Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Ronald

I had a great time traveling with Ronald in Patagonia. He's a good person. He was funny and enjoyed making jokes, even if they were a bit cheesy or corny. Which is basically like me.

I enjoyed speaking German to him even at his expense. One time I spoke Deutsch to him he was like, "you know, you're not making any friends by speaking German to a Dutch person". I laughed. It's true but I know he understands even if he doesn't want to and I *love* practicing my German. It's also nice ti have another language to converse with just to mix things up or to keep something a secret when other people (*cough* argentinian touters *cough*) are around.

I enjoyed making him climb up to the top of the hike in El Chalten. He wanted to turn around a couple of times along the way because the weather was really tough and the view was terrible, so there wasn't much for a nature-like award for continuing the hike.

I've gone on quite a few physical challenges that I've beaten in the past though, and I know how it feels to beat them. It just take determination and a willingness to challenge yourself to see what you can do. I helped him keep going, using positive motivation and the "only a little bit more" method. Hehe

So when we got up to the top and back down Ronald was really happy with himself. He later told me he was proud of what he did that day through the cold wind and rain. I congratulated him over a beer and really good steak that night. Inside I felt super happy for him for his accomplishment. I was happy to help him make it possible and it made me feel good inside.

He's a good cook too. We made some superbly tasting hamburgers with sandwich bread, tomato, cheese, lemon spiced mayo, eggs, and frozen patties. The patties sold in the freezers in Argentina tasted so good and they only cost us $10 to make 2 burgers each. He made those egg omelettes that one morning and I made my pasta one night as well. We ate like kings on a jester's budget.

There was one thing I really admired about Ronald. It was that he didn't feel self conscious about his lack of Spanish skills. He just used whatever words he could to get communicating with everyone around us. He would be using his broken spanish to ask questions while I was thinking about how to properly ask the question. He certainly got a lot more practice in than I did even though I laughed at his terrible but unabashed grammar multiple times a day.

He got his point across. That's what was important. If I had to speak everytime it would have resulted in linguistic analysis paralysis a couple of times. We made a good Spanish traveling team. He would say whatever to start, I would help him out with some vocab and some grammar that I had picked up.

Just an easygoing guy. I could have easily done a month with him. He didn't even make fun of me when I wanted ice cream 5 times a day. Hehe

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