A Little Culture in Our Lives

I am afraid the title makes it sound like we went to the symphony or something cultural. We just had a few experiences with some of the other countries in South America.  First was a dinner.

One of our students is a single guy from Peru. He is one of the agronomists for the farm. His assignment is weed and pest control. With 7,000 planted acres and over 6,000,000 trees to care for he is a busy fellow. Juan Carlos had an aunt come to visit him around Christmas time. She stayed until the end of January. Just before she left, her aunt (Juan Carlos' great aunt) came for a week. While here, we had all three of them over for dinner, so they wanted to come back a few days later and cook us a Peruvian dinner.

The aunt on the left is from Peru. The aunt on the right now lives in Argentina.

The food was very good and according to Barbara it was an interesting experience to watch it prepared. Here are some pics of the meal.

The center plate is basically chicken tenders with
Peruvian seasoning. You of course recognized fries.
And you see three sauces. The one at the top is - -
FRY SAUCE. 

You crazy people from Utah didn't know you loved an international delicacy did you.

Basically red onions with some peppers, but the preparation made
this surprisingly tasty, especially with one of their sauces.

A few more food shots.

The chicken and vegetables were delicious, especially with their sauce.
I am a rice guy and it was good as well, with sauce or without.

Most people here prefer to drink something other than water. Even
if they know it comes from a purified, chilled source. 

Our next bit of culture comes from a trip over the Andes to the country of Argentina. Our mission director asked us to conduct a Zone Conference with the missionary couple serving on the cattle ranch known as El Cabracho. We met up in a town about mid-way between our farms. They drove their 10-11 hours and picked us up at the airport in Córdoba after a grueling 85 minute flight. We had booked rooms at the same hotel and got to spend three days together.

Córdoba is a city of about 1.3 million making it the second largest city in the country. It was founded on July 6, 1573 and holds the oldest university in Argentina. It was founded by the Jesuit Order in 1613,

The main cathedral in Córdoba was started in 1577 and is called La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción. We have seen some amazing pictures from my brother Dave and his wife Diana in England that pre-date anything here, but it is amazing to see what was built so long ago in the New World also. 

I don't know if the stone work has been re-done since initial construction, but the plaza in front of the building was cool.

Notice how the white stones are almost a shadow of the structure.

The right side from the plaza.

The right side from the entrance looking back on the plaza.

And not to be outdone by the Catholics, the Mormons brought a beautiful building to Córdoba as well.

Just completed last year is the Córdoba Temple.

This next shot is for Denali, our daughter in law. She loves bugs. This was on the sidewalk by the distribution center. We went there to buy Spanish Article of Faith cards. We are not supposed to be proselyting missionaries, but our tags invite a lot of comments. We will answer questions in our broken Spanish and hand out cards.

The temple was amazing. We volunteered to do some sealings and got to sit in on a live sealing of a beautiful little family with two sons. A very special day.

Our hotel was billed as a bed and breakfast, but it wasn't like you would expect. It was a fairly new building complete with an elevator and on-site cafe. It only had two floors with a total of 12 rooms. It also had a swimming pool on the roof. There was one thing that drove us nuts however. See if you can spot it in these pictures.

Bathroom sink

Shower controls

Crocodile Dundee fixture

Toilet

Andy's socks must be rolling in their drawer. But I guess he comes by it naturally, I have to align all the screws on a switch plate.

So much for culture!