February 16

February 16th is always a day of remembering for me, usually it is spent remembering my dad and thinking about how much I miss him. This year I spent the day remembering that but also being reminded that the present is here and life is meant to be experienced and enjoyed, so I decided to try to enjoy the day, enjoy my amazing younger brother and my wonderful mother and the beauty that is Irurtia wine.

Ben, Lady KJ, and I started the day with a golf outing. Uruguay has few faults in my mind, but one of them is that there are far too many mosquitos in this country. We were eaten alive, but we didn't let it affect our golf game. Tiger Woods may be old news.
The afternoon found us touring a winery and meeting Fernando, our tour guide who soon became our friend. He was full of interesting facts and interesting insights into politics. We also decided that all problems could be solved over a bottle or several bottles of wine.

Here we are toasting, indulging, and solving.

We are dedicated to the art of wine.

Benjamin wine, in honor of the man, the myth, the legend, Ben Webster.

The process of distillation. We tried the distilled liquor right after this, it burned a lot and it was only on my fingertip. Ben grew some chest hair.

Here we are at Irurtia. This wine was divine.

Things I learned:

1997 was a great year for wine. If you see wine from that year, buy it.

The people of Uruguay love their wine.

The grapes here are incredible.

The government of Uruguay is dedicated to education. This year it gave 350,000 laptops to its students so they can utilize the internet.

I know very little about American and world history.

"Language is for communicating. You understand us and we can understand you, what more could you want." Fernando