for leaving two full glasses there but we noticed on the bill that they were free. It was an experience that could only be completely appreciated by two good Adventist brothers. The word for today is “repite.” It means, to repeat and can be used by itself when one does not understand another’s question and needs clarification.