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!!

I took some pictures this past weekend of what Fall looks like in Buenos Aires this year...enjoy!!

Fall trees

el tiempo se va, se va

It seems like the time accelerator is getting pushed down. Time is going really fast and before I know it, I'll no longer be in Argentina. I have 3 weeks left, and one of those weekends is a trip to a triathlon (I'm not a participant, just a supporter).

On one hand it's weird; something that has been fully my life for the past two years will suddenly be different. On the other, we go through noticeable changes like this in life quite often. Change can be hard, but I think there's a deeper plan in God's ordained changes. If it were all the same all the time, we'd get complacent, bored of our lives, bored of the beautiful world we've been given in which to live. I think we're also able to recognize more the variety and benefit of what God has given us in life by seeing that throughout many different "jobs" or "seasons" of our life, there is an unbending and undying constant - the full richness of Christ. So overall it's good that we go through significant changes in life - marriage, children, graduating high school, college, senior citizen discount age

Think about it this way - would you want to eat just one food for your whole life? Breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 76 years. Sunday through Saturday. Cereal could be an example because it's well balanced in many of the vitamins and nutrients one needs. So Raisin Bran Crunch, that's it, for life. Boring huh? So no, we like variety in our foods. But there are constant elements. A carbohydrate is a carbohydrate and a protein is a protein, calcium...they're all found in a variety of foods but yet remain the same.

That example is not meant at all to diminish Christ's glory and the fullness of Him with a comparison of cereal, just to hopefully understand that variety and change in life of jobs and assignments and living locations and relationships is a thing that blesses us.

congratulations Sean & Emily

I'm back from a very quick and whirlwind trip to Texas. Sean and Emily got hitched on Saturday. It was awesome. The wedding, the guys and girls in the wedding party, spending time with Sean, all of it was really great.

Congratulations Sean & Emily!!!

stateside for a bit...

We had a BAICA fair this past Saturday to raise money for Senior graduation, and I was in charge of the baked goods table. Go figure. Me being semi-domestic. I made blueberry muffins. And I think this student sweater is a little small on me. Here are some pictures:
And I leave tonight for the good ole' US of A. Sean & Emily's wedding in Austin is this Saturday,so I'll be in SA and then Austin for a bit, and then back to BA. I'm looking forward to seeing Mable!!

fresh hot bread

There is nothing better than fresh hot bread. Today, I got lucky. At the supermarket, they had just taken out some loaves. Of course I bought one. I used to wait at panaderias when I was in Chile for the hot bread to come out, then go to the next panaderia in search of more hot bread.

I consider fresh hot bread a delicacy. As weird as it sounds there's something comforting in the bread that's so warm it nearly burns your hand. It tastes so good!