Feliz Dia de San Valentin! Happy Valentine's Day!

Last night at La Cabaña, James, Fiona, Lauren and I had a really good time.  The waiter was a bit absent-minded, but he had good intentions.  James ordered a pizza for him and Fiona and the waiter started to walk away.  We called him back so that Lauren and I could order.  Apparently he thought the pizza was large enough for all four of us and we didn't need any more food.  But then he had written down that we wanted four orders of garlic bread when James had only asked for one.  Fiona had ordered a cup of hot wine and he brought out a pitcher.  Poor guy.  We thought he hated us, but then he came back after we got our food and asked where we were from.  He said that he wanted to get better at English, that he had taken a course but had forgotten a lot of it since he hasn't practiced a lot.  He asked us what "chicha" was in English and we told him there wasn't a word for it in English since we don't have chicha (a drink made from corn).  I ordered an appetizer plate that was much too big for one person.  It had three meat skewers, tripe, and a salad.  I was quite surprised that I liked the tripe.  Lauren and Fiona also liked it.

Meat, tripe, potatoes, and salad at La Cabaña.

After we ate, James ordered a glass of wine and I ordered a glass of hot wine because Fiona had let me try hers.  It was really good.  We started to tell jokes and were all dying from laughing so hard, mostly at how bad some of the jokes were.  James took pictures of all of us after a straight hour of laughing.  He compiled the pictures together in photoshop.  Lauren's hiding behind the flowers that were sitting on the table and I hid behind a "beer mat" as James and Fiona call it.

Me, James, Fiona, and Lauren at La Cabaña.

This morning our usual taxi driver didn't come because he hadn't know if we were going to Concepcion.  Another driver drove us and when we got to Concepcion, the whiteboard that had been upstairs on the third floor was in the room where I had been teaching on the second floor.  Lauren went upstairs anyway, but the lady sent her back downstairs.  Nicolas was there.  He was in my class the last time.  Another little girl was dropped off by her mom.  She wouldn't sit in her chair and wasn't paying any attention to us.  Lauren tried the whole class to get her to write Happy Valentine's Day on a card.  She kept saying that she couldn't do it.  I worked with Nicolas and after he finished cards for his mother and grandmother, we worked on numbers.  I told Lauren I would buy her a pastry from the bakery we had tried the week before because she looked like she was at her wit's end with this little girl.  When Nicolas' mom came to get him, the little girl started crying and asking for her mom.  We couldn't console her.  I talked with Nicolas' mom and the woman who runs the desk upstairs for a little bit before they left.  The little girl went up the stairs, so we figured she wouldn't get hurt if she was still in the building.  I asked the woman if there were older students and she said not today but there would be tomorrow.  We'll see what happens tomorrow.

After that Lauren and I got pastries from the bakery to share with the other volunteers for Valentine's Day.  It was raining and there was a shortage of taxis.  When we finally got into one, by the end of the trip, we were sure that he really wasn't a taxi driver.  He was asking everyone at the beginning of the trip if we had money, and then he was driving really badly and almost ran into a car.  He told us to get out of the car a block before we usually do and even reached over to open the door so we would get out.  I didn't have any problem with that because I was starting to believe we were going to get into an accident.

Once we were free from the "Death Taxi," Lauren and I went to a coffee shop since we had some time before lunch.  She got a cappuccino and I got a hot chocolate.  We just sat and talked for awhile before making our way back to the house in the rain.  When we got back to the house and sat down for lunch, James presented Lauren and I with a box of chocolates each.  He had gotten Fiona some flowers.  It was really nice.  We showed them the pastries we had gotten and we divided them up after lunch.  All in all it has been a good Valentine's Day!