Birthday Money

From Brad.

It's birthday season in the Morello home. Three will be celebrated in the span of 3 days next week and Savannah's is next month. My Mom still loves to buy things for me, but the past few years she has generally sent a check and told me to do something fun with it. In the States, that would typically meant buying some new books or attending a baseball game somewhere (Houston, Denver, Cincinnati, or Chicago over the past 5 years). But both of those options don't really exist over here. So we made plans to go to one of the largest cities in our country. Its a relatively modern city that we've never been to and have some exciting places for the kids to play/swim. Moreover, it has exciting eateries like Burger King (yes...very exciting for all of us though it may seem a bit odd/dull to you), TGI Fridays, Tony Roma's, Starbucks, etc. What is amazing is that we just bought 5 round trip tickets (this city is about 800 miles away) for about $375 (tax added on another $200). How they can afford that with oil prices the way they are, I'll never know. Also, our hotel is pretty nice (so the reviewers say...cross your fingers) and is $38/night which includes all taxes. Needless to say, compared to America, it is quite inexpensive to travel in our country.

We continue to grow in our grasp of the language here. It has been a slow, uphill climb, but we do continually see progress. I've read from 'communication experts' that in the most ideal of situations (same language, background, close relationship, etc.) that communication is only 80% effective. You can imagine what happens to that figure when someone crosses cultures. A funny story I came across recently said that when Kentucky Fried Chicken first expanded their business here, they inadvertently translated 'Finger Licking Good' to 'Eat Your Fingers Off'. Not good for business you can imagine.

A recent picture revealing Savannah's favorite activity these days...