Well, it looks like I am going to make up for the lack of pictures by giving you WAY too many pictures in this post. Is there a middle ground? "If there is another way to blog, I do not know it" (almost a quote from a Knight's Tale)
On Thursday Bethany, the girls and I went to Alta Gracia, to the Jesuit "Estancia" um translation...fortlike thingy? It was a beautiful day, and I love history...and I'm rather fond of these people too ;) Winner.
These are roof tiles. They are that size because they were made by slaves, who molded them using their thighs. I will probably say something similar to this later, just because I can't help geeking over it and trying to wrap my head around it....that tile was on someone's leg...300 years ago. A real person. Someone was alive then. I think I have a pretty small mind, because I can't actually imagine that.
Here is a picture of a hallway, and a crooked picture of a window in someone's room. It overlooks the back courtyard, which I didn't exactly include any pictures of...maybe I will go back and do that at the end.
This wood is over 300 years old, and has been walked on for just that long. It was so smooth and soft, you wouldn't even believe it. Here it is again, I warned you: People actually walked on this! Real Jesuits who had things on their mind, places to go, reasons to be walking up that step...reasons that were so different than my reason for walking on that very same place. 300 years. He loves us all, not just all of us today, but all of us then...and even before then...isn't that crazy?!
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| This is Eli in what is pretty much her natural habitat....a lap :) |
The picture on the right is a classic example of "the picture doesn't do it justice." I am a sucker for long hallways with archways and sweet breezes. I wish you could feel what this picture felt like in real life. 
I have no idea what kind of tree this is, but I think it is really pretty. Alta Gracia as a town is quite lovely. It almost feels like what I imagine streets in Greece, or Italy to be like (I clearly have never been to Europe...those countries may have nothing in common! ..but they do in my mind) They were cobblestone, somewhat narrow, lined with trees, (but in a dotted line, not a solid line) and there was a general downward slope towards the center of town. The cute little houses were almost all white, or a buttercream color with red tiled roofs and wrought iron gates.
Outside of the Estancia Jesuita there is a lake. The water level is super low since it hasn't rained in so long, but its still quite pretty. Stone walls....yep.
These girls :) Side note: I am wearing Abi's sweatshirt. One day I threw it on because she had left it in the kitchen back here and it was a cold walk to the front house. "It fit me so nice, she said I could keep it" ...pretty much. (Obviously it fits her a lot bigger than it does me) She thought it was so cool that we could "share clothes" that when it came time to put away the laundry she brought this one to my room. "Here, since its cold and you don't have warm clothes, maybe now you don't always have to borrow Mom's clothes" She asked me if I would wear it on this day. I like Abigail Caceres. Although, you can pray for us...math has been...rough.
I can't take for granted the wow factor of what it would be like to build something like this using only the tools available to them in the 1700s. ...whoa.
And I did it. I added more pictures. Here is the back courtyard area. There is a forge and an outdoor kitchen and a livery. I don't think the plastic lawn chairs are part of the original layout.
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