Mas!

It's been almost a week since I last posted, so here's some of what I've been up to.

On Saturday, the students cook the meals. Carla was supposed to help with dinner, so I helped to. Little did I realize I'd spend 4 hours in the kitchen. We went in at 4:30 (dinner is served around 7) and finished cleaning up around 8 or 8:30. I helped cut green beans that were then cooked, wash, peal, cut, and fry potatoes to make french fries, and fry a food that is kind of like a small hot dog. And of course they also cooked rice! It wouldn't be lunch or dinner without rice. The main part of the meal was very interesting. I don't know what it's called but it was fun to watch it be made. They took plantains and shredded them. Then, they mixed it with peanut butter. Then, they took the mixture and made little rolls stuffed it with tuna. Then, they fried them. It was really good. I wasn't expecting tuna to go good with the banana and peanut butter tastes, but it did. After everyone ate, we washed the dishes and cleaned up. It was a lot of fun!

On Sunday, I went to church with Carla again. I didn't realize it before, but there are around 10 students from the seminary that go there. Like the week before, we took a bus there and got a ride back with someone. After church, we went to El Condado, the mall, for lunch. I got McDonald's because it sounded good. Then, for dinner we went to Carcelen and ate in a small place. At the restaurant, there was a TV and Spiderman 2 was on in Spanish. I was entertained to watch it in Spanish because everything was dubbed except for names. I still find it hard to believe how cheap food is here. I'm given $10 for lunch and dinner on Sundays and I spent just over $6. My dinner, which was very filling, was only $2.35. That includes the soda I had.

My classes have continued this week with Spanish every morning from 9:30 to 12:30. While this still seems like a lot of Spanish at one time, I'm already noticing an improvement in my Spanish. And my New Testament Class and Kevin's Christian Faith Class are in the afternoons when we can fit them into the NILI schedule and Stan's schedule. I have a lot to read before I have NT tomorrow.

NILI has started a new program called NILI Professionals for adults to come learn Spanish. This semester there are going to be 3 couples here for the program. Tuesday night, the first couple arrived and tonight, the second couple will arrive.

Yesterday, I woke up at my normal time, 6:45, to go to breakfast. When I got to breakfast, I found out that breakfast wasn't being served then. Disappointed that I could have slept longer, I headed back to my room to take a shower. Later, after our Wednesday morning meeting and devotional time we got breakfast. Lucy was great and made us grilled cheese sandwhiches and provided us with fresh mora juice and cold milk for our cereal! So, this really was a great breakfast! 1. I miss cold milk already. 2. Mora anything is amazing. In English, mora is a blackberry, but they seem to be so much better here. 3. I like the cheese they have here. We have it for breakfast a lot, but I've never had it warm. It was great! So, thanks Lucy!

Instead of Spanish class yesterday, we had a field trip and the NILI professionals went with us. We went to la Basilica! La Basilica is a beautiful old Catholic church. Not only is it beautiful, it is huge and you can explore it and it has great views of the city! I took lots of pictures that you should check out by clicking on the title of this post, "Mas!" We started out by going into the main sanctuary. The arcitecture and stained glass windows were amazing. Then we headed back outside into a kind of courtyard. After this we headed up the towers. We were able to walk along a catwalk above the roof of the sanctuary. We also climbed some very steep stairs to the top of the dome over the center of the sanctuary. After carefully going back down the stairs, we headed up one of the clock towers using a very skinny spiral staircase. We continued up past the clocks of the clock towers using ladders. The rungs of the ladders were made of rebar. It was kind of scary, especially since I don't like heights. We went up through the bell tower as high as you can go. There was only the top peak above us. The floor here was thick wire, so you could see the 12 or so feet you'd fall if the wire broke. From here you could go outside and sit on the legdes of the roof. There were no railings or anything to stop you from falling or even any signs telling you to be careful. I guess they figure that if you're stupid enough to actually stand up while you're out there and risk falling, you deserve to die. The view from here was spectacular, not that it wasn't from other places in the Basilica, but this was quite a bit higher up. It was a really awesome place to go!

Last night, I did laundry for the first time while I was here. There are 3 decent sized washers and 2 driers. I only had 1 load to do, so it didn't take me long and it was relatively easy, though figuring out which cycle is which is kind of difficult since it's all in Spanish. One thing that I found interesting is that the 3 washers are designated for certain types of clothing (I didn't follow this becuase I didn't want to do more than 1 load if I didn't have to). Each washer is labled "solo jeans" or "solo camisetas" or "solo ropa interior." In other words, "only jeans" or "only shirts" or "only underwear." The only reason I can think of for them to do this is that a lot of the students have never used washing machines before and have only hand washed their clothes. By telling them to do that, they make sure they don't mess up any of their clothes.

Tonight is our weekly Bible study over Richard Foster's "Celebration of Disciplines" at Kim's house. We're going to be talking about the Spiritual discipline of meditaion tonight. I've learned that another name for our Bible study could be "American snack food night." We always have some sort of snack and ff we have cravings for something American, Kim or Jen will get what we want before the Bible study and we'll eat it then. Tonight, Jen is making us monkey bread! Yummy! I don't know exactly what goes into making monkey bread, but it's kind of like a huge cinnimon roll except with some different stuff. It's good!

That's all for now!