"What? A Jonas brother is coming?!?!"

My apologies for neglecting my blog over this last week... there is a lot to catch up on! The main excuse for my neglect was that my brother came to visit this week. He flew into Montevideo and braved his way on his own through getting to Paysandu. After the 4.5 hour bus ride he arrived safely on Wednesday night. We went out to eat at Romi, a local restaurant which just moved to snazzy new location, and was able to try 'Chivito' his very first night (the flank-steak sandwich piled high with pretty much everything under the sun). Then on Thursday, he came with us to a presentation we gave on the American Revolution at a public high school, grabbed a quick bite then hailed the first cab we saw to hurry over to the elementary school. This week we worked on 'family trees' and had the classes come up with questions for our 'surprise visitor' ("Is it Hannah Montana???" .... "What? Brother is coming? A JONAS brother is coming???" --Sorry kids, my life does not revolve around the Disney channel...) So they were able to ask him questions, and come up with an 'Interview' for our guest.

Thursday evening we had some friends over for tea-time, then later that night we had tickets for a play benefiting a Down-syndrome society. The play was about Juana de Ibarbourou, also known as 'Juana de America', a famous Uruguayan poet whose somewhat tragic life paralleled the political turmoil during the dictatorship in Spain and later in Uruguay itself. In my opinion, the play was a bit over-dramatized at times, but the story of her life was very interesting, and the drama made it all the easier to understand. Plus the beautiful Florencio Sanchez historical theater is always worth a visit. I did think the play had some very creative staging techniques, which I enjoyed from a more technical viewpoint.

Then on Friday we went back to the elementary school, where Andrew got to play an intense soccer game with some serious fanatics, see the 4th graders perform some traditional dancing (this particular one is known as El Pericon), and see some very fine singing of the 2nd grade rendition of 'Five Little Ducks' and 'If All the Raindrops.' It was a pretty adorable day all-around, and of course the kids were very well behaved with him there. Oh, I also don't think I mentioned that we are back to being the principal teachers of the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders, since the substitute could no longer stay at the school, and they have yet to find someone else. So now we are back to creating our own agenda and lesson plans, which I think we feel more confident with now.

That night we had a conversation group with one of the students at the IFD (the teacher's college), and then Andrew and I went out for a drink while Elizabeth finished up with one last class. Then we all went out to eat at PanZ (pronounced, 'Pan-Zeta,' since the Z in spanish is pronounced 'zeta'... so, as in, 'panceta'... took me a really long time to figure that one out... not too quick on the uptake...), where he got to try some Uruguayan-style pizza, faina (a chickpea-flour flat-bread), and some flan with dulce de leche.

Then Saturday morning we (Andrew, Elizabeth and I) got up early to catch our bus to Colon, Argentina. Luckily, this time it didn't take quite as long to get over the border. On the walk to the hotel we made a reservation for a tour of the Parque Nacional el Palmar, the national palm-tree park a bit outside Colon, and then went to check up on a safari-tour reservation we had made. Sadly, we learned that the English-speaking tour guide who was supposed to run our terrestrial safari was not going to be around all day (despite the fact that I had made the reservation for Saturday with him earlier that week...) so instead of going in a Jeep and searching for semi-precious agates and stones, we booked a boat tour instead.

Then we went to the hotel, the Hosteria del Puerto, which was this adorable historic hotel down by the river. Our room was a bungalow-style room with a loft where Elizabeth and I slept, and I have to admit, it was a treat to have t.v. again. Unfortunately, Andrew got bitten up by mosquitos in the main room below, but up in the loft we were fine. We went out for lunch then headed to our boat tour, which was quite the adventure.... the weather was pretty ominous the whole time, we had some shifty moments where I didn't completely trust our captain or our little inflatable motor-boat, but we got to learn about the local islands, the flora and fauna, and some interesting ecological facts about the area... like the fact that the level of the water changes so drastically so frequently that no one could possibly inhabit the islands, which is what keeps them a valuable ecological preserve. The other people on our tour were a very young couple on their honeymoon from Buenos Aires, who brought along their very tiny and very good-tempered baby... so I think in the end, the baby faired a bit better on the boat than we did!

Unfortunately, after that adventure Elizabeth came down with a bug of some sort, so Andrew and I walked around while she rested and we eventually got a really tasty dinner at a recommended restaurant right by our hotel. Then on Sunday, we were met at our hotel for our tour of the national park. It was about an hour drive out, and then at the park the guide told us a bit about the fauna, like the fact that they just have no idea how all the palm trees that make up the huge nature preserve got there in the first place, and walked us through one of the trails. Then he drove us to another spot and let us walk around ourselves for a while, where we got the chance to see some Jesuit ruins. Unfortunately, we did not see a single animal... no one told us ahead of time that you need to book an afternoon tour to see any :( Then we headed back to Colon, had some lunch, and then found ourselves a little frustrated with a lack of anything to do, since everything shuts down in the middle of the day for the 'siesta,' and we really had nowhere to go. So, we read in a coffee shop for a while, then in an ice-cream shop, until things started opening up again and we could walk around a bit. Eventually we just headed back to the bus station and made our way home, where we were very grateful to be back in the apartment.

Monday was a holiday, so we had a rather boring day. I also came down with a bad cold. Our friend Yosanna came over for a bit and Andrew was able to try mate, the bitter green tea that is drunk out of a gourd with a bombillo, or a straw which filters the herbs. Yosanna drinks hers sweet, which is not traditionally Uruguayan, but which I prefer. Elizabeth baked her cookies, and we made some empanadas. On Tuesday, Andrew came back with us to the elementary school, and then that evening he left for Montevideo to get to know the 'big city' for a few days before he flies back out on Thursday. One funny anecdote about the week was that the whole time Andrew was here, from the very first night until when he left from the bus station, this same stray dog kept following us around! It was so quirky and cute, he was so surprisingly friendly and people-focused for a stray.

Now Elizabeth and I are back to our old routine, lesson planning for our little kiddies, running our new 'Conversation Club' on Wednesday nights at the teacher's college, and presenting on various topics at the teacher's college and elsewhere. Since I am sick I'm hoping to have a restful weekend... we had a busy and exciting week and a half, but it's nice to get back to my normal schedule. The next project is to buy a small space heater for our apartment though... it is starting to get chilly here! I see winter coming, which means in about 3 weeks we head to our conference in Buenos Aires, then one week later we moved back to Montevideo already!