Good weather and the Lord of the Rings… who could ask for anything more?

Well, I’m still behind with my entries. This entry was originally written Saturday.

Saturday was Registration for the seminario. There were many students who came to get registered for classes. They come from all over South America, and some of them are Indians. Originally I was supposed to help calculate the total cost for students’ books as they came through the line. But it turned out that they didn’t need me to do that, so I stayed in the office with Yoli and the other secretary, Noemi (not Yoli’s sister). I ended up working on the website. I did some basic layout things and also visited many other seminario websites for ideas. I also am thinking about revising the seminario’s logo using Adobe Illustrator. We’ll see how that goes.

In the hallway there on the third floor, the line of students seemed endless. But Yoli was very patient and did all of her tasks on the computer with ease. We ate a little food around 11 or 12. I forget the name, but they were like empanadas. They were baked, not fried, and the food inside was more liquidy than with an empanada. Yoli and Noemi were impressed that I could eat it all so quickly and without making a mess all over my clothes.

I also had a chance to talk a little more with Rusty about the website. Sometime probably late next week we’ll sit down and really hash out ideas. In the mean time I am roughing things out and guessing what they will like, to give us something to work from.

In the afternoon, Yoli and I went to the center of Santa Cruz. Our plans were to walk around the Plaza de Septiembre 28 and later to see “El Se{n~}or del Anillo: Los Dos Torres” at the cine.

Santa Cruz was founded in the 1500s. I doubt many of the buildings there now date from that time, but still many of the houses and buildings at the heart of the city are beautiful Spanish colonial style. It was very busy with lots of people walking around. the Plaza itself was very beautiful with lots of trees of different kinds. I had read about the sloths that live in these trees, and Yoli told me that she usually saw them whenever she would come, but on this day we didn’t spot any.

We went into a little mall and as we went through it level by level, we discovered the top floor was for people to gaze out at the plaza. The view from up there was magnificent, and it was a delightful surprise discovering the place. You could see all around and I got a better sense for the tall buildings in Santa Cruz.

Seeing the Lord of the Rings again was nice. This time it was subtitled in Spanish. When the cast spoke in Elvish, I had to try to read the Spanish subtitles. But even when they were speaking in English, I tried to read the subtitles to help improve my Spanish.. I even managed to catch one mistake where the subtitle said “Sauron” but it should have been “Saruman.” Many of the names and places were changed in the subtitles… For instance, Frodo Baggins became Frodo Bols{n~}n, which I presume they created from “bolsa” which means bag.

After the movie, Yoli and I walked through the city to her favorite fried chicken place. It was good food… 1/8 of a chicken, french fries, pickled vegetables, rice, and fried plantains.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be helping Yoli with her sunday school class. It should be very interesting. She also believes her pastor will want to introduce me to the congregation (it’s a small church). We’ll see how that goes.