Week one

I'm not getting to write as much on this as I want... but just know that we are so busy it's kind of ridiculous. We had free time this weekend, but between working and trying to sight see and eat sometimes, I try to sleep as much as possible. Right now both Katie and Jenn are falling asleep, and I am staying up to write this. I'm trying to keep video journals as well, just because it's quicker, but I know I'll want to remember this trip forever.

The first week was really a lot of fun. We have done a lot of sight seeing the past couple days (Friday and Saturday) and Sunday (Father's Day) we spent at our friend Alejandro's house with his family. They are Soooooo COOOOL!!!!!!! The dad's name is Ruben Dario; who to all you spanish majors out there.. you know that is the name of a famous spanish author we studied in Lit this past semester with Martinez. Anyway, the dad is crazy fun and awesome. He is originally from Colombia and his wife is from somewhere else too but at at the moment I forget. She cooked Colombian food on Sunday, so we went over there to eat with her, Dario, Alejandro, and his brother Juan David. The church secretary came too, Rosalina, who is quickly becoming one of my all-time favorite people (talk about the heart of a servant)! We enjoyed some amazing rice y frijoles (beans) and steak. Although I don't really enjoy red meat, I ate it so I didn't offend anyone on our first impression. Katie's a vegetarian, so I didn't want to add to the pressure of them trying to find something else for us to eat. We were so grateful to be invited over after church because we were planning on making gross pasta when we were already missing our families.

After we ate lunch, they brought us ice cream. IT WAS HEAVEN. They have these ice cream places here where you can get like a tub of ice cream to feed a bunch of people that you can pick 4 flavors... so we had vanilla, chocolate, orange sherbert, and DULCE DE LECHE (my favorite). It was so good- I could eat that every single day. They drove us home quickly since we were already running late for our Sunday afternoon reading sessions.

I guess I could tell you all about our weekend. On Friday, we went with the youth minister, Pedro, to Plaza de Mayo. We wanted to sight see, and one of my readers (Analia) told me several places in the area to visit, restaurants to eat at, etc. We walked around for a while, then Pedro pulled us in this Burger King. I know what you're all thinking- because I was thinking it too... Burger King is nothing special. UHHHHHHH HOLD YOUR HORSES: I'm afraid I'm going to have to burst your bubble. It was ridiculous. I know the BK's and McDonald's,etc in Honduras are really nice, but this one was 3 floors, straight out of Italy or something, and BK had like mosaics on the walls and sculptures and the ceilings looked like something painted back in the Renaissance period. This place is seriously ridiculous. Look for pictures later. Then we continued walking down the famous Calle Florida (Florida street) to visit shops, kiosks, etc. We walked over to Puerto Madero, which is this really awesome place (port) with an awesome bridge/view. We ate lunch at this grill in that area which was delicioso. It was good to have some more normal food from the US of A since lately we've just been eating a lot of ridiculous snack foods. From Puerto Madero we walked about 95 miles to San Telmo........




Just kidding. It only seemed like it was around 95 miles, but it was worth it. This place is AAWESOMEEEEE. Talk about such a cool little tourist town. I say touristy town, but there weren't a ton of people out. We were there around the time the sun was setting, and it was gorgeous. The roads were stone, and the buildings all seem to have little balconies with cute chairs and tables (post pictures later). I wish that I could just upload my pictures, but until I can get internet on my laptop, I don't want to slow this computer we have in the apt down by uploading a zillion pictures. This is why I am trying to describe every little thing! Anyway, I could totally see myself living there. Me and my future dog... ideally a white husky... just trotting around for an afternoon stroll. We went to the most adorable Flea Market inside San Telmo, and I felt right at home. It was like going to the Flea Market like I do once a month with my parents. I wanted everything!! We didn't have enough pesos to get anything, so we decided to go home and get money out to exchange since they didn't take debit cards obviously.

The end of that day was exhausting since we seriously walked probably over 20 miles... easy. We were so beat, so we came in and hit the hay early that night. No late night weekends for us! Saturday morning we decided to get up and return to San Telmo. We took the subte (subway) to Plaza de mayo and walked to San Telmo. We did this after we did a little grocery shopping at the market that morning (since we slept in to avoid walking in the rain). We got to San Telmo around 4 and hit up the Flea Market. We each bought at least one thing, yet I only spent 10 bucks. Holla.

We took a taxi...

A.D.D.-
TAXIS are super cheap here.

and headed back to the train. We switched lines about halfway through Line A for Line B and took that to a part of town we had never been. This was a little scary (sorry, Mom). It was night time, and the map we have is very small so we had a hard time finding the person's house we were trying to find. We were supposed to be arriving at 7pm at 2 of our readers' apartment (they're newlyweds). We finally called them at like 630 and said "we're inside the western union on the corner of _______ and _______, can you come find us???" Of course, I am the translator of any and all phone conversations we have... therefore it was a frustrating moment when I couldn't hear a word the man was saying... in Castellano...in a busy area... when I was scared of being kidnapped (sequestrada).

NEEDLESS TO SAY, God was looking out for us. They arrived shortly after and drove us to the market. We got some things to eat and some delicious Dulce de Leche cake (if you can't tell by now... that's my new obsession), and then we headed back to their apartment. We ate empanadas and chocolate muffins (?) for the main dinner and the cake for dessert with coffe.

1. Empanadas are super cheap here. They are like a pastry shell and you can eat anything in them. The chicken ones are my favorite. We tried a veggie one (they made these for KT obviously), cheese and onion, meat, and pollo (chicken). They had broken their oven earlier in the day, and so the empanadas were cold. haaaaaa that was funny... but I cannot complain because it was a lot better than eating cold pizza and trail mix like we usually do :)
2. Unfortunately i'm going to return to America addicted to coffee and tea. That is literally all they drink here as a beverage. That and sodas.. which I like some soda like Fanta, but I'd rather drink water. I seriously don't know how people here aren't dehydrated because no one drinks water, and if they do... it's carbonated? I miss my filter in America (spoiled).
3. DULCE DE LECHE=HEAVEN

Ok well I am now ending this blog because it is past midnight, and I have to get up early for a super long day tomorrow (I have readers from 11-1 and then after lunch from 3-8 pm.

As far as prayer request go, this is our list:

1. pray that we all have patience with each other and our readers. Also patience with ourselves and with God. I'm finding it difficult to remember this is his thing, not mine. I'm getting so frustrated not knowing how to approach the people who don't want to believe or maybe just don't have a clue. I want to save them, but I don't know how!!!! We talked tonight and decided we really just have to give that to God and trust that all we can do is pray (we would love your help with that)
2. please pray over our health. we're starting to feel the wear and tear of going all day every day, and being tired is something we feel is not fair to our readers. we want to be able to give everything we have for the full time we promised to our readers.
3. please pray over our families. we know they are really missing us right now, and we miss them a lot too. it was really hard being seperated on Father's day, and so we want our Dads to know we love them and miss them so much.
4- finally, pray that God will teach us to be a light in the way we act every moment of every day. we want to be an example not just to our readers, but to the people of the church and of the community.



Thanks to all of you who took the time to read this- we miss you and love you SO MUCH!!!!

Annie, KT, and Jennifer

PS- we have a computer in the apartment that works with Skype. our names are:
anniekatebrown
jensheree
katiemcmack