Victory is mine!

Sunday was an excellent day. I was in my first horseshow outside of the United States! Brent and I walked over to the barn around 11am and found my trainer. We found some good seats in the stadium and hung out for a bit (yes, you still have to wait around, just like a show at home). I was in two jumper classes, one at 1.0 meter and one at 1.10 meter. Fortunately I was unable to convert meters into feet or I may have chickened out. Well In the 1 meter class I think I got either 1st, or 2nd out of about 12. They don't use regular ribbon colors down here so it was kind of hard to tell, I thought I was second, but then they made me lead the victory gallop, so who knows? I had the first rail in the second class so no ribbon but a ton of fun.
After the show Brent went home and I went back to the barn to help put the horses away, and to ride one of my instructor's sale horses. Unfortunately, said horse and I had a small misunderstanding on the correct way to ask for a lead change and I was put in my place, which is apparently on my ass on the ground. I am fine, just a bit stiff. We communicated much better over the jumps- REALLY NICE HORSE.
After a shower, Brent and I took a bus back to the Feria de Mataderos and had a great time. We saw street musicians, folk dancers, a marching band and many fights with silly string. We sat down to get a sandwich and ended up talking to a group of Argentines about North American music (and I use the term "talking" loosely, I understood maybe 25% and Brent was about 40%). Whatever we said must have been what they wanted to hear because one guy gave us a copy of his band's cd. I think Brent might have accidentally said he knew Frank Zappa personally, rather than saying he knew who Frank Zappa was - a cause for much excitement and statements of undying fan loyalty. We took lots of photos and I will get after Brent to add them to the blog.
Later!