A touch of culture in Montevideo

Good Morning and welcome my dear friends and true followers … Hahahaha Well this was another week of almost pure awesomeness, only dimmed by the fact that I was bound to bed for about three days with a quite heavy flu so that I am even now still suffering from the aftereffects of the sickness. However, nothing can stop me as far as having a good time is concerned.

Zyro, Franca, me and Sean

At first I cannot help, but have to give utterance to the pure feelings of joy that inhabit my chest, as my beloved soccer club FC Bayern München won the flipping Champions League, therefore:   OHHHHH WIE IST DAS SCHÖN, OH WIE IST DAS SCHÖN, SO WAS HAT MAN LANGE NICHT GESEHN, SO SCHÖN, SO SCHÖN!!!!!!!!! Hahahahahaha da ist das Ding!!!! Well so that should do it for starters, man what a match, what a journey and what a victory … that´s how history is made!!!

fiesta mexicana en la facultad

Another reason to rejoice, who would have thought that, are my first grades that I received here in Montevideo, and I must say, the studying, learning, revising and practicing of Spanish, were quite worth the pain and the sweat, as I can be more than content with my grades, even in Organizational Behavior (taught in Spanish), which really surprised me … anyway, I won´t complain!!!

ward temple trip

Hahahaha, so I just continued to write and although it´s been some 4 weeks that I wrote the first part of this blog, and it´s not so much up to date any more, I am not going to change anything as I figured it might be interesting to read anyway. But here we are, it´s already July and my time here in Uruguay is (un)fortunately drawing closer to the end, unfortunately of course because I´m gonna miss this beautiful crazy little country with all it´s interesting fascinating and sometimes also funny customs and my friends and the great people here, but above all of course my beautiful little angel. Fortunately on the other hand, because I´m also looking forward to seeing my family and friends again, to eating some German food and of course because of the awesome summer plans awaiting me … Which is I guess how every farewell must seem or feel like, a two-minded thought pending between the sadness of the goodbye and the cheerful welcoming shouts of a new beginning …

Well so let me continue telling my story of the last couple weeks and how Montevideo was treating me!

I chose this title because Montevideo is also called the Capital Iberoamericana de la Cultura and these last couple weeks I have had the chance and pleasure to discover this side a little more: For the first time in my life I went to a Ballet and I must say I really enjoyed it and was deeply impressed by the physical skills of the dancers as well as by the creativity of the performance itself, something different, maybe not for every day, but definitely once in a while worth a watch.

Then, with our Uruguayan culture class, we were able to explore the judicial center of power in Uruguay called el Palacio Legislativo, a really magnificent building with great architecture, majestic statues and columns and beautiful paintings. It really reminded me of the great architectural masterpieces we know from Europe. Built with over (I think it was a hundred) different colors of marble coming directly from the mines in Uruguay. We were even able to go into the chambers of the senate and the parliament. As to the quality of the laws being passed therein I would like to allow myself a quite sarcastic comment: Recently they banned ketchup, mayonnaise, and salt from the restaurant tables, because too many people suffer from hyper tension in Uruguay, but they legalized Marihuana and de-penalized abortion … I´m sorry, but I don´t get their point^^

We have been to a really small close-up theatre, were only 40 spectators were able to sit in front of and behind the stage and watched a piece about two men, their friendship, their verbal fighting, their love life and all that in a very funny way, in a pub. It was really Uruguayan, really funny and really awesome, even though I didn´t understand everything, great experience and I´m glad I went!

Meanwhile, without having nothing better to say, and herewith explaining one of the reasons why I have been a little lazy with blogging these last days, I survived all my partial and final exams and papers and I approved all the Spanish courses with quite good grades (well okay, one paper is still missing … but whatever :P ) So yeah that also means, that University or classes at la Universidad Católica del Uruguay are over now and I can enjoy my well-earned holiday of a very stressful and awesome vacation-semester abroad ^^

Just some short news: we had some great ward activities and I made some "real" bavarian OBAZDN and everybody loved it! We also had a temple trip together and of course there is an exchange student from the States (Sean) staying at the house of Francas family therfore "we" show him around^^ and of course sometimes the Uruguayan winter is really really really nice =)

 

And last but not least and actually one of the coolest cultural events that I have been to, was with Franca´s mother Monica and her best friend Laura, who invited us to see “les tambores” in the very traditional street “Isla de Flores” where since the early 19^th century the black slaves gathered to communicate and to dance and to have fun and to express themselves playing traditional drums (men) and women dancing to the thriving and pounding rhythms of the drums. Due to the winter season there where only some 30-40 drummers, 10 dancers and some 100? Spectators that were able to listen to and watch this fascinating spectacle. Drumming and pushing each other to wilder and ever faster tunes, the drummers were sweating and the rhythm of the drums almost seemed to develop a life on its own as to unite the individual drums into one single magnificent drum that seemed to be the direct cause of the movements of the dancers. . .  To put it all in a nutshell, I really liked it and it was awesome! Afterwards we went to eat very traditional Faina and Pizza in a cozy little famous place nearby … a great evening, with great people and some good charlas (chats).

There we go again and so far that´s all I experienced as far as cultural Uruguayan highlights go … I hope you liked it and we will see each other again … But of course I can´t let you go without a nice little uplifting thought! One aspect of why it is of tremendous importance to read and study the Holy Scriptures (Bible and Book of Mormon) is not in the first place that we read the words or understand the stories, but that we allow the 3^rd member of the Godhead, the Holy Ghost, to be present and to teach us what we have to know. We thereby abide in the light and knowledge of his gospel and are able to understand more truth (there is only one truth, which is the knowledge of how things really are, were, and are going to be!). Receiving more truth causes us to receive more light, enlightening our intelligence and thereby helping us to understand more truth … The spiral is going upward and brings us peace and happiness in our family and in our life. In reverse, if we do not study the scriptures and do not feel the spirit, we will not receive more light and we will not understand more truth, but even worse, through bad decisions, light will be taken (or will actually leave us) from us, which causes us to understand less truth, which causes us to lose (or reject more light) … the spiral is going downward toward more bad decisions, their consequences and unhappiness. Do we want to be happy?  It is our choice and I know that it works, because with all my imperfection and all my weaknesses I try to live His gospel.