Sunday BBQ's
We were invited to three BBQ's on Sunday to celebrate Memorial Day. We only made it to two of them. The first one was at my sister's house in MD at 2pm. My niece had just returned from her semester in Spain, and we wanted a chance to hear all about her adventures and check out her pictures. She is majoring in Linguistics and Spanish so this trip was really a great opportunity for her. All of her classes were in Spanish and the school even planned many weekend trips for them to explore the country and surrounding countries. My niece visited 7 countries (France, England, Ireland, Italy, Czech Republic, and I can't remember the rest) while going to school in Bilbao. She received many compliments on her Spanish from the locals. It was interesting to hear that one of the first things people do over there is talk about what country you are from. My niece said people thought she was from Germany (she has blond hair and blue eyes), Italy, Argentina, etc but rarely did they guess American! Her fluent Spanish really fooled them.
We left my sister's house around 5pm and headed back to our house for a BBQ with our neighbors. The nieghbors on my court always get together for Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day for an early evening BBQ. Everyone brings their own meat to grill and a side or dessert to share. We never formally say who's going to bring drinks, plates, etc but it always works out. The kids all run around having fun and the adults get to socialize. We let the kids stay out until 10 or 11pm and then the men break out their cigars and grill up midnight sausages - it's tradition. We have a lot of fun and it's great to get to know the neighbors better in a casual setting.