About Sam Gomez

This is my lil' workshop on the web. I created it to let my friends and family know what's going on with me. It quickly became a place for me to rant about my feelings and publicly humiliate myself - not that I needed yet another medium. Generally, I just share whatever is on my mind (stories, photos, etc.) Read the full about me.

Hectare vs Acre

While we were in Paraguay, my Uncle Heriberto took us to see one of his ranches. He said that the ranch that we visited was about 2,000 hectares. That sounded pretty impressive to me, but I didn’t really know exactly how big a hectare was. When I got home, I went to look it up, [...]

Trip Fixes

I’ve edited a few posts and added Day 8. Paraguay Day #8: Caagazu is worth a read.

Paraguay Trip Recap

The trip was amazing. I got to visit my family for the first time in more than 20 years. Everyone greeted us with open arms. In fact, my aunt had pictures up of my sister and me from when we were kids.

My dad was 1 of 10 children. I saw all my remaining aunts [...]

Paraguay Day #9: A Day in Asuncion

Tonight is our last night here in Paraguay. It has really been quite a trip. My family could not have treated us with more hospitality and love. Lina, who was kind enough to accopany us to Asuncion/Caagazu (after we left my Aunt Elma’s house in San Juan,) just called to let us know that [...]

Paraguay Day #8: Caagazu

Today we got up at 4:30 AM for a 2.5 hour drive to Asuncion. My cousin Lina went with us so that we wouldn’t get lost. We checked our luggage into a $10/night/person hotel. (Trust me, you get what you pay for.) Then we walked to the bus station and caught a bus to [...]

When and Where: The Metric System

Between using Km instead of miles and military time instead of two 12 hour periods, I’ve given up asking “How much further?” and “When will we be there?” I barely even know what day it is because they put the day before the month when writing the day. Oh. And you can forget about knowing [...]

Paraguay Day #7: Last Day with the Family

Not much time to write tonight. We have a long drive tomorrow, so we’re getting up at 4:30.

My cousin, Lina, and her family drove us around town last night. We even stopped to play basketball with a few of the locals. Heidi must have a golden tongue. She convinced my mom to shoot [...]

Spanish vs. Guarani

Paraguay is a bilingual nation. Spanish is the official language and Guarani is the vernacular. From what I understand, there is barely even a written form of Guarani. The numbers only go so high, etc. I think it was a native indian language. The people of mixed decent (mestizos) have carried this language on for [...]

Paraguay Day #6: The Last Supper

Mid-afternoon update: My Uncle Ermo is drunk as a skunk and telling jokes. I don’t have the slightest clue what he’s saying, but everyone’s laughing so hard that I have to laugh, too.

I think there were like 30+ people here for lunch today, in celebration of The Last Supper.

My mom is so [...]

Paraguay Day #5: La Estancio

First, I would like to thank Instituto Lina for my Internet connection. I was going thru Internet withdrawl, but my cousin Lina’s shop has allowed me to share what’s going on during our trip. Instituto Lina also allowed Heidi to make a couple of Internet phone calls to the US, which made her very [...]