The Fiambre, The Day of the Dead & More

Fiambre - when defined by the Jarvis' is a random mixture of edible things in a bowl that should never be served together.

Here's a list of what we could identify in the fiambre that we ate:
-radish
-parmesan cheese
-boiled egg
-lettuce
-baby corn
-pacaya (aka date palm - a veggie that looks like octopus tentacles)
-whole kernal corn
-onion
-carrot
-ham (like sandwich meat you'd get at the deli)
-black olives
-green olives
-bologna
-5 different kinds of sausage (ranging in colors from pink to black, and ranging in taste from bland to extremely spicy)
-2 different types of lima beans
-califlower
-mystery green vegetable #1
-mystery green vegetable #2
-chicken
-beets
-cabbage
-green beans
-red bell pepper
-green leaves

All together in one bowl, served chilled with a weird clear sauce.

All fiambres vary, we've heard that some have green sauces, we've heard of some having so many beets that the whole dish is pink. What we do know for certain about all fiambre is that the Jarvis' don't care for it. No worries, however, they only eat fiambre for one meal each year.

The Day of the Dead is a national holiday here - we had the day off from school and enjoyed sleeping in a bit. There are many traditions that vary from family to family, the main ones include a visit to the cemetary with fresh flowers, the eating of fiambre, and the flying of kites.

School is still going well - we have two weeks before we leave for Thanksgiving. Tomorrow Staci will begin studying with a new teacher - after our week away for Thanksgiving the plan is for us to both change again. To help make up some lost time from being sick and from the holiday this past week we have added a 2 hours a couple of afternoons this week.

As for how language school is going - we have both learned 7 verb tenses (in spanish there are 20ish different tenses all with their own set of rules) along with lots of other gramatic rules, prepositions, adjectives, pronouns, expressions....and the like. We still have quite a bit to go, but we've qot quite a bit of time as well. We often run into Europeans who are proficient in 2-5 languages and picking up spanish seems to be much easier for them. Some people in the world learn from an early age how to be proficient in lots of languages, something that us as Americans were never challenged with.

We think that's everything for now - thank you for your continued prayer and support.

Lee & Staci