New Blog

Too many thoughts in my head, and I'm no longer in Argentina, so this blog isn't quite appropriate anymore. There's a new place where these thoughts slip out:

http://god1stculture2nd.blogspot.com/

in SA

I made it to SA. This past weekend in Dallas was awesome. Michelle and Charlie's wedding was right on. The focus of it was very much Christ-centered, and the joy and celebration flowed out from that, it was great.

On top of that, I was able to catch up with some friends I haven't seen in a while, around two years time, which was cool, and meet some new ones, once again, cool. Smash made my ear's burn like she's good at, Liz and Meredith were hoppin on the dance floor, Alan was just cool vanilla like Alan always is, and Lonnie was taking a deep breath amidst 3rd year med school.

We went to church on Sunday (a fairly large church) and I was deeply impressed by the amount of people coming to worship God and uniting to do so. That was really cool to see, and I felt very encouraged by that. It was a change from where I've been, where the churches I attended in Argentina did not have many members and you wouldn't meet that many Christians randomly out on the street. I do need to remember I'm back in the Bible belt.

airline tickets

I forgot how complicated and hard it is to find a simple way to obtain a relatively low-cost airline ticket for a domestic flight in the US. There are so many websites and prices and this and that.

I think I'll start taking amtrak.

the ways of goodbyes

This past weekend many goodbyes were said. Really though, I saw them as "hasta próximo"s. Until next time. That next time might be a year, two years, or sixty. The most common question I was asked was "are you ever coming back?" and "did you like Argentina?" I thought the 2nd question was kinda funny.

I'm not really one for long drawn out tearful goodbyes. It's good to celebrate with people regarding the time you have shared together, but I don't see sobbing and weeping as a part of that. There's joy for what lies ahead for each person involved, and it's not like we won't ever communicate again. Email was invented a while back.

The "until next time" goodbyes with believers are even more confident goodbyes that we'll see each other again. They have been a good reminder for me that, even when I go back to the US, I'm not going to feel at home. Not here in Argentina nor back in the states. From one foreign land to another.

"But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body."
Philipians 3:19-21

Ñoquis

Today is Ñoquis day. The 29th of every month is reserved for eating Ñoquis, the Italian pasta/dumpling food made from potatoes and flour. Ñoquis day is known for two things:

1. Poorer people had no more money at the end of the month (the 29th) waiting for their salary so they had to scrap out food from whatever they could. Throwing together some potatoes and flour is a pretty cheap combination, hence your ñoquis. There´s an even cheaper combination: ñoqui de pobre. That's just flour and eggs, or maybe just flour and water (when the money is really thin at the end of the month).

2. Ñoquis is a term given to government employees who are on the payroll, receive a check, but do no work and often don´t show up for their jobs. Apparently, there are a large number of these ñoquis here in Argentina. They normally get their checks on the 29th of the month.

Brazilian Ironman

Brazil is an impressive country.

This past weekend I traveled to Brazil with Geordon, my Canadian friend, who lives and works here in BA with his family (who I did the Villa La Angostura marathon with). I went as his "crew" as he participated and COMPLETED the 2008 Brazil Ironman race. That's right. 3.8 km swim. 180 km bike. 42 km run. In miles, that's 2.4 miles, 112 miles, and 26.2 miles. There are 22 feeder Ironmans for the big Kahuna Hawaii Ironman, which is where the best of the best compete.

I was very impressed by the athletes who were competing (and I met some from Austin, TX, go figure). Training for an Ironman takes dedication, and finishing the race is no walk in the park. These are the top 1/2% of the world's fittest people I figure, and they showed it. Geordon finished in about 13 hours

Brazil in a lot of ways reminded me of Texas. Big open spaces, friendly people...an inherent beauty in the landscape. Camilla and Priscilla, our hostesses were awesome and helped us out so much. It was funny though, I played language tribond the whole weekend. To Camilla, I spoke English and received English, to Priscilla I spoke Spanish and received English and Spanish back, and then myself could catch every 7th word of Portuguese. It all worked out.

Here are some photos from the weekend and the race:
(click on the picture to get to the album)

Brazil Ironman

Geordon kept telling me throughout the entire weekend that I really need to do one of these. No thanks. I'll stick to marathons and trail races. It's mainly because of my frugal nature. Ironman is an expensive sport with lots of gear involved. A new $80 or $90 pair of good running shoes is tough enough!

best trails in the USA

So it appears that California was blessed with many of the best trails for running in the United States. I hope I get to run on some of these in the future:

USA's best trails

I can't wait to be back in the states to have more access to trails to run on, I miss it!!