Day 12/13

Okay so this will hopefully cover the 12th and 13th days here in Montevideo. 

The significance of yesterday was the dinner with Jutta, Eyal, and Toni at their Airbnb. Toni is their 6-year-old daughter and she's so precocious. She speaks in German fluently, but in English and Spanish she only knows a few words and loves to say them. She likes saying "para ti" and "para mi" and "hello" and to hear her say my name Miguel was actually delightful. 

I brought her coloring pencils and a pencil sharpener which delighted her. She made me a bracelet with a heart on it and it's amazing in its simplicity and I love it!. The heart fell off but I kept it and here's a photo: 

The meal featured a kind of quiche that is specific to Montevideo and parts of Uruguay, I'm assuming. It was really good so was the chopped vegetable salad and the quite amazing fruit salad. I did not know I could like fruit salad so you know even at my age ...

School is hard but there you go. I am learning some things and I'm hearing words now that I did not hear when I arrived. Immersion is really the only way to go and to commit to this to become fluent by all accounts takes "at least a year of immersion". It would be great to have the opportunity to do that, but not sure that's in my future. 

There is a street here in Montevideo known as Sarandi. It is a wide, brick and cobblestone road closed to cars and features square, brass plates embedded in the street about 2' square. Each plate has the figure of the sun in the same style as what is in the Uruguayan flag and each features a name of a famous person to, I'm assuming, honor or commemorate something they have done or something they stand for. Photos:

It's the only walkway I have seen that honours Nelson Mandela ✌🏼as well as the Rolling Stones 🎸  It's kind of awesome. 

Today was day 13 and school was more of the same, but it's becoming more fun as I drop my expectations around performance and understanding. One of my classmates Judith, also a cancer survivor, has a great philosophy and I do share it. However, there are times I lose the perspective of having survived something like cancer. When that happens, well you know, I sort of go inward and not myself. What's becoming a much bigger part of this journey is in doing something else with the fear I have, like doing something scary in spite of the fear. What a concept. I can't believe I'm a therapist 😂

After class I came to the flat and studied for a couple of hours, doing homework, doing a bit extra homework, doing Duolingo, and just resting a bit. Afterwards I walked down to Noa Noa, the same place where Silvie and I ate, and met up with classmates. We had a beer or two, a little bit of food, but the amazing feature was the sunset: 

It's now 11:00 p.m. and I'm wrecked. I have a blister on my foot after having walked about 8km today, but I feel pretty good 👍🏼

Buenas noches y hasta proxima chicos ❤️