Project 365, Weeks 10 & 11

Once again catching up with two weeks worth of Project 365. Had so many photos I really wanted to share that I decided to mix it up with a few collages...

Monday, February 28, found us on our way to Uruguay for the annual missionary conference. Each year all those working with Biblical Ministries Worldwide in Argentina and Uruguay get together for five days of teaching and fellowship. It's a highlight of the year! On the way we drove through extensive wetland areas that stretch between Rosario and the border between the two countries. We saw a number of small "house" boats like this one...

...and were surprised by the cows grazing in the water -- literally. I didn't manage to get a very good photo (we were driving pretty fast to keep up with traffic on the two-lane road) and none of the ones I took showed that some cows were in water up to their bellies...

We broke the long trip into two days, finally arriving just in time for lunch on Tuesday. Near the border we met up with co-workers from Buenos Aires and rode the rest of the way with them. We'll use any excuse to hang out with our friends :)

This glorious flowering tree is a palo borracho:

It was right outside the building where we held our sessions. We really enjoyed the teaching by Dr. Jack Klem but I couldn't get a decent shot of him -- my camera doesn't take great indoor pictures, plus I was at the back of the room so the camera kept focusing on the backs of heads of those in front of me. *sigh* Not the best viewpoint.

But we had a great view from the deck outside the dining hall!

You can see the town of Piriapolis as well as the Atlantic Ocean from here. 

The ladies tea on Wednesday, March 2nd, was lots of fun but my camera quit working right before! :(  But not before I had taken a photo of the pretty table:

Thankfully Ivan was able to fix the camera after doing a little internet research. Whew!

On Thursday we caught a ride down to the beach and enjoyed a little walk around Piriapolis. Our only free time was mid afternoon during siesta which meant the majority of places were closed, but we did snag a yummy ice cream at an open heladería. It was the best chocolate I've had in a long time! I don't care for most ice cream here because it's excessively sweet (in my opinion).  Anyhoo, here's a collage:

clockwise from top left: walkway along the beach, buildings climb the hillside, looks like a slide but it's really a stairwell on the side of this house, an older mansion turned into art museum

Most of the missionaries on the field here are older, which means most of the MKs (missionary kids) are older. But we're now enjoying some younger ones with the arrival of a family with three wee ones -- who received lots and lots of attention :)

We're pretty excited that two more families with little ones will be arriving in the next year or so!

We encountered one of those cultural differences on the way home Saturday; in Rosario all traffic was routed off the highway and around on a detour to the next exit because some group was protesting something and created this barricade:

This is a pretty common technique used by protest groups. It never fails to amaze me, though, that they're allowed to disrupt traffic on a public highway like this. I remember one highway in Cordoba was blocked for MONTHS in 2009/2010!

I only have a few photos from this past week...

But they're good ones... like the steak and salad Ivan enjoyed Thursday when our area director and his wife took us out to dinner.

Doesn't that look yummy?! We both think this was the best restaurant meal we've had in Argentina! I enjoyed an amazing chicken dish with a cream sauce that included mushrooms and slivers of ham with a side of waffle fries. I'm salivating just thinking about it! We'd gone out to Sta. Rosa and this meal was enjoyed at a place called La Rueda in Villa General Belgrano.

Friday we walked down to the river where the men, who had spent a hot afternoon mowing the lawn, enjoyed cooling down in the water.

The water was too cold for the ladies to do more than dip our feet in, but we relaxed in lawn chairs and watched the activity taking place... a family washing their car, the men enjoying the jacuzzi-like effect of the small waterfall, and the egrets catching fish...

Yesterday we woke up to much cooler temperatures -- looks like autumn is arriving early! It was cool enough last night that I wore my warmer pjs. This morning I checked weather.com and it was only 51 degrees at 9:30 AM! This is a full month sooner than we typically get this kind of weather. And the 10-day forecast indicates it will continue along this line for the foreseeable future. We should enjoy lovely temps in the low 70s each day, but it will drop into the high 40s/low 50s at night. So while y'all are rejoicing in the signs of Spring, we are heralding the advent of autumn.