APRIL 1 "Oh, Dear...Christian College?"

Today has been an awesome day. I have several videos to post, however all are from the beach trip. I'm too tired to edit more tonight, but we'll see if I have time later on the trip.

Today was Jessalyn's birthday celebration so we ate Fajitas and Cake for lunch. I did a lot of "Food Network" style filming while Raquel and Mariela made REAL refried beans and cooked the chicken & vegetables. After eating the DELICIOUS meal, Raquel and Mariela lit the candles and sparkler/roman candle things (yes, there were freaking FIREWORKS on the cake!!) and we all sang Happy Birthday to Jessalyn. Afterwards, all the students broke out into chorus singing the theme song to "Fresh Prince of Bel Aire." Yes, I was very confused but it was entertaining to watch and film!

After lunch Ronnie and I wanted to go buy Mates so we walked a few blocks over with Scott, Nathan and Lawson. We found an old man selling a TON of Mates from a little card table. Poor Lawson acted as translator for Ronnie and me as we asked a ton of questions about the quality and how to clean it, etc. The guy was getting tired of us by the end but he was very gracious and answered all of our questions and ended up giving us a discount to boot!

After shopping we grabbed some students and headed to a local beach, Playa Malvin. This is where the fun began. Not long after arriving one of the students found a dead fish. And she picked it up and chased people around with it. Soon after another girl found yet another dead fish and before long, "Oh, Dear Christian College" was being sung with dead fish as puppets. As the sun went down I got some GREAT shots of the sunset with the students silhouetted against the sunset. A few time-lapses and a pizza dinner on the beach later, we headed home.

On the way home I had another awesome cab driver that again, didn't speak a word of English, but really wanted to carry on a conversation so we talked about Uruguayen women, the people that drive a horse-drawn cart to collect trash in the city, how my roommate's father raises cows, how my father is fluent but my mother doesn't speak a word of Spanish, how the traffic is CRAZY in Montevideo and about the ACU Study Abroad program and why I'm here filming. REALLY nice guy!

When we got back to the house, I sipped Mate and edited in the dining room while the students watched a soccer game on TV with some local kids. Based on how loud they yelled for almost every play, I'm guessing they had a lot of fun. After the game, Scott and I finished up the last of the shots we needed of the students in the house and headed up to the loft to catch some of more musically inclined students showing off their talents. 2 guitars, a wooden flute and a rainstick formed the bed for several students to sing. Some songs serious, some ridiculous, some in Spanish, some in English, but one thing was for sure, these kids are talented! We left the house around 1:45am and I'm typing this fast as we're leaving for the airport at 7am!

Tomorrow we leave for a few days in Buenos Aires, Argentina before heading to Brazil.

Until then!

I'm currently uploading 3 videos of the beach trip, I'll get them up here soon.

Dead Fish Hammer Throw:


Oh, Dear Christian College


Beach Fun