Expo Prado

On Tuesday afternoon, Amelia, who teaches Elementary Spanish and Advanced Spanish Conversation, had Elementary Spanish conversation class at Expo Prado. She invited those of us who didn't have class to tag along. Expo Prado is kind of like a State Fair, although I guess it would be more national. The folks from the estancias and farms bring in their animals to show them. It reminds me of 4H state fairs. Anyway, there were lots of animal barns, locally made products, and lots of other random things that you see at fairs. While we were there they were showing bulls and big woolly sheep.

Amelia hung out with us for about half the time we were there. Amelia speaks excellent English, but for some reason every time she wanted to tell the students something as a group, she would tell me and I would tell the students. It might just because I'm really good at being loud. While I hung out with her, she spoke to me in almost only Spanish. Sometimes she would forget and speak in English, then she'd stop and start over in Spanish. :)

Here are some pictures of the afternoon:

A marching band. Linley tried to take some pictures of the trumpet players while they were lining up. (She's a trumpet player.) The saxophone player wanted to take a picture with her.

So there was an armored military vehicle and a helicopter on display. Clearly things that represent rural culture in Uruguay. Amelia is on the left and Kate is on the right.

A bull that they were prepping to show. I think one of the men is currently fluffing his tail, seriously. He'd had a trim and his coat brushed. Its hard to explain just how massive this guy was. He seemed pretty calm though. Some of the girls with me petted him.

Another bull getting ready to be shown by his bull stylist. The guy is styling his hair into a peak and hairspraying it. (The name on it wasn't hair spray... but that's what it was.) Also notice the guy in the red beret. He's in pretty traditional gaucho clothes.

After going through the cow barns, we came across a pen with baby goats. They were sooo cute. We got to pet them too. There was sign telling people not to put their fingers in their mouths.
Around the stands where they were various displays including one from Mexico. For some reason the Bimbo bear came out. Yes I said Bimbo bear, Bimbo is a major brand of bread here, and a bear is a mascot, I'm not insulting the bear.

Gaucho showing a ram? sheep? I don't know... it was really woolly... it also had cool curly horns.

We waited for a long time to find out which of these sheep would win, but we finally gave up. They too were really really woolly.

Aaaaaahhh... look at the sleeping lamb. I was hanging out with Kate, Linley, and Jaimie, I'm not sure how often we made lots of really girly noises as we went from sheep stall to sheep stall.

OK... one more picture. I couldn't believe they just let us go and touch their animals. I mean these are their show animals. Anyway, one barn seemed to have more recently sheared or shorter wool sheep, we weren't clear which. The other barn had wooly sheep. Linley and Jaimie decided to see how far their hands could go down in the wool. Their hands pretty much disappeared. I'm not sure Jaimie found it pleasant. :)

The weather was fantastic and it was another really fun experience. We managed to get the bus back home. (I'm still a little scared of taking buses, just because I'm always afraid of missing a stop.)