Fun Weekend Trip

by Brad and Amy.

So we've been on the run for a while. Last week was busy as Brad started his meetings with his language tutor...very helpful for breaking bad habits started with the language back in the states. Amy finally got a kitchen...the installation of which made a mess of the entire house. Curtains came for our room, we continued to meet friends and finally...we had a fun trip to the big city to meet friends from the states. We'll focus on our weekend trip as there's not much time right now.

We live in a city of around 5 mil people, but that is not the 'big city'. The big city (about 3 hrs away) has about triple that (or more). We got there by a train which was probably the highlight of my boys' lives in their (almost) 3 years of living. It was spacious, smooth and fast (around 100 mph) and quite the deal ($150 US for round trip for 5 of us).
The main cataylist for our trip this early was the fact that our friends from Colorado were in this city on a company trip. So we met up with them for dinner on Friday night (Outback…what a treat) and spent all day Saturday with them. We visited the local zoo which was a blast and got to see some Pandas. They were a little sleepy and boring, but the highlight of this zoo was its aquarium. It was huge, complete with a seal/dolphin show to boot.


After the trip to the zoo, we went swimming in our friend’s hotel pool which was amazing. The kids had not been in a swimming pool for months and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was such a blessing to visit with our Colorado friends even as they were trying to overcome jetlag and keep up with three crazy munchkins.

The rest of our time was spent hitting import stores and local markets. We found a few neat gifts for our kids, friends, ourselves and a familiar US coffee shop! However, $13 US for 8 oz of coffee was just too much for even us to pay. All in all, we had a great time which was encouraging and entertaining, yet tiring. We all slept in a little Monday morning and still felt a little sluggish throughout the day.

A Simple Update

Brad here. It seems I've got a little more time to share since Amy has done more shopping lately and has more preferences when it comes to certain purchases (like curtains!).
Life is starting to get a little more settled here and will be much better when we get our long awaited dining room table and kitchen. To give you a little glimpse of how life can be a little more frustrating here, the contract we signed on the kitchen stated it would be finished by Thursday, May 10th. On the 10th, at 3pm I took a taxi to see the 'kitchen guy'. When I arrived he pulled out the contract and proceeded to scratch out the 10th and write in the 14th. Amazing! I called a friend who did some translation work and I learned that the materials were being shipped in and have not arrived yet. Therefore, we'd need to wait another 4 days. Well, its been 3 of those 4 days and still no word from him. Is this normal or am I being taken advantage of b/c I'm a foreigner. Maybe a little of both from what I can tell, but its the type of thing that will kill us if we let it get to us.
Or we can simply say, things like this do occur sometimes in the US and we just need to keep the big picture in mind. I must admit, I am tempted to scratch out the price I agreed to pay him and reduce it by 10% and see what he thinks of that. The kitchen table should arrive Thursday and life will be a little easier at that time.

The kids don't seem to mind a whole lot. Without a kitchen, they get to go out a little more and that's usually a welcome event. Yesterday morning, Amy took the kids to McD for breakfast (yes, they know us quite well there) and took a walk around my campus since it was such a beautiful day. I got a chance to study the language for a couple of hours while listening to baseball in the background (yeah, a little strange to listen to the Astros while eating cereal...but the upside is they don't keep me awake all night when they play like bums or when Brad Lidge blows a save...however, I'm thankful we didn't dump him...he's looking better all the time).

We are continuing to meet many new local friends. I must admit we are working hard to get settled, but people are so eager to meet us and speak English to us, we have plenty of opportunities to make friends and share our message. It is an amazing time to live here, and I can't wait to have some of you visit so you can witness what it is like. Peter loves it here since ice cream cones at McD cost around 35 cents and make a fun after dinner treat.


Here's a shot outside our 13th story window. Not a bad view of the city. We'll give you more of a tour of our place once all our stuff gets in later on this week.

Random Observations and Other Fun Facts

by Amy

Here the stop lights go from Green to Yellow to Red to Yellow to Green. So, it's kind of crazy when your taxi driver is stopped at a red light. It turns yellow and he begins reeving his engine and may even take off a bit early. All the while the drivers on the perpendicular road are going as fast as they can to get through the intersection before the light turns red (or is red for too long.....) Therefore, screeching of brakes and honking of horns is a common sound on the city streets!

In the local grocery stores, you have to have your produce bagged, weighed, and priced before leaving the produce section.

Many stores, grocery stores included, are two, three, or four stories tall. They have these cool little moving ramps that your shopping cart locks into that you ride from floor to floor.

Taxi drivers only abide by one rule: There are NO rules when driving! This makes for some exciting rides! It's not uncommon to see taxis drive on the sidewalk when the street is too busy. It's also not uncommon for my taxi driver to drive on the wrong side of the road (into opposing traffic) if that will help him get to the final destination 1/4 of a second earlier! Also, left turn arrows are very rare here, so taxis just pull out and make the other cars wait or hit them....

Did you know that God made yellow watermelons? That's right, the outside is green, but when you cut into it, the inside is bright yellow! Brad brought a couple home for us to enjoy the other day. We had a yellow dinner two nights ago ~ cheese, crackers, pineapple and watermelon! Our kiddos thought it was fun!

Many people have been wondering what type of food items are available here. I have to admit that I've been pleasantly surprised and thankful with the western foods that I can find. Here are a few:
- Ketchup (even Heinz)
- Refried Beans ~ Old El Paso brand! They come and go, but that's OK, I'll take 'em when I can get 'em!
- Olive oil and Red Wine Vinegar (to complement the Good Season's Italian Dressing Mix I brought from the states ~ a favorite of my husbands!)
- Cereal
- Hershey's Chocolate Syrup Mix (you pay for it, but it's here!)
- Real milk ~ it's whole milk, but that's OK. It's cold and pasteurized! And, they'll even deliver it to my door!
- Cream Cheese ~ It's pretty pricey too, but one store here carries it fairly regularly.
- Avocados ~ isn't that delightful!?!
- American Cheese slices.
- Pringles.
- Ritz crackers.
- Boneless, skinless chicken breasts (they are actually one of the cheapest cuts of chicken!)
- Ground Beef.
- Ice cream ~ most of the chocolate flavored ice cream is not what I'm used to, but the vanilla is pretty yummy!

So, it looks like I'm not going to starve to death after all! Now, if we could just get our kitchen installed, I could cook up some of this yummy food!

Speaking of cooking, the kitchen in our apartment came complete with one short, small, plastic sink. So, I've been using our plastic trunks to build "counters" that hold my coffee pot, microwave, water dispenser,etc. It's working out OK, but I'm so ready to have a range and oven so I can cook our food instead of eating most meals out. Today, though, I cooked spaghetti in our microwave! Who knew you could boil noodles in a microwave?! (Obviously, my husband did!) In the second to last pic on Savannah's post below she is standing in my make-shift kitchen!

I'm sure I'll have more random thoughts at a later date, but that's it for now!

A Post from the Little Girl

People here like to crowd around me all the time. For the most part I don’t really like it, because they like to touch me in the face, cheeks, hair. So sometimes I get into the back of the stroller and recline to escape it. Almost everyone comments on how pretty or lovely I am. This picture was taken the other night on the way home from McDonalds. We attracted a large crowd by simply walking home.



The other day we had a fun time. We visited a park that had lots of inflatable rides/slides. Here I am climbing up one side so I can slide down the other. However, my favorite was the boat ride. It was a little boat which went forward when I peddled with my feet. We were in a large pool that was probably 1-2 feet deep.

My favorite thing about this country so far is a nearby park (see previous blog pictures). I like it so much because there are lots of rides there. I think we get to go there after my brothers wake up from their nap.



My favorite new food is ‘sweet and sour chicken’ (editors correction…that’s not chicken…I think its pork…I hope its pork). The sauce is great and I love to eat it with rice. On the other hand, yesterday we (Daddy and my brothers) ate lunch for a total of $0.50. it was some sort of fried egg and ham sandwich on pita bread. It had a weird brownish sauce on it and it was not good at all. I do enjoy our frequent visits to McD, KFC and Pizza Hut since Mommy doesn’t have a kitchen yet (hopefully tomorrow). However, I miss Burger King so much.







Finally, my favorite thing about my home is my ‘stairs bed’. Also, I love the fact that Mommy let me choose the colors of my room. Purple and Pink are my favorite colors. Well, its time for me to run, but I wanted to say that I miss my friends and family and love you all.

Here comes the stuff

The boys on their new bunk bed.

With a few minutes to burn (Brad here), I thought I’d give you a glimpse of our home as it is beginning to fill up. The most stress producing thing over the last week has not been language, food or anything else related to the culture, its been having no set location for our things and constantly searching for keys, wallet, books, receipts, etc. among the scattered toys, clothes, books, etc. As I was trying to share with a local friend yesterday in my home, it was maddening to search for the dual language good book and not be able to locate it. In any case, this is a short season which is coming to an end thanks to some recent purchases.


This is our new closet. It is 2.5 meters high which is about the height of our bedroom. Nice for storage. Yes, there are no closets, attics, or any type of storage in the typical apartment here. You buy them or have them made.

I bet Amy might go into more detail at some point about why we bought this or that, but I’ll give you one last picture of Savannah's bed/office?. The bed is on top, the stairs double as drawers and below there is a desk, mini-dresser, and shelves.

Embedded Video Below

Brad here. Below is our first attempt at an embedded video. You might need to click on the play button a couple of times until you see 'buffering'. As the white bar underneath the video turns gray, that is the amount of video that has been 'buffered' or is ready for viewing upon another press of the play button. The video is nothing special except 3 munchkins enjoying their new home. The lack of furniture is a bit of a bonus as the entire place serves as a choo-choo train platform. I’d love some feedback on the quality of the video vs. the time it took you to upload this page. I went with a smaller file size (lower quality, about 2meg) so that it wouldn’t take long for you to upload and view the video. Did it still take a long time? Or was it short and you'd prefer better quality? Just curious.

We had a wonderful lunch with a family we recently met and had some good conversation. Additionally, he took me to a store after lunch that sold great, very inexpensive bathroom items. Finally, Amy found some ovens for almost 1/3 of the initial price we mentioned the other day!!! Right in the nick of time as the kitchen designer was drawing up plans and needed the dimensions asap. I was so desperate I searched the ebay in this country. I couldn't read a thing but I thought it was worth a shot. :)

Who Needs Furniture?