Visiting Another Expat.

Now, that Winter is a creeping in, I am faced with ways to keep myself from feeling house bound. So I emailed another expat that I would like to come a calling! I didn't realize that she doesn't have internet yet and that she wouldn't get my self invite but that's okay because unlike the States (USA), Uruguay really is about friends and family keeping strong physical ties. People here really do enjoy each others company, they share ideas, stories, recipes, recipe books (thanks, Gundy), novels, movies and lots of food. On any given weekend I am surrounded by yummy asado aroma from all my neighbors. Visiting with friends is away of life here in Uruguay and it is great!

Even people coming to scope out Uruguay as a possible retirement destination seem to know the importance of visiting with people. We have had more visitors from other states here, than we did when we actually lived in the USA. People from New York, Hawaii, Georgia and a few days ago a couple we posted about from Memphis Tenn. are just some of the different States we have seen represented. Still it is always good to give a holler out to the ones who have actually taken the plunge and moved here, lock, stock and barrel.

As a side note, if you're wondering why I'm suddenly a talkin' like a hillbilly, (not that there's anything wrong with that) with such phrases as"a creeping in, a come a calling and a holler out to" I think it's because with the winter comes heating the house with wood fires and we have just started to have a few cold nights where we needed to keep a fire burning all night! I feel like we're real country folk (just another country). So I apologize for the venacular. Wally was about to caerse de risa so I need to stop.

Back to my expat visit, I decided to visit Candi despite the fact, she probably didn't know I was coming. She had no clue but welcomed us with open arms and amazingly with hot from the oven chicken wings! We really didn't have ulterior motives by dropping in around lunch time, honestly but what great timing! She even had an expat specialty Ice Tea. I have asked many local people and while tea and of course maté is drunk a lot, drinking cold/iced tea, sweetened with sugar and lemon juice is considered a North American drink.

Candi moved here from Washington State as we did and she (like us) is still learning Spanish. She lives in a balneario outside of Atlántida. She bicycles everywhere and doesn't intend to get a car. She loves that her local store delivers to her house the giant bags of dog food she needs to feed her huge Mastiff puppy named, Honey. I am glad we stopped by and she was too despite not having advance notice of our visit. She's fitting in just fine people-wise. I mentioned to her my newly learned Spanish word for the day, anfitrión a noun meaning host. It comes from a Greek word. In Greek mythology Amphitrion was the King of the Greek city of Thebes and he was famous for his lavish banquets.Spanish adopted this word. Anfitriona (without the accent) is the female form. This word might be hard for me to remember as I haven't heard it before. Candi was una buena anfitriona yesterday. Can anyone please tell me the word we use in Uruguay to say host/hostess? Is it el anfitrión?, if so I'll start practicing now. Spanish language insight needed por favor.

I recently provided an interview about our blogging experience to a website called bloginterviewer.com. You can see some of the reasons why we started to blog by reading my interview. I want to thank Mike and bloginterviewer for this opportunity.