Dinner At 9 PM

October 12, 2014

     I literally had to check my previous post to see what was the last thing I posted about. Apologies for posting this late and not keeping my end about posting once a week! I hope everybody is doing well and I give thanks to those who have been keeping me and my family in their prayers and continuing to read my blog!

     Where to begin...? Spring is slowly coming so I am definitely excited for that! Except maybe the allergies.. Last last week, my parents and I were able to meet up with this family who worked with the church. We went over to their house at 7:30-8 pm to meet up with the parents and go to eat dinner together. When we arrived, they welcomed us with open arms and with the typical kiss on the cheek greeting. They told us to come inside and so we did. When we  entered, we saw that their son (who was in his mid-20's) was having a photo shoot of his father and his girlfriend sitting on a couch that he made. The couch was leather and I thought it was factory made because it looked so nice! We walked in and saw the professional lighting all around the living room and greeted the rest of the people there with a kiss on the cheek. Suddenly, the father told me and my parents to sit down on the sofa and to smile. 

     Next thing we knew, they were taking pictures of us. Not quite understanding what was going on (since it has only been 3 minutes since we entered the house) we just smiled and looked at the camera. Everybody (the parents, son, son's girlfriend, and son's friend) was laughing and complimenting us on how wonderful we looked in the pictures they had just taken. We were so confused, I'll give you that. Then, all of a sudden the father told us to get up so that he can give us a tour of the house. He shows us various paintings and drawings and constantly asks our opinion about them. "¿Te gusta?" He asks us. "Do you like it?" We nod and smile. In reality, my dad and I know nothing about art and so we made my mom answer all the questions since she was the one with the artistic talents. Literally, we were just nodding and laughing.

     An hour later, after taking pictures, looking at paintings, greeting everybody in the house, we finally got into one car and drove to a restaurant that the husband and wife knew about. Apparently, the owner of the fancy restaurant was childhood friends with the father of the husband! I don't know if that made any sense to you... But! We were treated nicely and the father greeted almost all the waiters and waitresses as if he came to the restaurant every day. 30 minutes later, we ordered and our food finally came out. This was at 9 PM. NINE. We were supposed to meet at 7:30 pm (which we did), but after talking and ordering, we began to eat dinner at 9.

     I ordered Ratatouille for the first time!! It was literally just cooked vegetables with a sauce, but it was amazing! The waiter thought I wouldn't like it (obviously since teenagers won't eat their veggies these days) and told me to order something else if I wanted to. After telling him that I was fine, I had this urge to eat every single thing that was on my plate (which not only had the cooked vegetables, but two huge chunks of chicken stuffed with ham and cheese). Challenge accepted I thought.

     Eventually, I did finish everything, and even had dessert just to show the waiter how much I could eat. Bad idea. I had to unbutton my jeans because my belly was going to burst. I was actually pretty proud of myself for eating that much food, because I'm pretty sure I ate more than any of the adults I was with. Other than that, the mother and father we were eating with were very nice and thoughtful! Usually, when my family and I meet with people, they just ask me how school is and then ignore me thinking "She's just a teenager". BUT they were very thoughtful and included me in all of their conversations. I had an amazing time and I really enjoyed talking with them, even if it was with my broken Spanish. After talking for several hours, it was finally time to go home. When we got in the car, it was around 11-11:30 pm.

     We eventually got home at 12 am and I thought about the events that had happened that day. Honestly, I wasn't planning on going to that dinner because earlier that day, I had spent time with other people and I was already tired. But, I am SO glad that I went and got to talk with those amazing people. Before we said goodbye to them, they told us, "A las órdenes." Which literally means, "At the (your) orders." It was a saying they said in Uruguay, which meant that they would always be there to help us whenever we needed them.

A las órdenes.