Home in Asunción

On Friday night, while the boys were teasing each other, yelling, and fighting, Kevin was out of town at a retreat in a place called San Bernardino. He had organized the retreat for some of the local lawmakers in order to finish some of the procedural code that he is here to help complete. I'm sure it was a very important and interesting experience, but he was gone the first two weeks of June, and then home Sunday through Thursday afternoon, and then left until Saturday morning for his retreat. I know he is here to work, but I was feeling sorry for myself for being (1) in a hotel for three months, (2) homesick, and (3) a reluctant single parent for the seventeenth day of the month. All in all, not one of my high moments here in Paraguay. I wanted to lay on the bed and cry. Instead I laid on the bed and flipped through the channels on TV. I usually hate channel surfing, but lately I have been doing it, so I don't miss any of the shows that are broadcast in English, and more importantly, so I miss the commercials in Spanish (they make my brain hurt, and commercials are bad enough in your native tongue). Friday night it paid off. I was flipping through all the channels, and I noticed a gymnastics meet happening on ESPN, in Spanish. My first thought was, "wow, that looks like the Huntsman Center." And guess what? It was the Huntsman Center. We got to watch the NCAA Gymnastics Finals in Asunción, Paraguay. It was pretty strange. I don't understand enough Spanish to understand gymnastics Spanish, but I enjoyed it just the same. So what if it was two months late? For a few minutes, if I pressed mute, I was home in Salt Lake City, at the University of Utah, watching a gymnastics meet. Sometimes I love TV.

Things I Love About Paraguay

There are many things that I love about living in Paraguay. Here are some pictures of a few of them.

First of all, the streets. How cool is it when you have full grown trees in the middle of the road? This happens everywhere. Sometimes there is one tree, sometimes three, sometimes the tree is on the side of the road, sometimes right in the middle. This street is my particular favorite. We can see it on the way to school. I would love to get a hammock tied up between those trees and spend an afternoon lying in it.

The streets, continued. This picture is a close-up of the street in the picture above. Many of the streets here are "cobblestone." They are made of rocks (not necessarily flat and smooth) and sand. This is actually a pretty smooth street. For the most part the streets in Asunción are very hard on your car. It is impossible to speed on many of them. I like that.

Another thing I love is that it is very green and pretty. This is a picture of the garden in the back of the hotel. It is a tropical paradise. There are palm trees, beautiful flowering trees, bushes, some cute little lizards, and best of all the swimming pool. We love the swimming pool!

Countdown!

I don't think this is completely accurate for my location...

I wish I knew how to change it for Paraguay...